Insight
I live in a town where the mornings are thick with walls of fog. The town’s population is 95% Caucasian. Here we have only one high school, and it has just reached 1,000 students. Our weather ranges from below freezing (but not this year) to over 100 degrees. Weekends are spent relaxing on the porch or hanging out at the small sandwich shops. My town is in the state with the most places named after the devil than any other. The closest mall is half an hour away. In my town the most exciting thing to do is to go to the cornmaze and farmer’s market. You’re allowed to graffiti the one bridge in town where the train tracks are if you call the police first, to get permission. The man made lake in town is rumored to have been built on top of a nearby village. My town’s ice cream truck banks in more money than the net worth of the small post office. We sell Christmas trees and apples. The animal population of our town is ten times greater than the human population, being comprised of everything from woodpeckers to foxes, coyotes to bears, salamanders and snakes, raccoons and owls.
White picket fences and trimmed gardens line the streets, and bubbling brooks flow through the town. Every kid here knows how to climb a tree or weed a garden, even if they were raised by stay at home mothers with semi mansions. Small children can be found riding bikes along the main roads, which themselves are dotted with old white houses and barns. In my town, they once renovated an elementary school, only to find a mural of a farmer’s life behind a wall. We vote in our schools, and our town hall boasts three wire horse figures in front. The Bobcat football teams remind us of apple cider and brisk fall nights. The softball teams bring us to a place of warm weather, red dust, grass stains, and iced tea. We are about as southern as it gets in the Northeast.
Our town is home to the governor of Connecticut, who lives in a white house next to a family whose dog got run over a few years back. You know something about every family or house in this town, just like how What’s-His-Name around the corner is a dentist, he installed a hydraulic lift in his garage to store his collection of Mustangs. Wealth is common, and many houses hold French doors and walk-in closets. The rest of the houses are smaller and older, with windowed attics and dirt floor cellars. Our town is old, it dates back to before the Civil War, and some houses were used along the trail of freedom for the slaves. The stone boundaries of the old property lines and sometimes the foundations of houses can be seen all throughout the woods. There used to be an old railroad hotel that was boarded up, but it got burned down. We still have another train depot, and what used to be the old country store. The town also has almost ancient churches, and a historical society about it’s past.
There are at least four town parks with trails, but everyone knows the best trails are unmarked. The town is a giant forest, and it is simple to ski or hike in the woods behind your house, the same woods behind everyone else’s house. We have a pond which you can skate on once it freezes, or fish in during the summer, although the two lakes are better for that. Once there was a tornado on top of a hill which tore down a fence. That same hill was hit by lightening, and it killed an old tree. People left pictures and flowers on the stump once it was cut down. There is an old house behind one of the schools, and everybody believed a witch lived there. We used to go into the woods, and some kids left ketchup for the others, making them believe it was blood. This school had zombies inside the pipes in the bathrooms, and leprechauns living in the big rock in the playground. Another school had its slide burned down in the playground, and that was the most exciting thing that occurred that year.
There was reportedly a person inhabited by the devil living in this town, and a book was written about it. There is also a legend about a number of spirits haunting a certain section of town. Many of the graveyards here are over 100 years old. The original Fat Lady from the Barnum Bailey circus is buried here.
The town was named after the pastor who founded it. It is an expensive place to live, but everybody here seems to enjoy the small community. In the 18th century, the place that became this town contributed something to the world market. The addition of bone ash to porcelain made it less able to chip, and this discovery helped innovate the world. Not many people here know about the bone china, but it is interesting nonetheless.
My town is mainly Republican, and most people go to church on Sundays. The town may be dull, small, prosaic, but it is my home in everyway. People come to watch the leaves change, or to visit the quaint silence or beautiful scenery. I only hope they can take something meaningful back with them.
