New.

Another year, another new blog site.

http://sarahgroneck.blogspot.com.

Famous.

The journalistic tables were turned on me yesterday.

My boss and some my co-workers hosted the groundbreaking ceremony for the newest apartment complex at Dordt. They planned the ceremony at just the right moment during the day--at 1:00 PM, the only time that the sun actually peeked out from a barage of thunderstorms--and invited Kelsey and me to come.

I had originally wanted to go to the ceremony anyway. The journalist in me hates missing on-campus events, if only to keep up-to-date with what is going on.

So we marched over to the green space that has previously been the home field to the lacrosse and intramural frisbee teams. A crowd had already gathered, so we stood with some friends and watched as the shovels were distributed and words were spoken.

Afterward when Joel, Megan, and I were talking, a reporter from the local radio station came up to us. He had talked to Joel earlier about potentially interviewing a Dordt student about the groundbreaking.

"Would any of you guys be interested in being interviewed about living in East Campus?" asked the radio reporter.

"Uh, sure," I said slowly. I looked back and forth at Joel and Megan, who didn't seem too keen on the notion of being interviewed. I figured they'd come around once the interview started.

"Why not," I reiterated.

He smiled at me. "Okay. I gotta go talk to some people over there, but then I'll be back to talk with you."

In the meantime, a big group of us students walked over to the Campus Center to veg on some chocolate chip cookies and lemonade. We talked with Jaclyn for a while--she was working the info desk--when the reporter appeared again.

"Joel, you ready?" I asked as he came toward us.

The reporter overheard what I'd said. "You're the girl that I want to interview," he said pointedly.

Uh, what? I thought. This was supposed to be a group venture, not a single-out-Sarah thing.

As I stood there trying to think of what to say, I was reminded of the summer before when I interned as a news reporter for my home newspaper the Alton Telegraph. On a daily basis, I did exactly what this reporter was doing to me: put people on the spot and asked them pressing questions. I tried to get around the PR-sounding quotes to get to the real underlying story. By writing three or four stories a day, I got pretty good at schmoozing and interviewing.

But as the reporter asked me questions, I found myself becoming a reporter's worst nightmare. I said all the same blasé lines that I had hated to hear as a reporter. I waxed poetic a couple of times, looking more on the optomistic side of East Campus than admitting that there had been a lot of mold in the buildings.

"I'm really excited that my sisters will be able to live in the new building," I said. It is a true statement, but I'm also disappointed that I won't be able to live in the new building. I stuttered and said "like" at least sixty times during the entirety of the interview.

"I can't believe you didn't completely shoot down East Campus!" said one friend afterward. "If he'd asked me, I would have told him that those buildings are crap."

The people I interviewed always wanted to know when they would be in the newspaper. "It's a bit like being famous," most of my interviewees would say. And it's true; your words are read or heard by potentially thousands of people when you're interviewed. However, with that comes a lot of pressure to tell the truth.

I never really gave those I interviewed enough credit. And after hearing myself on the radio this morning, slightly stuttering and admitting that East Campus can "strain even the closest of friendships"--the best line I gave that reporter--I have a newfound respect for all those former interviewees of mine.

Redneck.

Today at coffee break, a couple of my co-workers were perusing the "Peach"--the Sioux Center version of the coupon-filled 'Shopper.' On the back page was the headline "TRACTOR PULL EXTRAVAGANZA!" or something to that effect. Nancy explained to me that this was a national tractor pull convention that was on a circuit to travel around the country. I've never been to a tractor pull, but I voiced the opinion that it sounded rather back-country. Barb also laughed at the idea that someone would pay $10 to go to such an event.

That got us onto the discussion of being redneck. "I'd never live in Kentucky," said one person. "If you want to meet Joe Dirt, well, he lives there."

