Honestly, my hometown isn’t very special. There isn’t a parade or a special hangout. There isn’t one specific kind of person in my hometown, and there definitely isn’t a label that you can place any of us under. Honestly, I think that my hometown is like many other small towns in Michigan. Even narrowing it down to Michigan is weary, because the only thing that separates us from the other states is our weather.

I mean honestly, if you think about it, every state has it’s own rivalries. Every state has it’s favorite teams and the die-hard fans. Every state has big cities that are known for something or another and small towns that aren’t as well known, but still count. That is exactly what my hometown is like. The thing is, my actual hometown is called Onondaga (onnon dAY-Gah) which is actual a village full of bikers and drug addicts and good people and county counselors and bad people and families. It is a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. But where I went to school is a place most call ‘the high school you can see from the highway--127 to be exact’.

The school is basically the main theme of Leslie. Leslie is not pronounced with a ‘z’ sound in the middle--and if you do, be prepared for correction-- but it often gets mistaken that way. The high school is newer and has many charming qualities, like most small town schools do. We have a decent cheer team with a LOT of spirit. Our football team hasn’t been the best, but they give it the ole Blackhawk try. Our runners are something we take the most pride in, athletically, of course. We have had some greats come from those halls. One of which is Kanen Storr, a wrestler that now attends Iowa State. Google him and you will see the hype, he is really good. Katherine Maiville, a cheerleader, just assisted the Alma College Scots in a cheerleading National Championship. GO SCOTS!

But Leslie isn’t just athletics, it is the arts too.

The arts is something that almost everyone is or has been apart of at least once in their Leslie career. I myself had been in band and theater my entire four years of high school and then some. I’d like to think that we, before athletics and extracurriculars, are a very artistically inclined school. But I am sure most small school have that same characteristic, maybe not with the arts, but with something.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is the same. It is the same small town that she grew up in, or that he left. My small town is just like yours and I know that. It is what I hate and what I love about mine. It is why I left and why I miss it. I am sure the ones of you that grew up in small towns are filling in my school’s information with your own. I am sure you each have your own Kanen Storr and Katherine Maiville, or a sport that actually accomplishes something regularly. I am sure that you were just as fed up with it as I was. And if you already have moved on, I am sure that you miss it almost as much as I do.

Mine is no different than yours.