Interesting parallels.
I grew up all over the place, since my dad was in the Air Force. I went to college in Annapolis, Maryland, but received my B.A., eventually, from Harvard, lucked into a job that allowed me to learn COBOL, and have been programming ever since. I’ve lived in northern Vermont for 20+ years.
I’ve recently been researching J.R.R. Tolkien’s early drafts and working maps for The Lord of the Rings for a book — and am currently creating a CMS to support Tolkien researchers needing (on-site) access to images of the 11,000 pages of Lord of the Rings drafts archived at Marquette University.