They went on to list other states--Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi--as being some of the hick locales in the U.S. One woman said that West Virginia is filled with people who have intermarried. She brought up an Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt that had a picture of West Virginia on the front of it with the words "It's all relative" printed within the state border. A&F pulled the shirt off the shelves soon after. But, according to my co-worker, a friend of hers from West Virginia claims that this t-shirt holds the truth.

'Whenever someone comes into the hospital, we ask for their last name' is what my West Virginia friend told me," said my co-worker. "That lets them know whether or not there is a history of cleft palate, hemophilia, and other inbred diseases."

By the end of the conversation, I was just a little bit irritated. Sure, stereotypes often arise from some truth, but this conversation was on the verge of blanket-stereotyping entire states.

My uncle lives in Arkansas, for instance; Little Rock is much more of a cultured community than I've seen in most states. I've been to Alabama and have enjoyed staying in Birmingham, Montgomerey; there are beautiful mansions, Civil War museums, and art museums down there as well. My dad is currently working in northern Kentucky, and my family says that the community there is where most of the well-off of Cincinnatti, Ohio live. Mississippi is the poorest state in the United States, sure. But didn't William Faulkner come from that state? And there are other writers, celebrities, and the like that originated from there.

I know nothing of West Virginia--Elijah, what's your thoughts on that stereotype?--but I do know that, as an outsider to the Dutch community, I found it a little strange when they played Dutch bingo to see if they're related. I've heard horror stories of Dutch guys and girls dating, falling in love, and even getting engaged only to find that they're related. In-breeding could happen just as easily here as it could anywhere, I'd say.

I don't really live in the South, but I can tell you one thing: the South has its perks. People are pretty friendly and caring down there, which is sometimes more than can be said for Northerners. Gorgeous countryside and forests, especially around the Appalachian Mountains.

There's stereotypes about Iowa, too. Most of my friends and family from home asked me why in the world I'd want to go to Iowa for college. "Idiots Out Wandering Around" was frequently thrown at me.

"Are you going to become a child of the corn? What do you do for fun up there, watch the soybeans grow?" people snickered.

The same with stereotypes on Northerners. My friends and family would say that the snow never melted there; that I'd develop a habit of speaking out of my nose as if I had a perpetual cold; that I would be as cold-hearted, frank, and bitter as those people up North.

But I've found that the people really aren't so rude as they thought, that the snow does melt (in mid-April....), and that I do speak out of my nose when I say words like "no" or "yeah," but I'm fine with that.

It seems that most people stereotype one another, and apparently that includes me. I get frustrated when others stereotype, yet I laugh at tractor-pullers for being backwoods. Most of the time it's just for jokes and good fun, but there are times when people can get offended.

For example, I think being called "Homeschool" is funny now, but a few years ago I might have been a bit insecure about it. Does that mean that those who are offended by stereotypes are insecure? Are those who abide by and laugh at stereotypes ignorant? I'm not sure.

At any rate, I'm an amalgamation of stereotypes: northern drawl with a southern personality. English nerd, former homeschool kid. And, to most Saint Louis people, an Illinois outcast.

That's right, tractor-pullers. I just stereotyped myself. Hope that makes you feel better.

To Do.

Write shorter, easier-to-read blogs that do not resemble novels but instead resemble...blogs.

Learn how to scuba dive.

Learn how to fly-fish.

Go swimming in a swimming pool in Sioux Center late at night. You know what I'm talking about.

Figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Take the GRE. Pick a graduate school. Apply to said graduate school.

That is all. For now.

Creatures of the Woodsy Deep.

With the great outdoors comes the eminent presence of crawling creatures. The Ozarks apparently grows ‘em to be plentiful and big, or at least that is what we have found thus far.

Within the first hour of arriving at the Tree House, Em and I uncovered the biggest spider we’d ever seen outside of the zoo. It was big, black, and hairy; Mom—who was standing above on our deck—mistook it for a frog because it was so massive. The spider had all its baby spiders attached to its back, and we could see their little bug eyes staring up at us in fear as we moved a stick closer and closer to the arachnid. Eventually, after having been provoked enough, the spider fled for its life.

