I’M BETWEEN TOPICS THIS WEEK, but my keyboard beckons. I’ll do a classroom trick. I’ll give myself a writing prompt. Then I’ll respond. That’s how I’ve got by these 30 years.

Here are a few questions often put to me about my past and future, and I grope for answers. Perhaps writing will help me think.

Why did I move to California in 1978? What was here? I like Pennsylvania just fine. I go back to visit at every opportunity. What’s kept me here? What will keep me here once retired?

Glad you asked.

To be honest, I moved to California for the return address. In college I was writing short stories and submitting them to magazines. They kept bouncing back. I collected a whole folder full of rejection letters.

A dog-eared copy of the annual Writers Digest book was my best buddy. I went through it methodically with a stack of envelopes, cover letters, manuscripts, and a batch of stamps. I sent my stories to every magazine I could find that dealt with the weird crap I was writing at the time. I got one poem published at Town and Country.

I figured it must be because of my return address: RD #1 Ridgway. The RD stands for rural delivery. I had vivid images of magazine editors handling my mailed manuscripts. They’d take one look at the return address and think “Hick” and toss me on the reject pile without taking my words seriously. So I moved to Berkeley.

When I tell my friends this story, they scoff. They can’t believe someone would uproot from family and friends and cross the country just to get a cool return address. “Well,” I tell them. “You’re looking at him.”

Did it do me any good? My situation was this: I started in Modesto where I lived with friends until I found work in Berkeley. Once on Haste Street, I sent out a couple newer stories that were promptly rejected. What the?

I didn’t have time to send more or write more. Reality of survival dictated that I stop writing and go work at the phone company instead, and pay rent, and buy a vehicle, and get a girlfriend, and explore the Bay Area. Ironically, my writing stopped once I settled into Berkeley life.

Two good things did happen to me in Berkeley. Was it the return address? Who knows, but Playboy published a letter I wrote about John Dillinger. I didn’t get paid, but I’m sandwiched in between Al Pacino and Farah Fawcett. I have a couple copies somewhere. Proudly, I mailed an issue to my mother. In my excitement I didn’t stop to realize that she’d look at all those other pages. Sorry, mom.

The other good thing was contrary. I got a phone call from Penn State’s theater department. They wanted to produce my senior-year play “How Do You Think I Stay in Business?” They wanted it for the big theater at the main campus, the real deal. I almost dropped the phone and fell on the floor and kicked a cinderblock out from under the corner of my plywood bed and had the bed fall on my leg, pinning me so I couldn’t reach the receiver and they’d hang up, but that didn’t happen.

I said, “Are you serious? You want to produce my play? That’s fantastic! That’s so gratifying. Thank you, thank you, so much.”

The woman said, “You’re welcome. So when can you come in for rehearsals and rewrites?”

“Eh, I’m in California. I work for the phone company. I can’t take off work.”

“Oh, we’re so sorry. We won’t be able to produce your play after all. Thank you. Bye.” Click.

This brings frequent questions to my mind. What if I’d never moved to California? What if I’d been available for rehearsals and rewrites? Where might this accomplishment have taken my writing career? Maybe I was a dumbass for moving across the country for a return address.

To be honest, I also came for the weather. I never minded Pennsylvania winters, but the rainy summers were bummers. Once here, I fell in love and raised a family. That’s what keeps me here. My wife, kids, grandkids are all within driving distance, my wife especially.

I’ve taken them all back to Ridgway. Chad liked what he saw, and even looked at homes. Kristi searched job listings. In the end, we flew back to California and stamped our feet. Home.

What keeps me here in retirement? Are you kidding, you ask me that? Look around. This is party town. I’ve got the whole Bay Area in my backyard. I’ve got mountains and waterfalls in my front yard. I have rollercoasters, restaurants and rock ‘n’ roll at my fingertips.

For 37 years I’ve lived in the Bay Area, and I’ve been taunted and haunted by all the festivities that I could not attend because I worked for a living. Once I’m free, I intend to engage in exploring California anew as I fill up my Calendar of Fun.

Ridgway is my quiet place where I can sit on the porch for a month. My friend Gino in Philly called yesterday. We talked for an hour. He said, “I can see it someday if Susan were gone first, you and me would be sitting on the porch in Ridgway, old men, rocking.”

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.