The Great Divide A New Love Makes Hometown Tolerable First Person: Spokane Can’t Compare Financially, But It Has Heart

After spending the first 20 years of my life in Spokane, I got married and moved to Seattle in 1972. I loved it there so much more to do, such gorgeous scenery, more moderate weather year-round.

I never minded the rain and I still argue today that at least you don’t have to shovel it. I didn’t mind the traffic (most of the time), and I quickly developed the assertive, adept driving skills I have today.

Since I moved back here in 1987 (via three years in Dallas) due to circumstances that left me no choice, I’ve had to “settle” for almost everything.

The main thing is lower salaries. After earning $2,000 a month in Seattle and almost $3,000 a month in Dallas, the job I got here in 1987 paid $1,000 a month for similar office work.

I have yet to match either previous salary here in Spokane. (I was “downsized” in 1982 in Seattle, in 1987 in Dallas and in 1995 here in Spokane.) I have learned to live with the heat in the summers, but I still very much hate the winters, especially the six months of it we had last winter.

But as they say, “Everything happens for a reason,” and two years ago I finally found the man of my dreams. He and my 9-year-old daughter are the silver lining in my cloud and make living here much more tolerable.

Oh yeah, my city driving skills that I developed in Seattle and fine-tuned in Dallas? Now I just use them to maneuver around the people who still drive as if this were the same town I grew up in in the 1950s and ‘60s.