That wasn’t the end of our animal encounters. No matter how air-conditioned or clean a cabin is, there will always be a nest of critters buried away in some cranny, just waiting to be uncovered.

We had unpacked our suitcases, coolers, bags, and snorkel gear, had eaten supper, and had settled into a cozy night of reading when we heard a snap. I ignored it, but I heard Rachel sit up from the sofa below and tip-toe into the kitchen.
“What was that?” she said. I was at a key part in Picoult’s The Pact—they had just arrested Chris for first-degree murder—when I heard Rachel yell and run up the stairs.

“I think it’s a mouse!” she said. “It’s making noise under the sink.”

Yeah right, I thought. Over-exaggeration.

“A mouse? Where?” said Em excitedly as she sat up in bed. Then I heard it too: a squeaking noise, followed by the echo of something dragging across the inside of the cabinet.

Sure enough, when I bolted down the stairs and opened the cabinet, I saw a mouse dragging a mousetrap. Its little foot was stuck, and it was trying to wriggle free.
Em ran to wake Dad, who had been sleeping for a good while. He stumbled into the kitchen with Em trailing wide-eyed behind him. The three of us girls stood and watched Dad stare at the inside of the cabinet, probably trying to formulate his plan.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” Em asked pleadingly, not exactly pleased to see a cuddly creature in pain.

“I’m trying to wake up,” he said patiently, rubbing his head. “Hold on.”

He grabbed a bucket, I grabbed a broom, and we managed to sweep the petrified mouse out of its hiding place. Dad and Em took that frozen rodent outside where, according to Dad, it shot straight into the woods.

Snakes are an entirely different matter. Rachel, out of all of us, dislikes them the most. Dad calls it a heightened awareness of snakes. I call it a strong aversion.

“They’re creepy,” she said. “And they slither. They just want to come after me, I’m sure of it.”

She’s been avoiding snakes this entire trip. She counted three snake sightings on our kayak trip down the river. She especially disliked the one that stared at her as she paddled down, its little tongue flicking out between its lips (do snakes have lips?). So far, though, no snake has dared attack Rachel.

We were hiking up to Inspiration Point via the Twisted Ankle trail, a path on the edge of the River of Life Farm. The owners had told us that the path was only ¾ a mile up the hill, a hill which ended up having a steeper incline than we had originally expected. That meant that we took more rest breaks than this impatient hiker could bear. By the time someone suggested that we sit on a bench only two minutes after our third break, I decided to go along on my own.

I walked up to the edge of a switchback, which curved and went up an even steeper section of the hill. I was looking down at my tennis shoes—watching my step—when I tripped. And there, right in front of me, was a dark grey snake, sticking its long black tongue out and shaking its tail.

“Whoa!” I yelled. I panicked, stumbled backwards, and almost fell down the steep hill. As I’d seen it, I had two choices: step on the snake and get bitten, or roll down the hill and scrape up my legs. Fortunately, there was a sapling right beside me, so I grabbed it instead and dug my shoes into the ground. Then I hoisted myself back up to the path.

“Rachel, don’t come up here!” I called down.

By the time I recovered my balance, I found that the snake looked just about as scared of me as I was of it. It was moving its tail back and forth to freak me out, I figured. Dad rushed up behind me and immediately determined that the slithery thing wasn’t poisonous. I tried moving it out of the way with a stick, but Dad—with all of his outdoor know-how—was more successful. He tucked the stick under the serpent and—to Em’s dismay—threw it a little ways down in the woods.

Our more recent animal run-in has been a bit tamer. Wildlife isn’t the only breed of animal found out here, it seems.

When I woke up from a nap this evening, I found that Em and Dad had made another friend: Bo, a big black Labrador retriever with a slobbery mouth, a half-sawed tooth, and a terrible smell. He and Em had quickly developed a relationship of sorts, while the rest of the family watched.

