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My fiancé and I often wonder how people can move away from their hometown or state. The two of us, we’re anchored firmly here in Rhody. It’s not an uncommon situation around these parts, especially in East Providence. She was born in Warwick, where she went to St. Kevin’s, Gorton Junior High School and Warwick Vets High School. Her mom and dad both grew up in Warwick, where they live today, with my soon-to-be brother-in-law. She comes from a big family. Lots of aunts, uncles and cousins. They too mostly live in the West Bay. I was born in Riverside where I went to Alice M. Waddington Elementary School and Riverside Junior High School. An interesting note, I was among the last group of ninth graders to ever attend the old RJHS, after they shipped half of my class up to the high school. I graduated from East Providence High School in 2002. My mother did not grow up in East Providence. She moved a lot as a kid. She lived in Providence at the time of her graduation from Mount Pleasant High School in 1976. After raising two kids in East Providence and earning a lifetime membership to the Waddington PTA, I think it’s fair to credit my mother with a completed conversion from Kiltie to Townie. My dad is a different story. He’s the definition of a Townie. He graduated from EPHS in 1976. As a kid, he played baseball with Riverside Little League and football with the Riverside Rams. I had a lot of teachers when I was younger who had previously taught him or one of his four brothers. I heard a lot of stories, all told in good fun. When I started writing for the newspaper, a lot of people in town assumed the “George Morse” byline on stories was my dad’s. He light heartedly played along with the joke. His roots in East Providence stretch back quite a-ways. His grandfather, my great grandfather, owned a joint most remember as the River Street Pub, in Riverside. My dad was named George with a middle name Joseph for both his grandfathers. I was named after my dad, though my parents never had any intention of calling me George. I spent the first 20-odd years of my life as GJ. I didn’t drop the name completely until I started working here. Something about calling somewhere like the Governor’s office and identifying myself by initials just didn’t feel right. As a teenager, my dad worked part-time at Riverside Liquors. The package store is located a literal stone’s throw from my late grandmother’s home, the square house that sits directly across Bullocks Point Avenue from the Dairy Bee, behind the circle with the flowers in it. When it came time to settle into a career, my dad took a job with a jewelry manufacturing company located at what is now the Bank of America center on Pawtucket Avenue. It’s where he met my mom. What was once a facility that employed hundreds eventually went the way of most Rhode Island jewelry manufacturers. Through rounds after rounds of layoffs, however, my dad hung in there. Today, he’s one of only a handful left who have first hand memory of the glory days. It definitely wasn’t hard to run into people who knew my dad at almost every place in Riverside. I can’t remember ever making it through the line at Dunkin’ Donuts without seeing one familiar face, especially on Sunday. Aside from a small stint of time living in Louisiana, my dad has lived in Riverside his entire life. He doesn’t like traveling too far out of town and gets quite anxious when he makes business trips to Asia. Now, after four and a half years writing for East Bay Newspapers, I’ve started claiming the family name for myself. It didn’t happen overnight but I think I’ve slowly become the more well known George Morse in Riverside. My dad seems pretty happy about it too. A couple years ago, he got a kick out of seeing cops and city council members step out of line in the Memorial Day Parade to say hello. The entire situation has only brought me closer to a community I was already pretty entrenched in to begin with. I could never imagine living somewhere other than Riverside. My dad’s here, my mom’s here, my sister is here (she achieved her own recognition years ago through high school volleyball glory) and I know my way around. My fiancé is still fond of Warwick but I’ve slowly started winning her over. She’s not a Townie yet but she will be ... Mark my words. So yeah, I will never be one to embark on a Kerouac-like mission to the middle of nowhere. I’m also one who will likely hear some funny story from his kids, picked up by an old teacher who knew their dad when he was a young, foolish adolescent. I don’t know what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange place. It certainly seems to make a lot of people happy. I know there are people out there who grew up in a place their parents moved to shortly before they were born. I know there are people out there who may not be close to their family. I know there are people out there who couldn’t care less about their hometown for whatever reason. Call it a difference of opinion, I guess, but I’m just not among them. I’m from Riverside.