I grew up in a small town known as Dawsonville, Georgia. I remember before there was a Walmart, movie theater and two recreational parks. In elementary school, you knew where everyone lived based on their school bus, because we only had three or four buses. We could ride in the back of a truck to go play in the river. There weren't red lights everywhere or any round-a-bouts. There was no traffic. Life was good.

Everyone played sports growing up, and you better believe you had two or three of your good friends on your team. When your siblings were playing in their games, you would make friends with the other teammate's siblings and play games like red rover, duck duck goose and sometimes just roll down the hills you could find. Because there was only one park growing up, and only one fast food restaurant in that part of town, Dairy Queen became a ball park necessity.

In the summer, you could find all of your friends at the county pool. You had to scramble up any change you could find so you could buy all the cool candy at the concession stands. If you were smart, you would buy a hotdog or something filling because typically you were there all day (so your mom could tan). It was very unusual for people to live in neighborhoods, specifically a neighborhood with a pool.

My family lived on a dirt road on five acres of land. For fun, we would go explore in our woods and make "club houses." We had a tree house and tire swings (thanks dad). We made tons of bike and four wheeler trails with lots of jumps and ramps. When it was hot outside, we played in the water hose. We drank the honey from honeysuckles like it was water. At one time, I think we had ten cats and five dogs. My mom let us keep any stray animal, and because we had the land and there wasn't a neighborhood homeowner's club, we could. We had everything we needed.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere allowed me to have the best childhood ever. When they built the Walmart, my siblings and I were kind of sad. Before, we could walk into the grocery store barefoot. Growing up in a small town, we spent most of our time outside and shoes were not something we enjoyed wearing. But, the Walmart was "fancy" and we had to wear shoes. When the movie theater was built, our class took a field trip to watch "Because of Winn Dixie." I remember when Rock Creek Park was built. We now had a huge playground, a mile long trail to ride our bikes and roller blade. Our school even hosted a "water day" there.

These things were fine, but enough is enough.

I did move away to a bigger town known as Flowery Branch for four years, but returned to Dawsonville after. Living in a neighborhood wasn't all bad. You always had someone to play with and we were very fond of kickball games in the cul-de-sac. Luckily we had a creek behind our fenced in back yard and we spent a lot of time there fishing and creating our famous "club houses."

However, when I moved back to Dawsonville, I quickly fell in love with the small-town feel. You could get a biscuit and a sweet tea from the town's favorite Pool Room for two dollars on your way to school. If you didn't eat Pool Room for breakfast, you had Billy's or Bojangles. No matter where you went, you always ran into someone you knew. Everyone, and I mean everyone went to the football and basketball games. The people who played high school sports had played together since they were babies and made great teams, winning all kinds of regional championships. You seriously knew everyone in your school, or had at least heard of them. Most of your classmates you'd known since kindergarten, and for fun you would look up each others old year book photos. If you wanted to have even more fun, you would look up your parents' and teachers' old yearbook photos.

This town was a place you stayed and raised your kids. It was full of generations. It was a place you were proud to be from. My parents were both from small towns that turned into big cities (Buford and Cumming, GA). They moved to Dawsonville to get away from the city and raise their kids in the country. For the longest time, I wanted to do the same.

Now I have to bite my tongue when I drive through the huge mess on my way home. As I was getting dinner from Big D's BBQ one Sunday, it was slammed packed. One of the customers mentioned it was because the city folk were coming up our way, and that they needed to just leave us alone. I couldn't agree any more.

Our town was perfect the way I remember it growing up. We do not need a Publix, Marshall's, Hobby Lobby, Ross, Panera Bread, a second Kroger, and all the other additions and neighborhoods the town has made in the past few months and years. Soon we are going to be just like Buford and Cumming--one big city and shopping center. It's sad to see something you love so much change with the blink of an eye. And it's sad that I don't even want to raise my future kids here anymore. Traditions, like the homecoming parade and homecoming court riding in classic old cars onto the football field, among others are already gone. Now our small town "feel" is gone too.

The town is not ready for this influx of people. Most importantly, we don't want it. Dear Dawsonville, I miss the old you.