“He just wandered up onto the deck,” said Mom. “He was in the river, and then he saw me looking down at him and must have thought that was an invitation to come up.”

Bo panted and came toward me. I patted his head, got a good whiff of him, and told him nicely to go away. He returned to Em, the true animal lover of the family who didn’t mind petting his rump and even occasionally detaching a tick or two from his body. Em had Rachel take twenty pictures of her with the black dog, which will probably serve as future reminders that he once invaded our porch.

The dog was not the smartest pup. I started making barking noises at one point and he looked off into the distance, thinking it was one of his canine friends calling to him from afar. Even the slobbery look on his face read unintelligent.

But there was something endearing about that big black ball of fur—up to a point, that is.

I went back into the house to grab a banana during the evening. When I came outside chomping on it, he put his rump down on the ground and started meacing. I laughed at him but threw him a bit of banana anyway. In one motion, I watched the banana go into his mouth and fall onto the ground. Then he walked over to Em, instinctively afraid that I would berate him for wasting a perfectly good piece of banana.

It is three hours later, and Bo is still sitting on our porch. We don’t know where his owners are, but I guess that doesn’t matter. For the time being, he’s keeping all the more foreign critters out of the house.

Maybe we should teach him how to ward off spiders, snakes, and mice too, just as a precaution.

Tree House.

My family does not camp. Lots of spiders and mosquitoes, plenty of grime, no available kitchen facilities, memories of sopping-wet tents in the middle of a rainstorm...my sisters and I could give plenty of reasons why camping has not been a favored pastime in our family.

Instead, we rent cabins. And these aren’t the rustic cabins you find in the backwoods; they are spotless, air-conditioned cabins with all the necessary amenities—comfortable beds, microwave, great view of the river— to keep us city kids content.

(DISCLAIMER: I actually do like camping. I went last summer in southern Alberta with Monique, and we had a great time. I just don’t like camping down here in the South simply because humidity gives me terrible migraines. Horrible excuse, I know. But what can you do.)

This cabin, dubbed the Tree House, really does resemble a tree house. It stands on stilts and is made entirely of wood. You have to walk up 25 steps to get to the deck, and the first thing you see once you get there are three water hickory tree trunks sticking right out of the deck. The next thing you’ll notice is that the river is rushing right beneath the house and that it is crystal clear. I can see the dark green moss and little jumping fish from up here on the deck.

When we first walked onto this deck, my parents, sisters, and I also gawked at the view.

“Gorgeous,” Mom said.

What made it even more breathtaking was when a bald eagle dipped down across the water. I’m not making this up. We were looking out across the river when Em and I heard Mom gasp. At that moment, a bald eagle flew down across the center of the river and landed in a nearby tree. Mom said that the cabin owners must have planned it for our benefit. I was inclined to agree; the eagle’s timing couldn’t have been better.

The cabin itself is spotless and has a spacious loft where my sisters and I will sleep, but nothing compares to that deck and its view. Already I’ve stared out at it, romanticizing about sitting in a wicker chair as the sun goes down, watching the river drift by, and reading my latest Joyce Carol Oates novel, all while drinking a sumptuous glass of Chardonnay.

All of this could move from dream to reality in the next three days, except that—even after six months of being “legal”—I still feel awkward drinking any form of alcohol around my parents, and I’m pretty sure that the feeling is mutual.

We all threw our swimsuits on and ran to the water. The first step in was bitterly cold and the current was moving fast, but I quickly adjusted to the temperature change. The river bottom was covered in slick big rocks that were separated by thin red cracks.

To walk against the current, I used the skills I learned in HPER: Swimming; put all effort and might into walking, and swivel your body around to keep from toppling over. It worked for a while, and my mom and I ended up farther upstream looking at the thick green moss on the edge of the river.

