Modern-day nomads find their way home

Column published in The Lima News, 12-7-05
They wander from place to place, trying to make the most from the places they stay.
They may keep some communications with their homelands, by phone, e-mail or letters. They go off on their own, trying to make the most of their lives and find fulfillment.
They are the modern-day nomads. Instead of living off the land for as long as they can and moving, though, they live off a job and an area as long as they can until restlessness and homesickness drive them onward.
Author Steven K. Roberts calls them “technomads,” a nomadic person who remains connected through communications media. The rest of society may call them sisters, cousins or friends. Another term may be simply graduates.
There’s a constant concern about “brain drain” in this area. People wonder aloud what future their children might have, as there aren’t so many entry-level positions here for a well-educated student as there are well-educated students. They’ll go off to college, only to find they’re overqualified for most of the jobs where they were born. They’ll find seemingly far-off places to work in engineering, law or some other seemingly exotic profession.
The good news is it’s merely seemingly. In reality, the nomadic lifestyle seems to be quite temporary. As the clichés scream, there’s no place like home. These nomads do find their way back to a place they’ll call home.
You can drink the sweet tea and listen to the men howl about “them Dawgs” (the Georgia ones) in Savannah while admiring the ar-chitecture in the Civil War-era buildings downtown.
You can roam up and down the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, sipping on the wines from the local vineyards and enjoying the breathtaking view of the bluish mountains leaping from the ground.
You can soak up the big-city life outside Columbus, traveling to Polaris for good shopping and food or heading to the old Horseshoe to watch the Buckeyes beat Michigan.
You can go all over the country and experience new and different things. Even the modern-day nomad feels the urge to find a place to call home, though.
That’s how it is for so many people of the 30-something generation, those folks too young to be X but not quite hip enough to be Y. You want to spread your wings and fly, and you do so for years and years. Eventually, though, that empty nest beckons you back.
You find yourself missing the little things in life. There’s no replacement for the loving hug of a young niece or nephew. Few things calm you as much as your father telling the car repair won’t be that expensive as he glances down on the engine. No feeling quite compares to the memories flowing back when you drive past your grandparents’ former home.
These things draw young, talented people back to this marvelous section of Ohio, whether you call it Northwest Ohio or West Cen-tral Ohio. This is home for many of us. There’s a comfortable feeling from knowing the back ways to your favorite places. There’s warmth in the memories from seeing the restaurant from your first date.
You can’t market these traits or put them on a postcard, for they’re as varied as the population here.
These memories and these warm feelings are just what it takes to bring a nomad back home. It may take four years of wandering, or it may take a lifetime of wandering, but eventually we all find our way back to where we belong.