Whenever people at school ask me where I'm from, I usually just say Cleveland, OH. It's easy, everyone knows where Cleveland is, and then we all just go on with our lives. But I'm not really from Cleveland; I'm from a small town about 30 minutes outside of Cleveland: Twinsburg. Usually people just give me the "huh?" look when I tell them where I'm really from, but I'm super proud of my hometown, despite it's weird history and weird festivals.

"Weird history, you say?" Yeah, let me tell you a quick rundown of Twinsburg history: In 1817, a young man named Ethan Alling from Connecticut founded a 400 acre town called Millsville. And this would have probably been a normal history, but then Aaron and Moses Wilcox showed up in 1819. These Connecticut twins bought 4,000 acres of land right next to Millsville and offered six acres of land for a public square and $20 toward a school if Alling would rename the town Twinsburg. (And he did!)

You see, the Wilcox twins were extremely proud of being twins. They were so identical that their families could barely tell them apart. And when they grew up -- here's where it gets weird -- they married sisters, had the same amount of children, lived next to each other, and then died of the same illness within hours of each other and were buried in the same grave. (I promised a little weird, didn't I?)

But the weirdness doesn't end there. In 1976, the bicentennial of the United States, our town decided to throw a party to honor the Wilcox twins. Only 37 pairs of twins showed up at the first party, but this became an annual festival to honor twins and multiples. Twins Days just celebrated its 40th festival this past weekend and is now the World's Largest Annual Gathering of Twins and Multiples (and has been since 1987!) Twins come from all over the country and the globe to celebrate and meet people like them. Twins dress alike regardless of age and hang out with other people that look almost exactly alike. It's a spectacle to see it because it's just a sea of doubles and multiples. There's even a parade every year where twins dress up in costumes and compete to see which twins look the most alike or the least alike. There are even secret "twin only" events that no one is allowed to go to unless they're a registered twin.

So, yeah, I have a weird hometown, but it's my hometown and the only town in the entire world named Twinsburg, and I'm proud to call it home.

To learn more about Twins Days (especially if you're a twin/multiple), click here.