Where I grew up, cornfields stretched as far as the eye could see; until, of course, you reached the river. Everyone knows everyone's fourth, fifth and sixth cousins, and we really did spend our weekends sitting around bonfires and driving down old dirt roads. The town was so small there wasn't even one stoplight in the entire county.
Together we learned about life, love and loss. We learned that not everyone is your friend all the time, but when it truly counts, everyone is your friend -- not only your friend, but your family.
My high school never had more than 150 total students at a time the entire four years that I spent there, so it goes without saying that people were close. Everything was small; our sports teams, our clubs and even our classrooms only held around 15 students at a time.
No matter who you were looking for, they were usually only a locker or two away. But it was our sense of community that made that tiny little high school feel so much larger than it was.
There wasn't a lot to do on the weekends in our tiny piece of paradise nestled away in rural Southern Illinois, but we learned to make the best of it.
One particular night that stands out especially bright in my mind is the night we decided to show a movie projected on the side of our town gas station. Around 20 of us gathered that night in the center of town with blankets in truck beds and snacks to just watch a movie and be together. No money spent, no rule breaking, just a group of friends enjoying a beautiful summer night.
That is one of my most treasured hometown memories.
Even now, if you want to run into every person you went to high school with, you can just go to that same gas station. It's like a mini-reunion every time. Very few places feel more like home than that little building.
Growing up in that tiny little town on the outskirts of nowhere, I learned everything about who I wanted to be. Just because I realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life living there doesn't mean that it is any less of a home to me.
Without the love and support of every teacher I ever had, I wouldn't have known I wanted to be a writer. Without the friends I made there -- the good and the bad -- I wouldn't have ever learned how to be a good friend. Without that one Main Street through the middle of town or all those back roads, I wouldn't have been able to learn to appreciate the big city, where I am now, for exactly what it is. It's different -- not better nor -- worse than where I grew up. Just different.
Without Golconda, Ill., I wouldn't have learned to be me.
