Personal Narrative: Growing Up In A Heanet Pond

In the mid 70’s, my family bought a cabin on the Illinois River. We spent all our free time there, weekends and most of the summer. For years my family enjoyed their time at the “clubhouse” as we called it. It was our home away from home. There were about 20 cabins there, so it was like our own little community. Just about everyone there was like extended family. Any time someone needed help, the neighbors showed up. Everyone there had similar interests, hunting, fishing, boating and water skiing. I spent most of my days enjoying these activities.

On September 1, 2012, I walked into my fifth grade teacher’s classroom for the first time in my life. Mrs.Cullen was standing in the front of the door with open arms ready to welcome her new fifth grade students. As I made my way to my desk and sat down next to Charlie Schutt and Quin Timmerman, I got the feeling that middle school would be a time of talking to some of my best friends and cruising through classes. As the school year progressed, and classroom seats changed, my thought of how Middle school would be changed as well. On the first day Mrs.Cullen explained our schedule, Homework detentions, and demerits. After about fifty questions, she sent us off to our first class, and the first step of our Middle School journey. The fifth grade

Regularly, we would go somewhere and do something new regardless of whether we were in the country or in the city. When we were in the country we would stay at my uncle’s grandparents’ house. They owned a cow and a calf, so while we were there my uncle’s grandma would milk the cow after dinner and give us fresh, warm milk to drink. They also had a big farm filled with rows of corn, which my siblings and I would run through. There was only one thing my siblings and I were not used to, and that was having to run outside to the outhouse when you needed to use the bathroom.

Kids on my block always loved to play outside. Growing up we always knew each other. We cherished the times we would spend with each other. Whether it being on the Scorching hot days of Summer, the chilly days of Fall, Or the rainy days of Spring. We would be on that street hanging out and spend time with each other.

All of these memories have been brought home to me more often now that I am raising children of my own. Unfortunately, we were not been able to give them that benefit of small town life at first. We lived for most of their childhood in the big city of Sacramento, California. We were afraid to let them go play in our own yard, much less run around the neighborhood with other kids. All of the houses seemed to be stacked up against each other. The buildings surrounding our neighborhood were

In my school I am part of a community service group called start something, we help people in our community who are not as fortunate, or help clean in our community to keep our city beautiful. My first community service event was the Spicket River cleanup, the Spicket River is a small river that goes through Lawrence. The river goes through many parts of Lawrence, some people’s trash ends up in the river,[every year I look forward to this event to help the environment and my community] this is why every year I look forward to participating in The Spicket River Cleanup.

this, this was just the means to an end, nothing more. The dark grey clouds hung

East Coast is known for so many different things; people, history, fashion, stores, and heritage. But the most recent trend is desserts. Desserts can be sweet, savory, healthy or unhealthy. Desserts make people feel happy especially east coasters.

The Summer air is warm. Beacons of light peer through the canopy of leaves. Short green grass dances in the breeze. Foaming waves crash on the sandy shore. I can’t wait for our annual trip to Peak's Island.

I grew up in a small town named Polo, IL. When I say small town I am of course exaggerating in the fact that by saying small I really mean that it is tiny. The town itself contained about 700 people while the surrounding countryside contained about 500 more. A classic small town in the middle of nowhere making it extremely hard for anyone or anything to cause any trouble. Being extremely cautious with my sisters and I, my parents thought this would be the perfect place to raise four growing girls. It was nice, quiet, and the small town relationships that you often find in these farming towns was present everywhere that you looked. As a kid most would have hated to live in this tiny town, but to me this was heaven on Earth and I intended to enjoy every single second that I had in this charming little

Growing up in Washington, Pennsylvania was like living out the proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child"! If I was at a friend's house and I did something wrong, their parents would chastise me! When I got home my parents were waiting for me to chastise me again! It was wonderful because everyone was like family! It was at a time when people still went to sleep with their doors unlocked! Small town America at it's best! One of my favorite things to do was on Thursday nights, all of my friends would go to the local roller rink and skate! Sometimes, especially on holidays like Thanksgiving that fell on Thursdays, kids would come from neighboring towns and from as far away as Pittsburgh to our local roller rink! It was so much fun and truly

Where you grow up decides what you are going to be for the rest of your life. To describe the neighborhood that I grew up in, a lot had to do with the environment that was around us. I grew up with my brother who taught me a lot about how to behave around people and at school. Anyways very early on in our childhood we became best friends with the neighbors down the street “the Johnson’s”. My good friend was Louie who is a year younger than me and my brother George hung out with Riley who was a year older than him. I was better friends with Louie than George was with Riley, our parents were also good friends, but I spent almost all my summer days, and most weekdays after school at their house. Me and Louie played everything and did just about everything that kids did. We both had big imaginations and we both liked to adventure. We lived in a very kid friendly neighborhood due to the park behind my house which was only separated by a forest. We built all sorts of forts and came up with so many games around my pond which in total is the size about two football fields. My Dad and I make a rink every year out on my pond and both of our family's play hockey so that is always fun and competitive. We slowly, as kids do, got more mature and our games became less of a made up joke but more as a project around the neighborhood.

As a child the most important place to me was the block in my neighborhood I grew up on. It was a particularly long and very wide street with several pairs of incredibly tall palm trees spread throughout both sidewalks. There was no shortage of playmates; almost every other home on the block had children around my age I could play with. There was also an older generation of teenagers that hung around together. I also had other family members living down the street from my house on the same block. As the children played daily so did the adults. The men of the block all met daily after work rotating from one home to another. They could be seen sitting around every

I remember every day in summer my brothers and I would play with our neighbors and do lots of fun activities outside. The kids that we hung out with were older than me but they still included me as if I were one of them. I wouldn 't always join in their activities just because they were all

I was seven years old when I moved into a new neighborhood. It was called “The Glen”. This was not an ordinary neighborhood though. As my parents and I pulled into the driveway, along with the moving truck, I could see multiple kids running all around in the street and grass. I had known a kid from school named Scott who was one of the ones playing out there. As soon as we parked, I hopped out of the car with my brother, Connor, and ran straight over to play. Some of the kids were my age, others older in high school, but none younger. I was introduced to them. Massey, Tal, Trevor, Rotem, Matt, Jordan, Brandon, and Justin. These kids I would never forget. Over time, many of these kids moved on either to new houses, colleges, or states, but the things we did we would remember forever.