Christine Borne

Florida Family Gives Up on Small Town North Dakota

At first I thought this was a headline from The Onion. But no — it’s actually true. The Tristanis moved from Miami to Hazelton, North Dakota, in 2006, taking advantage of one of these “psst! sick of urban congestion and crime? we’ve got one foot in the grave and we’ll give you free money and free land if you move here!” deals that have found such favor in the rapidly-emptying spaces of Middle America.

This story interests me from both a creative standpoint and a heritage preservation standpoint. On one hand, what are you supposed to do when you’re a dying rural community? On the other hand:

Michael Tristani came from his native Florida wearing gold necklaces and a Rolex and driving a Lexus. He proved as foreign as a flamingo in a place where pickups, farm caps and flannel shirts are de rigueur.

“People thought I was a drug dealer,” he said.

I want to write a book about this before Carl Hiaasen gets to it. (Seriously, Carl, I’ll fight you for it. Pick your weapon.)

But seriously. The way people relate to their surroundings is something that fascinates me. How people react to outsiders, the often-poignant and sometimes hilarious way people get defensive about where they come from (even when the place is clearly crumbling) — these are themes that I feel acutely in my own life and love to explore in my writing. (Unsurprisingly they’re themes that come up a lot in Rust Belt fiction.)

The tale of the Tristanis also reminds me of when I moved to Montana in 2000. My first experience with Montanans was somewhere between Billings and Bozeman. We’d pulled over to get gas. The gas station attendant eyed our rooftop carrier and Ohio plates suspiciously. “Where you folks headed?” he asked. “Missoula,” we said. “We’re moving there.” He frowned. “It figures. People from The East always go to Missoula.”

Imagine. Ohio — The East!

Hiya.

Installing Wordpress is something that’s been on my to-do list since 2006. No, really. I still get weekly reminders from 43 Things (a site I haven’t used in at least three years) to “cross those things off my to-do list that I’ve been meaning to do forever.” Wordpress is on there, as is “get those fillings taken care of” (haven’t done it) and “see about my NJ state pension” (there’s not much in it anyway, because I put off turning in my forms until the last possible moment, which turned out to be two weeks before I quit).

From 2005-2010 I wrote a blog called Really Bad Cleveland Accent, which you can still read here. Why did I stop writing RBCA? I just grew out if it, really. I ran out of things to say about Cleveland that couldn’t be said at Cleveland Area History or Rust Belt Reader. I wanted something a little more expansive, something that encompassed more of my personal and professional interests.

I do, however, think you can be both professional and hilarious, so don’t worry your pretty little head that this is going to be boring. If it is, you can just throw kickballs at me and call me Christine Boring, because I got used to that one in third grade.

Hi. I’m avoiding rehabbing my house by rehabbing this site instead. Please come back soon. And I really do mean soon, not like last spring when I said, “yeah, we’re going to install the new floor soon.”

In the meantime, please click one of the tabs above, or email me at christine [at] christineborne [dot] net.

Thanks!