Just to test a theory of mine, please respond with one of these possibilities:
Within 30 miles
30-60 miles
60-100 miles
100-200 miles
200-400 miles
over 400 miles
(Yeah, those are more or less arbitrary mileages, but they’re kind of into the time it takes to get from one place to another in hours or minutes.)
In my case, I was born in category 6 from where I “grew up” and then I moved from there to category 5 when I started college. Net situation: 6.
My theory is that Most people don’t move too far away from their roots
Do you have a hunch how this will turn out? Will there be:
a) less then 10 replies
b) less than two pages of replies
c) over two pages of replies (if there are already more than two pages worth, guess the number within 20 )
One of my brothers lives on the west coast (2700 miles from home). The other two siblings live within an hour of where they were born, and have never lived further away. I’m not sure how that works with your theory, but there you go.
You may get more than two pages, as we haven’t done this topic in awhile.
At the age of two I moved with my family to about 10,000 miles from where I was born. (And back then, people did those journeys by sea, so it would have taken about a month). However, I’m not so far away now: about 7,500 miles – and now, the trip is donme by air, but the total journey still takes about 24 hours.
That’s reasonable IF we get more than 50 replies (on beyond the second page of actual responses – not including ones like this that are just commentary). The sad part is that I have another theory that those who live really close to where they were born feel inferior and will thus not reply at all.
I am just over 60 miles away from where I was brought up, so just barely edge into category 3. I have lived in several places since leaving home but have never been beyond category 3, 8o miles being the furthest I have ever lived.
I started a similar thread two years ago. I got 136 replies, the thread ran four pages, and I found that 47% of respondents lived more than 1000 miles away from their birthplaces.
My theory is that category six will be the most frequently selected category in this poll, and I will guess four pages for this thread.
The last time we did this, I was somewhere in the top-three closest at less than a mile from the hospital where I was born. However, I’ll be moving about 30 miles away next month.
If you folks who have answered in similar polls before (or started a similar thread) would link to those threads, I think it would be cool to pool all the replies in one thread’s counts.
It might also be fun to see how many have moved to a distance that would require a new response.
But here’s the deal - 'tweren’t my choice to move so far away. I mean, if you gave me the choice now, hell I’d be in the States so fast your head would spin. But I emigrated* when I was four, and so didn’t really have much a choice.
*I say “I emigrated” because I was adopted and my new mother was already a citizen, and my dad a legal resident alien.
I was born in San Diego and lived there until high school. We moved to northern California then, which put me in catagory 6, even though it was still the same state. I lived in Ukiah until I was twenty, then moved to Rhode Island, which put me at catagory 6 plus. After a few years I moved to Sicily (mega catagory 6). After a few years in Sicily, I moved back to the US – to Virginia (catagory 6 plus again), where I stuck for 6 years. Then I moved to San Diego (catagory 1!), where we stayed for 9 years. Now we’re back in Virginia (catagory 6 plus) again.
Category 1 (on the Zeldar scale) from birth to about age 25, Category 6 for maybe 15 years or so, Category 5 for another four, and now back to Category 6 again.
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