Coming Home

We just recently moved to Pataskala, and I am coming home. No, I haven’t lived here before, nor have I had any real connection to the area other than a job at a local stable and my in-laws now just living two houses down. I grew up in a small town west of here that also starts with a P, went to school K-12 and even settled down with a family in one of the cities many subdivisions after a few renegade years in Reynoldsburg. I’m considering this a home coming because the place I grew up no longer exists. Not only did the house I grew up in get relocated to another lot and ours turned into a flood overflow for the surrounding sub-divisions; but the atmosphere and the country attitude that I loved so much and held so dearly vanished almost overnight.

Growing up we had a virtual wildlife refuge on our two acre plot. There was a pond full of snapping turtles, muskrats, large and small mouth bass, sunfish, bluegill, and of course the ever resilient catfish. We had ducks, mallard and white Peking, three Irish setters, a German Shepard named Dodge, and numerous other strays that my father brought home. We hatched ducklings under our refrigerator in towels, relocated bullfrogs that found their way into our basement via the sump pump, grew our own vegetables and my father brought home deer meat every season. My mother made her own yogurt and baby food, and did her best to support us when my father left. During the weeks that money was tight we would eat fish out of the pond, others we would have duck (although she never told us that until later in life, that would be like eating your pet). I remember walking to school and riding my bike into downtown Pickerington to pick up eggs, and milk at the Lawson’s which resided on the corner that held the only stoplight in downtown, and it wasn’t even a true stop light just a red flasher.

As the years went on, and of course I got older, my mother remarried and we were moved further out from the center of town and we were lucky it happened when it did. Not long after, many of the farm fields that my brother and I scoured for fossils and arrow heads were sold off to builders and the area was flooded with new housing. You could no longer trust your children to ride their bikes into town, or let them play freely in your front yard with out fearing they would be hit by a speeding driver.

When we decided it was time to move we were skeptical about moving out of the town we had spent so much time in. My boyfriend’s son was already in third grade and loved the schools. All of our friends were there, we knew the town, it was convenient to everything, but it just wasn’t the same. The whole attitude, of the now city, had changed. People were urban and careless. The people now are always in a hurry, they run red lights with out caution or care to the point they are installing cameras in the bigger intersections. When you walked down the aisles at the old Kroger people would look at you and smile, now in the bigger, newer store they ignored you even to the point of almost running you over they are in such a hurry.

I will never forget my first trip to the Kroger here in Pataskala. I was lost, as I normally am, and I asked one of the employees to help me out. I explained to her that we were new in town and she asked where we came from and where we bought our house. She then pointed me in the right direction and said “Welcome to Pataskala honey, you’ll love it here.” I already did.

The country attitudes and the laid back way of life I had loved growing up we found again. The schools are structured, less crowded and you don’t have people offended that the children want to have Halloween parties or Christmas parties, and as far as I can tell the school district seems to spend it’s money wisely (i.e. building onto existing buildings instead of building new ones with marble floors, automatic flushing toilets, and court yard fountains). People look you in the eye and smile, say hello or nod. The pace is slower and believe it or not people drive better. I can have a garden in my back yard and no one will care. Our son can play near the road even ride his bike around the subdivision and we don’t fear for his life. There is an underlying feeling of respect in this community, and it’s rare. With the wide spreading notion the media is pressing on society that we all have to dress the same way, buy the same things and live in big expensive houses, it’s refreshing to see people for who they are and not for what or who they are trying to be.

We may not have the pond or the menagerie of animals I grew up with but we have found our little piece of country in this fast changing world. We love the town, love the country attitudes, love the atmosphere and love the plans we have made. When I get up in the morning and watch our son walk to the bus stop and take a deep breath of fresh air, watch a deer or two stroll across our back yard, or sit on the porch and look at all the different stars we can now see, I know we made the right decision and we are where we belong. We are home.