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It is neither well known or a much loved tourist destination, 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. New Salem, Pennsylvania is my hometown and like so many other small towns that make up rural America, it is a quaint town, where everyone knows each other and gossip spreads like wildfire. Residents of New Salem, Pennsylvania have small town ideals, conservative values and know a thing or two about rural living. We epitomize what it means to be blue collar Americans and this is 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 us 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.

The games we loved such as Kick the Can and Marbles have been replaced by video games and computers.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 and I would head home, often after my mother yelled our names five or six times. We heard her but just chose to ignore her in order to play an extra few minutes outdoors. We'd eventually trudge home, thoroughly exhausted, collapsing in bed after a much needed bath. We'd lie in bed legs aching, from running in the fresh air and sunshine since breakfast.

While high school football is all the rage today, especially in the south, when I was growing up in the northeast, Little League was what drew our entire community together. We supported our Little Leaguers and I am proud to say that my brother was the star pitcher of his team. Every little boy and most of us girls played Little League. Weekends my dad used to load up all the neighborhood

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