From Whence I Came

This weekend I'm thinking alot about where I came from...my Roots. Maybe it's because it's such a contrast to where I am now (physically and mentally). Maybe it's because my best friend is marrying my nephew and it's a match of two fine families from the Herman-Norcross area. Maybe I'm just slightly homesick.

To those of you who have just met me, I grew up in Herman MN (population about 496 or so..it was 796 when I lived there). My graduation class was 36 people. No, I wasn't saledictorian or valedictorian (I don't even think I can spell those words to this day) I was class president..no one else wanted the job. I wasn't Homecoming Queen, a fact that it took me until about 15 years ago to accept (I'm almost over it). But in all seriousness,it was a great place to grow up. I have only fond memories of the town and the people. My parents spent their entire married lives there and my brother still lives there. As do my neice, great neice and their families.

I wish I had paid attention to Mr. Magnuson's geography lessons because I wouldn't be so ignorant now about places and things. (or was it Mr. whatshisname that taught the class?)High school is wasted on the young. I'd also love to go back and learn how to cook in Home Economics (the name itself is "old school).

Recently I had a Herman moment (these are actually my favorite kind of "moments" in meeting people). Here's how it went...

I was out for an early morning walk and my "neighbor" (guy who lives in the nearby building) was by his cute Suburu car. I'd been admiring the car for sometime and so I quietly said (testing if he spoke English or not) "nice car". To which he replied: "thanks" and so we struck up a conversation. In about 30 seconds I discovered that he was originally from Morris, Mn which is about 20 miles from Herman AND his father had once owned a shoe store in Herman. We chatted, exchanged Kuwait stories and now he's coming over for supper (as we say back home) tomorrow night.

Turns out his college buddy is editor of the Herman Review (an award winning local newspaper) and so he sent me a link to the paper. Which is where I got the cool pictures of the center of good ol' Grant County.

The world is big, yet so darn small.

PS There is an actual, honest to goodness movie made about my hometown called Herman USA. It's about the TRUE story of when the town advertised for "women" business owners, which of course got picked up by news services as "Town advertises for Women". It gave the town it's true 15 minutes of fame and resulted in about 30 marriages for the local bachelor boys. Around half of them are still married (I think?) which is about the national average. It was a fun time.