Dear Small Town, USA,
I took you for granted. No, I don't miss you, and I wouldn't go back, but you gave me a lot that I never thought to be thankful for when I was there.
I've moved on, I'm on to bigger and better things, but I've always got you with me.
I come from a little town in Illinois called Marshall. There's not much to do unless you want to travel 15 miles, and even that isn't much. The closest big city in Indianapolis, Indiana, which is about an hour and a half away. It was never much, but for the stages in my life I was there, it was all I needed.
Despite the lack of things to do in terms of buildings (i.e theaters, arcades, malls, etc.), we always had something going on. In the Spring we had baseball, and when you have less than 200 kids on baseball teams, we were all pretty close.
In the Summer we had baseball continued, but we'd all go to the Marshall Pool where $3 would get you in with access to a diving board and two water slides, more like ones you would find in a park more so than a water park. We would have cookouts and neighborhood firework parties on the Fourth of July. In the Fall, starting in fifth grade, there was football.
There was also the Fall Festival, which was a weekend event with a parade and vendors, and on Saturday after our football games we'd wear our jerseys and act like we ran the town. In the Winter we had a small drive through Christmas light show. At the beginning of that show, we had wooden angel silhouettes with the names of those in the town who have passed away. Since 2006 my brother's name has been on one and since 2011 my father's.
Even if it is not the most extravagant light show in the world, the fact that it was personable made it almost perfect.
Another thing about living in a small town is the fact that you know close to everybody. You would know your neighbors, the workers at Walmart, and your children's teachers, because odds are they were your teacher.
The mayor was even known on a personal level. If I had been in Marshall when I was older, with a higher probability of me acting stupid, then this might have been a problem. However, I left when I was twelve, so I didn't have much to worry about.
The downside to knowing everyone, or your parents knowing everyone, is that you never go anywhere without getting slowed down for thirty minutes while they talked to whichever friend was at Walmart or the Marshall Family Restaurant. We only had 3,800 people, but when you went out it felt like 25.
The town rallied around sports. Everyone was at the high school every Friday to watch the football team no matter how good or bad.
The gym would be packed for basketball games. The town also traveled well; whether it was the Pizza Hut Classic tournament a town over in Terre Haute, Indiana, or it was the boy's team making the state semifinals, fans were there and showing out. When the town itself is so small and monotonous, you have to get behind something and for Marshall, it was sports.
All in all, this small town provided me life long memories, and friends that I don't really keep in contact with, but that I'll never forget.
I'm at a D1 university now, 1060 miles from my old house, with dreams of living even farther from Marshall. However, I had 12 fantastic years in that little town, and I'll always it with me no matter how far away I am.
