josh Allan

When I was 16 I ran away from home.

Now, that’s not entirely true. But it just doesn’t sound as good to say, “When I was 16 I still lived at home with my parents, so when they moved away from Platte because my dad got a new job in Colorado, I went with them.”

See? Not cool.

We drove away and I followed them driving my beautiful ‘94 Grand Prix; oh, that lovely nineties shade of teal. Gorgeous.

Nevertheless we were leaving the place I grew up, the only place I’d ever really known, the “fields of wheat along the plains” as they say, that boring ‘ol shathole (as I say), and on the way out, I rocked I-80. Cranked up some Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth or some other three-word esoteric late-90’s Canadian rock band on the old Sony stereo.

In South Dakota they give anyone that’s been even moderately potty trained a driver’s license, and so my 14-year-old sister followed, driving another one of our cars. (That wasn’t meant to sound like commentary on the bathroom competence of my sis, even though it kind of ended up that way.)

Cars are like a right of passage everywhere, I suppose, but when you pass licenses out like candy at Halloween, they become more of a trinket than a treasure. Such is life in South Dakota. But we were leaving, and I was happy about it. Sure, in theory I had to move away from all my friends, but I didn’t have any, so that worked out alright. I had to leave my school, too, right before my senior year of high school, but there were only about 10 kids in it, so that wasn’t a big deal either.

I had one final year of high school to complete, and I was going to do it as an Indian. A Loveland High School Indian, to be exact. (Yes, I realize that’s not exactly politically correct, and no, I don’t know why nobody’s made them change it.)

Right before we left, I broke up with the girl I’d been “going out” with for about nine months, so I was free, in pretty much any sense that one can be free in. Free from girlfriend, free from rural football, free from small town bullshit, and free from those bless-ed wheatfields. I had a chance to start over, and that’s exactly what I was going to do. I would move to the “big city” (read: Loveland, Colorado, population 50,000) and catch my break. I’d be whoever I wanted to be and, frankly, I was going to be awesome at it. I’d be liked by the boys, and lusted after by the girls.

It was going to rock.

+++
May of 1998.

In May, South Dakota is nice, because it’s becoming summer, or spring, at least, usually… most of the time. The snow is almost all melted and the air is starting to smell like a laundry commercial where the walls melt away and the room morphs into rolling hills with wildflowers and a Whirlpool washer/dryer out in the field. Fresh, sweet, beautiful.

The smell of change.

Change is like meth… well, so I hear. I personally find change much more addicting than all the drugs I’ve never done, and starting with that singular move from SD to CO I’d spend the next 10 years of my life proving it.

Between 1997 and 2007, I did not live in the same place for more than a year (or pretty darn close).

Here’s the map:

1997 — May 1998
Platte, SD
Little cabin in the backyard of Grandma’s house (seriously).

May 1998 — Aug 1999
Loveland, CO
Lindenmeier Circle, Senior Year of high school… almost as glorious as I thought it’d be.

Aug 1999 — April 2000 // Freshman Year
Lakewood, CO
Harwood Building, Central Stairwell, on campus at Colorado Christian University.

May 2000 — Aug 2000
Loveland, CO
Back home with the ‘rents, Summer Youth Intern at Crossroads Covenant Church.

Aug 2000 — April 2001 // Sophomore Year
Lakewood, CO
The “New Building” at CCU, 2nd floor, first door on the right. Enter Allison, downstairs to the left.

May 2001 — July 2001
Lakewood, CO
Other “New Building” at CCU, workin’ on campus for the summer.

Aug 2001 — Dec 2001 // Junior Year, First Semester
Lakewood, CO
West Campus at CCU with Ryan, in the crappiest apartment known to man… Allison wouldn’t even visit.

Jan 2002 — April 2002 // Junior Year, Second Semester
West Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Cramped into a bunk space with 29 other unstable musicians, on a New England island, in the winter.

May 2002 — July 2002
Loveland, CO
Back home with the ‘rents, again. Got a job doing “data entry for a title policy insurance company” (now there’s a horrible existence). But I did get a job at Mix100FM and decide to ask Allison to marry me that summer!

Aug 2002 — April 2003 // Senior Year
Lakewood, CO
Off campus at Riata with Gabe & Bird. By a miracle of the cargods, the Prix’s Sony stereo (see above) somehow remained in my dash all year.

May 2003 — June 2004
Lakewood, CO
Got married! Allison & my first apartment, at The Landing at Bear Creek.

July 2004 — Sept 2005
Littleton, CO
We bought our first house! The Cutest Damn Little Townhome You’ve Ever Seen, off Chatfield Avenue.

Oct 2005 — Feb 2006
Loveland, CO
Sold our beloved townhome, and Allison and I moved into the basement apartment of my parents’ new A-frame house on Crystal Lane. Trying to move to California.

March 2006 — Feb 2007
Lancaster, CA
We made it to SoCal! Cutest Damn Little Rental House You’ve Ever Seen on Date Avenue in Lancaster, California.

Feb 2007 (Spring) — ??
Lancaster, CA
Kim & Gerard’s house on J10 with Steve & Courtney.

Now change is in the air again. You can feel it, like the air has a weight it didn’t before. Breathing is a bit more labored, and there’s a little tremble in my bones.

I am an addict, and I feel a change coming. Again.

P.S. Curse you business applications that ask me for my full Residential History.

(I wrote the intro for this back in December of 2006. For the record.)

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