The American poet Wendell Berry said that the world is full of movers and stickers and that those are really the only two kinds of people that you will find. That isn’t true. Or, at the very least, it does not get at the complexity of the way that most people live. But he is right in his assessment that, traditionally, America has typically been a country of movers.
Long distance movers are as old as the people who took to the Oregon Trail to find a better life on the West Coast. They are the people who set off for Utah for religious freedom or for California for gold. But, today, the version of the covered wagon that everyone knows is the moving pods that companies rent out.
There are millions of causes that send Americans packing every year. Sometimes, it is college, which has tended to be the case recently. College students are beginning to line up outside their dorm rooms or their university housing locations with their boxes filled with computers, clothing and moderate kitchenware.
There are students, but there are also people and sometimes entire families who can move from one place to another to find a better housing option or a better career opportunity elsewhere in whichever one of the 49 states that they do not live in. They might rent a truck in Sacremento and drive to Kansas City, or they might hitch a trailer to the back of their hatchback in Illinois and drive their belongings all the way to Louisiana.
There is not saying where people will be going next. Americans are always open to the open road. It might be true that around a third of all Americans will never leave their hometown, but there are all kinds of opportunities in every corner of America for those who want to find a new opportunity and new life. All one need do is look. More can be found here.
I consider myself to be one of the stickers as opposed to one of the movers. I like sticking around in one place, though Berry probably wouldn’t approve of the suburban neighborhood I live in.
I consider myself to be one of the stickers as opposed to one of the movers. I like sticking around in one place, though Berry probably wouldn’t approve of the suburban neighborhood I live in.