Chapter 6

I Grew Up Here

If I were to assume perhaps, that the reader of this chapter has read the previous five, then it would make this chapter a bit easier. So I’m going to do that. You know that I moved around a lot during my childhood. Each place I lived taught me something new, some new fact of life or whatever. Unfortunately, I was never around long enough to learn very much, and just had to start over whenever I moved. It is with this reasoning that I have concluded that I have grown up the most here. This month marks the beginning of the sixth year that my family has lived at this address, in this area. It was this stability that finally allowed me to "grow up" both mentally and socially.

As was said before, my family moved here in November of 1993, from a home we built in North Liberty, and lived in for two years. Our new home, the one that would be called "Our last move ever," was a one-and-a-half story cedar house with a basement, well off the highway (6), and smack dab in the middle of a forty three acre plot of land in the Tiffin area. We had a long (1/3 mile) gravel drive put in, and built a free standing garage (that was bigger than our last house). We basically lived in the middle of a cornfield, because that year we rented most of our acreage out to Doug Campbell to farm, and we being off the highway so far, were right in the middle of his operation.

I was given the opportunity to leave Penn Elementary and go to Clear Creek Amana during the middle of sixth grade (November, 1993), but I declined, because, as with all of the places I had been, I wanted to stay as long as possible, to savor every moment. So I did finish out the year there, and in seventh grade I began here, at Amana Clear Creek Middle School.

I will not rediscribe the change that took place in me here (through the help of Camp Wapsie), that was outlined in chapter one, but I will tell you of other changes. There was a big difference between elementary and junior high methods of teaching. I sort of jumped in the middle, while everyone around me had already had a year of practice. But I did find a familiar face. That first day I found Jeff Yanecek, who had also moved from Penn at the same time. We immediately used eachother’s company to battle the new people blockade that is set up by most student systems. That first day, they gave us our locker numbers after the big assembly, and Jeff and I found both of ours together. The only problem was that his happened to be the one without a door, so I offered to share mine with him. Soon however, my acquaintances and friends became more than just Jeff, and I was on my way to where I am today. This topic will be discussed in later chapters, but this first year, one filled with emotion, heartache, and loneliness, was one of the hardest of my life. The new social scene had not quite played itself out for me yet, and I was unprepared for what the students of this school had in store for me. To put it simply, it took all that I had to make it through that year, and in eighth grade, I earned a well deserved rest.

It was because of this, the "Last move," that I became rather upset when my parents mentioned a possible move to Washington (IA) this year. After careful reasoning however, my parents and I both concluded that it would be best for me to finish high school here, where I grew up. So in the event that the family moves, I will open enroll in this school, and drive in every morning to attend church and go to school, because, I want to stay here as long as possible. I want to savor every moment here. This is the last place I will have ever grown up so much.