There are several things that come to mind to the typical college student when Thanksgiving break approaches every year.
Spending time with relatives, watching the Detroit Lions lose in an embarrassing fashion, and catching up with the old high school crew are some of the aspects that come to mind when thinking about turkey day.
Now, as I grew up in a highly-rural area, not in any Deliverance sort of rural, mind you, everyone knows when everyone is home and what everyone is doing. So as I made my way up north after my last class of the week, I started getting bombarded with the “Dude, hurry up and get home, man,” texts not even a minute after leaving Big Rapids.
Although I grew up with a tight-knit group of friends and I enjoyed my high school days, I couldn’t wait to get out of my hometown the minute I graduated high school and become a globe-trotting journalist someday. I mean, come on, there’s not even a stoplight in my hometown. Imagine the amount of fun you can have in a place like that.
As the current semester has been fairly stressful and I’ve had some oh-so-lovely developments in my life recently, I figured a trip home would at least get me the hell out of Big Rapids and away from some bad vibes.
As I made the rounds and tried to see as many of my friends as possible once I got home, I started to realize I had begun to miss the sticks a little bit.
So as everyone met at the local drinking establishment on the biggest bar night of the year and talked about what has been going on and reminiscing about the idiotic things we did in our younger days, I had a moment where I just sat back and realized I was having the most fun I had had in a while.
I don’t know if it was the fact that I could just yell at the deejay to have him play Led Zeppelin instead of Lady Gaga or the fact that I got to see some people that I haven’t seen in quite some time, but I realized that sometimes it takes you coming back around the people that really know you and appreciating where you came from in order to help you get back on track and get the priorities back in order. Or maybe it was the alcohol, who knows?
So as I spent my turkey day with a terrible headache and watching the pitiful Lions, I could only think to myself, “Man, it ‘s good to be home.” n