A Town Called Prairie

it all began with a sight
And ended with Stage fright
But all things could never last
Within the June grass

Chapter One: Prairie, Kansas and the Stories That Inhabit It          

When I was little, I never really had that many friends. I had friends, but none I really connected to. My birthday parties were just me and my family, sometimes one of the girls from school, but never a huge slumber party like most of the other girls from school did. I was the quiet one, the one with an assumed genius because of my introversive nature. I was small, so people thought I was defenseless, they thought I would grow out of it, but most gave up after 6th grade year. People would always know me as the small lonely smart quiet girl from Hillside elementary. The one who would grow up to be like anyone else, nothing spectacular.
         But the one thing that no one knew about me was that I have a real knack for proving people wrong, despite the costs of doing so.
         So on the first day of high school, I did the supposedly ‘unthinkable’ for the people in my town:
         I auditioned for a play.

         I’ve lived in the small town of Prairie, Kansas my whole life, it’s a town of a scant 200 people, all who are catholic, and all who attend church every Sunday. There’s one school that is on a hill called Hillside School but is divided into two parts, high school and elementary. Most if not all of the residents attended Hillside, and graduated, but with every year, a quarter of the graduates moved away. The population keeps getting smaller, the town shrinking and the school dwindling on staying open. Most of the jobs are in the next town over, George’s Creek and some of the kids are starting to go to school in George’s Creek, a half hour away. Some of the older residents are fearful that everyone will move away and leave the town to the elements.
         My grandparents are some of those people, born and raised in Prairie, never been to George’s Creek, and refuse to do so. The house they live in has been around for 100 years, built by the original settlers, my grandpa’s grandfather and his church. My grandma came with her family when she was around 8, my grandpa was the same age, and when they got married a few years later, they had my dad.
My mom was from George’s Creek and was part of a family that moved a lot, she had been all over the country and the world because her dad was in the military. When he retired, they moved to George’s Creek. My mom met my dad when she visited Prairie with a few friends to go cow tipping. My grandpa told my dad to sit out n the field with a shotgun and shoot whoever it was that was tipping over his cows at night. But when my dad saw my mom tipping over my grandpa’s prize cow, it was supposedly love at first sight through a viewfinder. My dad didn’t shoot my mom, but instead ran over and told them to run off before my grandpa woke up and shot them for real. When they were all gone, my dad shot 4 shots into the air and my grandpa never asked him to sit outside to guard the cows at night.
A few days later, my mom came back, but not to tip cows. My dad was walking home from the store my grandparents owned and my mom gave him a ride home. She thanked him for not shooting her for tipping the cows and asked if they could talk sometime.
When my dad told my grandpa he was dating a girl from George’s creek, my grandpa was furious. He actually tossed my dad out of the house for a week so he could ‘think things through’. My dad didn’t forget my mom; he actually stayed on the couch in her living room for the week he was kicked out of the house. When my dad came back to my grandpa, he told him flat out that they were getting married and showed him the ring he was going to give my mom, the engagement ring my grandma got from my grandpa. He was even more furious that he would dare to do such a thing and kicked him out of the house for another week.
However, when my dad came back, he walked through the front door with my mom and showed him the ring on her hand with three words “Told you so”.
They moved across the street from my grandparents and got married in the town church. Half the church was the farmers of our town and the other half was the business people of George’s Creek. My parents told me it was quite the wedding, with my grandpa objecting to the whole business and being carried out by the sheriffs from George’s Creek and Prairie, and the reception that is now known as ‘the Macarena Block Party’ after the whole town made an attempt to break the most people doing the Macarena in one place at the same time record. They didn’t break the record, but every year on that same day is jokingly called ‘Macarena Day’.
Two years after they get married, they had me. I was named after my grandma, who died the day I was born, and ever since then, my dad tells me that I am just like her, with my jet black hair and ‘caring eyes.’ I’ve heard a lot of stories about my grandma, how she was the towns nurse for anything from a cold to a broken bone. Sometimes she was even the town counselor; most people said she could solve any problem with a few words and a simple solution. I guess that’s what they expected to see from me, but all they got was silence.