Writing for New Media

My hometown is small and simple. It’s nestled in a rural patch and is a nice escape from the crazy Philadelphian suburbs that surround the area. My hometown doesn’t have one specific zip code, area code, or even name, but we’re all located in one township. My hometown has only one stoplight, but nobody considers that part of our town. In my hometown we have no real Main Street, but the street we do have has a post office and a firehouse. There is also a gas station, elementary school, and a brand new local supermarket that not everybody was thrilled about. My hometown is always hard to explain. My house is lucky to be in the 215 area code, but our neighbors up the street are not as fortunate. I’m close enough to work in Philadelphia, but I live on a farm. My hometown has all the amenities of living near a large city but has every quality of small town, USA.

In my hometown, there are many crooked roads, empty fields, quaint farms, bubbly hills, and thick forests. I live in a valley at the bottom of the hill. Fred’s apple orchard occupies the land surrounding my home. Behind my barn and way behind the woods is a the Perkiomen bike trail that goes to Valley Forge, and from there can be taken to Philadelphia. Train tracks used to line the trail before they were ripped out. Many people come from far to ride it, however I rarely see the trail. My hometown used to be a train station. When little portions of the track used to still be embedded in the trail, my mom would get nervous that I would crash my bike and fall down the steep embankment. I never did crash, but I came close a few times.

In my hometown, the Perkiomen creek runs through the middle. It goes next to the trail and stretches twenty feet wide. Down the road from me is a bridge that crosses it, and every time it rains there is sure to be flooding. In my hometown, everybody goes fishing. My neighbor used to tell us that there was an expensive Koi fish in the creek and we would be millionaires if we found it. I’ve caught a few big Carp, but I never did find that Koi. The creek has always had a chocolate brown color, however that didn’t stop my brothers and I from playing in it when we were younger.

In my hometown, every face is a familiar friend. There aren’t many of us around, but we consider each other family. My hometown has a lot of helping hands, a lot of open hearts, and a lot of warm smiles. Everybody here has a first name, and everybody knows it. When news spreads around, it spreads fast in this town. When a local housing developer wanted to build 250 news houses where a run down farm was, my hometown backfired. A petition was made and everybody signed. The development was never built, and our town didn’t have to change.

In my hometown, we have a lot of traditions. We celebrate each Fourth of July with our own special parade. Children get dressed up, and local organizations made floats. I sit in the back of an old ford Falcon and my best friend and I throw candy to the spectators. The parade goes a mile down the main drag and ends at the firehouse for a picnic open to all. My hometown is so small that when somebody is missing at the parade, everybody knows. My hometown also has it’s annual Oyster Picnic held at the big white church, and later in the year near Christmas time we light the tree in the local park.

My hometown consists of my best friends. In my hometown we go fishing in the dark, hang in barns, and throw bonfires in my sheep pen. Our tires have mud on them, we play our music a little too loud, we talk about John Deeres, and s’mores are a regular meal on summer nights. The boys sip their beer and discuss car parts all night, while the girls sit and laugh at our next adventures planned. Through thick and through thin, I know I can always count on them to be at my side.

My hometown is my whole life. It’s my mother’s home-cooked meal when I need it the most, a hug from my dad after job well done, a high five from my brother after a great Phillies win, and a talk with a best friend when I’m feeling down. It’s a pick-up baseball game in my back yard, a trip with my grandma to skip rocks by the creek, a quick drive to say hi to a neighbor, and a long nap in front of the coal stove on a bitter winter night.

I have quite a few big city dreams in my life. I dream of working in sports in Philadelphia, where the stadium lights are so bright they illuminate the night sky. I dream of working around endless high skyscrapers and interacting with the city’s most exciting athletes. Philadelphia is considered my second home, however my hometown will always be where my heart is. I may not always be living there, but nothing can change my hometown.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Student Output. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.