The problem is if everyone is related to everyone and you aren’t. There are some places where thirty years later you are still new people if not outsiders.
My father came from a town like that. When I went to my grandmother’s funeral people came up and told me, “I walked to school with your daddy, your great-granddaddy taught me Sunday school.” But those people are old or gone, and most all of my family is moved or gone now. So I am not sure that’s where I want to go - it’s on the interstate, and NC has had a lot of immigration in the last twenty years. My family name used to take up a good many lines in the phone book; now there are more Jimenezes than there ever were of mine - and hardly any of mine.
“The problem is if everyone is related to everyone and you aren’t. There are some places where thirty years later you are still new people if not outsiders.:
I hear ya. It took me 3 years to get some form of acceptance because I was only up there on weekends at my cabin. You have to slip up sideways on folks not head on. If you volunteer for the food bank delivery or donate some vests to the local PD it goes a long way. Now they want us to join the Sheriff’s auxillary.