Finding Home

Growing up as a military kid, my concept of ‘home’ was flexible. Maybe even a little fuzzy. I was born on an Air Force Base in Ohio, but we moved two months later. So that wasn’t home or even a hometown. A series of other moves followed, back and forth across the country. The bases all operated the same way, and the pilots were moved in squadrons, so even though I was repeatedly the new kid in school, there were other new kids I already knew. It was easy. Eventually, the relocations blurred together a bit. Life unfolded in a familiar way, but none of those places felt like home even if military base life did. My dad flew the KC-135 refueling mission and was gone a lot during the Vietnam war, and to Survival School, R & R, and on alert. My mom and I did most things on base. Grocery shopping, church, school, doctors’ visits. The only place we lived where we explored a lot outside of base was in New England. You guessed it: also not home.

My husband’s father worked as an agricultural advisor in the U.S. Agency for International Development, so his childhood was on the move from Central America to West Africa and Europe. He spoke Spanish before English. When we got married, we were both in the television business, which also involved frequent moves, and we were both entirely comfortable with that way of life.

But when I left my first of two stints with NBC, we finally had the opportunity to choose a city because we wanted to, not because of an assignment or a job. We had friends from Seattle who always raved about it, and we knew the area was beautiful. Then it turned out that my husband’s first job offer after I left NBC was in Seattle. Like magic! By then we had a one-year-old son and wanted him to grow the kind of roots and sense of place that we had lacked growing up. We hoped we would like the Pacific Northwest and would be able to stay. Little did we know that we would come to absolutely love it and end up living here longer than either of us had ever lived anywhere!

I worked at KIRO TV first, then back at NBC Dateline, and later at KING TV. After ten years of hosting ‘New Day Northwest’ on KING TV, I retired shortly after COVID hit. We had a family situation that required our attention, so we pulled the ripcord again. We bought a house on the internet and moved to North Carolina. It was always meant to be temporary while our son went to school there, but we also enjoyed it. Beaches, mountains (okay, East Coast versions of mountains), great food and friendly people. But here we go again. It wasn’t home.

Being away from the Northwest was hard. We missed our dear and long-time friends and neighbors. We missed the mountains and trees and waterfalls and ocean. We missed vacations in Long Beach. We missed the sea lions. We missed the Seahawks. We just felt out of place. And that’s when I realized that I did indeed have a home. A true home. The Pacific Northwest.

Our son graduated and moved on to his job this year, and we caught the proverbial first bus out of town! We are now fully moved back to the Northwest, and from the moment I went out the doors at the airport, everything just seemed right. The air seemed right.

I feel so grateful to the people who hired me and gave me a place in Seattle for the first go-around. This time, I’m totally and even extremely retired (LOL) but the gratitude is still there. Every day. Bless this place and all of you here. I’m finally home.

Margaret Larson retired as host of KING 5‘s "New Day Northwest." Her impressive 35-year career included stints as a London-based foreign correspondent for NBC News and as a news anchor for the Today show, as well as a reporter for Dateline NBC and anchor at KING 5. 

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