Personal History

Born November 1972. Lived in various places:

Brockville, Ontario, Canada
My birthplace. I recall having a very small room, a boat on the St. Lawrence River, and a few neighbors.
Kanata, Ontario
Nursery school and part of kindergarten. I recall having a larger room, driving to the boat in Brockville a few times and splitting my lip wide open by tripping on the dock on Picnic Island and going to the hospital, and having a garage sale, among other things.
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Kindergarten through 4th grade. Being only 5 years old, I experienced relatively little Yankee culture shock moving to the states.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
5th through part of 7th grade. Mostly we had a cool house with 2 acres, 1 of which was entirely swamp. Forgetting the mosquitoes, this was a nice (if brief) excursion.
Nashville again
Most of 7th through 12th. Having experienced the excellent public schools of Minneapolis, my parents decided I should go to a private school in Nashville so's that I could eventually make something of myself. Montgomery Bell Academy was the place. An all-male school, which put an enormous dent in my pitiful social development, but a worthwhile place nonetheless. Here I learned to question authority and keep my wits about me, as my grandfather would say. All in all, MBA was a fine school to have attended.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
University of Michigan, College of Engineering, got my bachelor's in mechanical engineering. Here I learned that college itself does not make a person either smart or mature. (I also learned that I'm a lousy student.) Starting my second year, I began working for the consulting group of UM's computer bureaucracy (the User Services division of the Information Technology Division), where I further developed my hopeless (but useful) attraction to computers.
Royal Oak, Michigan
I moved to Royal Oak to be close to my job coming out of school: Farnam Sealing Systems, located in Troy. Don't be fooled, both Royal Oak and Troy are suburbs of Detroit. Royal Oak isn't a bad place, but since I married Peg that year and she worked in Ann Arbor, we moved again to split the commute.
Farmington Hills, Michigan
This is a very boring, generally unfriendly place. The fearful suburbanites do not frequently return your greetings, nor does anyone appear to know their neighbors, but they think it's safe there anyway. While our nice apartment was reasonably convenient to both our jobs, our landlords were fools and the suburb itself had no spirit to speak of.
Indian Village, Detroit, Michigan
A 1904, 2 bedroom, carriage house apartment with hardwood floors and an old hayloft for a living room, situated in a historic neighborhood in which people know their neighbors, have monthly (if not daily) gatherings, and generally keep up with things. It's not perfect there: insurance is higher, there really are gunshots for New Year's Day, and there's a city income tax, but it was well worth it. After all, we could have died of boredom in Farmington Hills...
After a year in the carriage house, we ended up buying a smallish house (for the neighborhood) in the northeast corner of the village, since it was affordably cheap (in need of repair) and we knew we loved the neighborhood enough to stay put for a long time.
Nashville, Tennessee
Except that my dad decided that boating was more fun than working, so we moved back to Nashville so that I could begin to take over the business. I miss Detroit's museums and proximity to Canada, but there's a hell of a lot of good motorcycle riding to be done here. Naturally, we found got an undervalued, old house in an undervalued, old urban neighborhood, Lockeland Springs. We've watched for several years as the area revitalizes, and restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and even a couple of retail shops have moved into the area again. It's actually quite exciting!


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Last updated: 30 July 2003
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aduthie@aduthie.com