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If quaint country living and rolling up the sidewalks at night is your preferred way of living have I got the town for you. New Salem, Pennsylvania is my hometown. It is neither well known or a much loved tourist destination but rather it is a small town; one that most people would have to look up on a map to find out exactly where it is. Like so many other small towns that make up rural America, it is a town where everyone knows each other and gossip spreads like wildfire. The residents of New Salem, Pennsylvania have small town ideals, conservative values and know a thing or two about rural living. The people who live in New Salem, epitomize what it means to be blue collar, working class, Americans. The rural landscape, dotted with small family owned farms and dense woodlands, is a far cry from big city living. And these are just some of the reasons why I cherish my hometown and the memories of growing up there.

I lived in New Salem for my entire childhood, from kindergarten through college. The things that I have come to appreciate about small town living, I hated back then. Kids in New Salem didn't normally cause a lot of trouble because there was always a parent ready to call your mother. Instead we indulged in innocent fun until we were old enough to drive and cause trouble outside of the town limits. The hot and humid days of summer are still so vivid in my mind. We grew up in a time when our mothers could send us outside after breakfast and aside from coming in for a quick bite at lunch, wouldn't have to worry about us until dusk. Mothers didn't have to be afraid of their children being picked up by strangers or being hit by a car. There were no strangers in New Salem and if the neighborhood speed limit was 15 miles per hour, motorists drove 10.

During the hottest days of summer when it was too hot and humid to play tag or ride bicycles we'd cool off in the stream in the woods. We walk through the woods looking for snakes along a path or look for salamanders under rocks. Sometimes we'd walk to the neighborhood corner store to get a Popsicle or spend our weekly allowance on penny candy. The games we loved such as Kick the Can and Marbles have been replaced by video games and computers. I don't fault kids for liking such things, as we would have been just as engrossed in the latest high tech thrills, but kids today don't have the same love for the outdoors as we did. At twilight each night when fireflies began their light dances, my brother

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