It also raised a question as to whether I can call myself a Roanoker, after three decades. After all, I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else — in New York, New Jersey or Maryland. One thing I learned from all the reader feedback is, the Caseys aren’t the only former outsiders who feel lucky to have landed in the Star City and/or its surroundings.
“As I read it, I felt like you wrote it about our family,” Dick Ratcliff of southwest Roanoke County responded in an email. He and his wife, Karen, moved to Roanoke in 1987 and “never looked back,” he added. “Our youngest daughter and her family moved back from Charlotte in June and won’t stop going on about how their quality of life has increased tenfold,” Ratcliff added.
“Thanks for reminding us just how lucky we are to live here!” Helen Ardan beat yours truly to Roanoke by two decades. She and her first husband moved here 50 years ago this past Aug. 3.
They both grew up in Chicago, home of Mike Royko, the greatest American newspaper columnist ever. “My (then-) husband and our two daughters aged 4 and 7 arrived in Roanoke from Dallas, Texas,” Ardan wrote. “He had been hired by ITT in the night vision section.
Those were what I think of as the boom years. GE, N&W and ITT were all hiring and bringing new people to town. .
.. the move to Roanoke was a major adjustment after living in big cities all our lives.
“The girls grew up and like yours moved away. (One returned to) Roanoke while the other is in.