When the editor asked if I’d write a column for Where We Live she asked the wrong question.

She should have asked: Where do you live?

For most of my colleagues who write in this space, it’s a redundant question: Where they live is where they do live. They are ingrained in their communities and give as much as they receive.

For me, Where I Live and Where Do I Live are different. One of the points of this column is for Times News staffers to tell you about their communities - Where They Live.

So, Where I Live in that sense is Bethlehem - I have an apartment there, it’s on the South Side. Cool building, big windows, lots of light. How do I know? Because I’m there once in a while.

Where Do I Live? A whole different matter.

During the last 32 months, I’ve stayed in approximately 100 different places, ranging from campgrounds to resorts to inns to house rentals on the beach to friends’ and relatives’ houses across the country. I’ve also spent considerable time (she probably thinks it’s even longer than that) at my significant other’s home in Downingtown.

My mom, at one point, thought I’d given up my apartment and was living in campgrounds at state parks.

Some of my friends had a little game - when I’d post a photo on Facebook, they’d respond with: Now we know where Tommy D is.

I’ve traveled across the country and back twice and another time went to northern Minnesota and came back through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Why? Because when I retired for the second time - I retired/took a buyout from the Pocono Record in 2016 in my first retirement - in December 2019 from the Morning Call in Allentown, I wanted to do things that I wanted to do. Note the “I wanted to do” phrase. It’s important.

I wanted to camp, fish, travel, see family, do all the cool things you read about. And I did them.

But life has this intriguing way of changing the flow of your personal river. You meet someone, things happen to family members you didn’t plan on, etc.

And all of a sudden you are camping, and catching fish and star gazing are still cool, but they seem less important.

I started out retirement thinking that Where I Live is everywhere. After time, I realized that Where I Physically Live is not that important. It’s more how I live and what I do with that life.

To that end, it dawned on me one day - probably driving through eastern Washington where it’s so stark that cattle can’t even graze - that I still have something to offer society. I can still make a difference. It might be small, helping reporters be better writers or writing headlines that entice readers to delve into our stories, but my selfishness - I was only 60 when I retired - needs to take a back seat in my well-traveled Nissan Altima.

Right now, Where I Live is at the Times News.

Where Do I Live? Well, I haven’t taken the tent out of my car yet.

Tom DeSchriver can be reached at tdeschriver@tnonline.com