Hometown

I step out the front door, stride to the end of the driveway, and await satellites. My IT band is hurting a little today, so we'll see how the run goes. The sun is out and everything is lush green, the early-summer rains having been on and off for the past week. To my left is a political yard sign sticking out of the green grass- I smile. There is a big race for Mayor coming up in a little more than a week, and the town is covered with signs and flyers. My dad is running for Mayor, and thus the sign for our own yard. My watch beeps; I start running.

As I turn the first corner on the asphalt road, I am slapped in the face with a decent wind. It's a little warm and humid, so the breeze feels refreshing. I continue forth and recollect. This house is where the elementary secretary when I was in school lives. This house is a guy that used to be on city council. Hey I used to babysit the Pastor's kids there! This house has a different yard sign. Oh yes, the opponent. The current Mayor is done, so there are two challengers, my dad and another lady, for the position. The lady I don't know personally, but her son and I went to school together and we were confirmed together with six other kids in the only church in town, Horace Lutheran. We live on the west side of town, they on the east.

There is a weird dichotomy in this town. County Road 17 cuts right through the middle, serving as a de facto Main Street with decrepit businesses, the firehall, and the bar (which the lady running for Mayor part owns and has put up a sign on the door of) lining the way. On the east side sits the 'older' side of town. There are less trees and the houses look a little older and more worn. This side of town hosts the city hall further south, the building which used to be where the sixth-graders had their classes at Horace Elementary, but then they picked it up and moved it once six-graders had to go to school at Cheney Middle School in West Fargo; the baseball diamond right by the one stop-sign at the Co 17 intersection, which has been renovated with new dugouts, a machine shed, and my brother's eagle scout project of batting cages; an old car shop that still produces effective business and work; and the bar, the ritualistic meeting place for many a North Dakotan (it's affectionately named the Sheyenne Bar after the Sheyenne River that flows through town, close to the end of its journey of searching for the mighty Red River of the North).

On the west side of town, there are more trees and wealth, but less business. The once-proud town elevator sits on the west side of Main, right next to the railroad that used to get much more business on its way to Fargo, but now comes to Horace, turns around, and goes back. The rail was literally taken out of the ground where it crossed Main and worked it way past the gas station. The west side hosts the elementary school, being expanded to accommodate the fact that there are more students grades 1-5 in Horace now than there were people in town in 1970; our only apartment complex, which used to be the high school (home of the Horace Hornets) before it shut down in the 70s due to low enrollment and proximity to West Fargo; the Horace Senior Center, home to the Lions Club, bingo, large church gatherings before the new church was built, and the town election center on voting day; and my house, my home.

It takes me about 35 minutes normally to run through all the roads in the town, and that's what I do. I work my way back to the neighborhood I first lived in when we moved to town. The trees we planted have grown considerably in the last 10 years, but other than that not much has changed. This house we used to call the doctor's house when we were waiting for the bus to come in after picking up the country kids; 7:15 am feels a lot earlier these days. Guy running for city council, our old house, the family that had the crazy dog named Snuggles, a girl who ran cross country with me, the old high school principal, and the Ladwig house (I wonder what happened to Derek and Shelby). I sweat my way down the Ironwood and Chesnut loop. This house had a girl named Alyssa who moved to Texas or something, this house had some family from Alabama move in late in high school, this house is where Andrew and I ate a whole box of frozen waffles before walking around drinking bottle root beer. Later in the loop was the church secretary, some guy named Sam who was a year ahead of me (before they moved), and the guitar guy at our church. I stopped and paused at one house. A banner proclaiming 'congrats on graduation!' was hanging from a massive, beautiful boat. I didn't expect that. I kept running, making sure to avoid the puddles in the poorly-engineered and equally poorly-drained roads.

By the time I get over to the east side of town, I'm approaching 20 minutes of running. I cross main (making sure to not get hit by anybody driving through the LED-flashing stop signs) and head past the baseball diamond. There are definitely less political signs over here, but they are here. My town is at a crossroads. From this middle part of town, Fargo Davies high school and the neighboring water tower are clearly visible, an indication that Fargo is hungry and about to devour us like they did to the now-afterthought of a town Frontier. They keep expanding south. We have tapped out our sewage and can't build- we are sitting ducks. The 'old guard' of town wants to keep Horace the small little farm town of the good ol days, while the 'new guard' recognizes the need for growth. The 'old guard' currently controls the city government, while the 'new guard' is ready to pounce on opportunity. I find myself going past houses of high school classmates, and upon seeing no yard sign, feeling disappointed. The capacity for politics to make people question relationships is truly stunning. I vow to myself, like undoubtedly most people have, that I would never let politics corrupt me. We'll see how that goes someday.

I finish off by doing some barefoot running at the local Independence Park. It's tucked into the middle of town, with absolutely nothing to declare it's there; people in Horace forget it exists. The city put up a frolf course for a few years, but upon viewing the visitors (and the subsequent daily return of our part-time cop that can go days without being seen), things changed. We don't have a frolf course anymore. I keep running on the soft ground- nobody is here. The wind is blowing and all is quiet. Somewhere south of town someone is driving on the highway. This is my hometown.