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At sixty-eight, I just turned forty.

Our local newspaper has a side item it calls "On This Date". It contains the newspaper equivalent of two small soundbites; one from 20 years ago and one from 40 years ago. They often serve as a reminder both of what was happening back then and of how similar the past is to the present. While they are best when they contain local names you recognize, they are often both nostalgic and instructive.

For me, the light bulb of recognition started long ago for the twenty year details. Today, the forty year becomes personally relevant. A way of marking a life milestone for someone who did not remain in their hometown; or even home state.

Because I moved to Lewiston, Idaho when I was twenty-eight, I passed the 'more than half of my life here' marker some time ago. This was the place my daughter went through school. The place my second, longest and most cherish career began and ended. The place where my husband appeared and won my heart. The place to which my parents eventually followed me and which became their final resting spot. The community I gave my time and talents to in endless ways.

Lewiston, the mountain state of Idaho's lowest elevation, the furthest inland seaport in the US, the entrance to Hell's Canyon (deeper than the Grand Canyon) resting at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers and at the pivot spot of Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Home.

Not my hometown. That remains forever Rockford, Illinois; a town that shaped my youth and my family. A town to which I will always owe a debt of gratitude. But no longer my home, just my hometown.

In 1976, forty years was unfathomable to a young, adventuresome city girl coming into rural Idaho for a brand new job. I'd never been close to a pickup, let alone ridden in them. (Although, back then city folk were not so taken with pickups as they are now.) I'd known the wide open flat of cornfields, but not the forests and streams of mountains or the rolling hills of wheat, peas and lentils. I'd known oaks, not pines. I'd never seen a deer in the wild, let alone an elk, cougar, moose or bear. But I'd known people, and that was enough anywhere.

I'm still here. Home for forty years. Thanks to the Lewiston Tribune, I get to remember that every day.