Are you generous or stingy as new residents find way here?

Sharing gets a little touchy when we’re talking where we live and all the people moving in. A friend stopped by the local DMV and learned just that day there had been 50 sets of license plates issued. City dwellers are fleeing for the security and freedom and lower living costs in rural areas.

I met two women in our neighborhood who moved last year from California. One has a Paradise fire story — she wasn’t in town when it burned but her elderly mother who was caring for her pets had to be rescued through the flames.

She doesn’t see how anyone is living there but some are. Said the places where houses used to be are hollows in the ground, like divits on a golf course. A lot more than turf was taken there.

In Alaska, a newcomer is called a cheechako. I was one once. I was also a newbie in Priest River back in the ‘60s. The preacher’s kid.

In those days you ran up to the lake in the summer for a camping spot any old time. Unlike this morning when I had to jump on an available space as soon as it opened on the campground website.

We just acquired an “oldie but goodie” travel trailer. When Terry checked on replacing the awning he learned recreational vehicles are selling through the roof.

Many people are traveling in a controlled environment where they can practice social distancing. Camping in place of booking hotels. I imagine some are scoping out places to relocate from the windows of those houses on rollerskates.

I’m trying to smooth territorial bumps about relatives from Spokane, who we are used to inviting to share our world on a temporary basis, now planning to be close by and occupying a chunk of that world. I need to move over and make room.

I like to think of myself as a generous person. In reality I’m finding I’m on the stingy side. Never mind that I came new to town all those years ago — and recycled 30 years later, new again. But an old sort of new.

Someone heard me say an Italian name in a way it used to be pronounced. She said, “You can tell you go back saying it like that.” Yes, I do. And many in town go much much further.

We are all having to scoot over and make room. Because this place where we live is being discovered by the rest of the country. For varying reasons they want a chunk of our world.

Burned out, priced out, crowded out and scared out — they’re looking for a safe place. And this one just happens to come wrapped in unbeatable beauty.

Generous or stingy? Welcoming or stuck up? A friend or a bully? Whew … I feel like I’m back in first grade learning basic manners. Back when I had a long way to go to be a grown up.