Meanwhile, a couple of canoers on the side of the river weren’t keeping track of their canoe. Mom and I watched as it slowly began to head down toward the center of the stream. I started “running”—more like frantically splashing and flailing my arms around—toward the canoe in an attempt to save it.

I made it halfway through when I slipped. By then, the canoe’s owner was rushing out to grab it, shouting “oh no! Shit!” I landed on my bottom in the river, slicing up the side of my hand and almost having a Janet Jackson-like wardrobe malfunction in my bikini. I braced myself as I slammed against another rock in the water.

The guy could get his own canoe, I decided. And he did.

“Thanks for trying to help!” he called as he grabbed the rope from the front of his canoe. My heroic moment of the day hadn’t exactly panned out. Even Rachel and Emily were downstream, laughing at me. Admittedly, it hadn’t been the smoothest save on my part.

Mom said that we should probably just float back down to our cabin. I stood up awkwardly, made sure that my hand wasn’t bleeding too bad, and— after checking to make sure my swimsuit was alright this time—let the current slide me and my water shoes across the rocks.

At the risk of sounding like I’ve lived in Northwest Iowa for the last thirty-eight months, I found that sliding across the slippery rocks in the river was a lot like walking on ice without skates. You have to watch your step, but if you crouch down and try to remain still, the current will take you downstream.

We’ll probably do more swimming and deck-gazing tonight and tomorrow morning. But, once 10:00 AM rolls around, we’re catching a bus that will take us to the start of our 12-mile kayaking trek. It’s no 20-mile trip like we had two years ago, but I’m willing to settle with this. I’m sure my slightly cut-up hand will thank me for it.

Lasts.

Today was supposed to be a day of lasts. Last time to wake up to pitch-black and silence in my queen-sized bed in the basement, last time to stumble up the stairs and look out at that faded bluebird house in our front yard, last time to sit down at the kitchen table and eat two of Mom's homemade blueberry-banana muffins. It was the last full day I'd spend in Illinois, since my parents are moving to near Cincinatti, Ohio by the end of the summer.

Waking up this morning, I thought I could mull around the house, the vegetable garden, the flower garden, and the woods, all for nostalgia's sake and for the fact that I'd spent the last fifteen years of my life at this house.

How wrong I was.

As we were walking out the door to church, my mom accidentally dropped her phone straight into my German shepherd's water bowl. I watched the whole thing take place: Mom was clasping her pink phone with her index finger and her pinky because she didn't have a pocket to put it in and her nail polish was still drying.

She was saying goodbye to my dad when the phone slipped out of her grasp and fell right into the only water-filled container--outside of our lake--within ten acres.

It wasn't Mom's fault, of course. But the little pink phone died immediately and, since we were going to be gone for the rest of the week, Dad decided that we had to go get her a new phone in the afternoon.

I didn't think much about it at the time. Rachel, Mom, and I went to church and listened to Robbie Grigg's sermon. We headed to nursery duty afterward and organized a quick Veggie Tale-themed dance party with 2-year-olds Micah, Andrew, William, and Audrey. We then hit up the Art Museum for a fast perusal of the Ansel Adams photography of Yosemite Valley. We stuffed our faces at the House of India. By then it was going on 2:30, and I really wanted to make the 45-minute trek home to take a nap.

Instead, we ended up in Wood River, Illinois at a Sprint store. Of all the places I didn't want to be on my day of lasts, Wood River was at the top of the list. The town consists of an oil refinery that resembles Mordor of Lord of the Rings fame, a few boarded-up gas stations and grocery stores, rows of tiny, box-shaped houses, and a herd of glowing, radioactive deer that roam the streets.

It smells like oil, coal, and factories. Needless to say, I'm not a fan.

Right when we pulled into the parking lot, I wanted to hijack my Mom's CRV and speed my way home. And I would have, had I not been honest enough to my mom to let her know that I had left my driver's license at home.

I envisioned myself standing in the Sprint store for the next two hours, watching some overly peppy salesperson try to sell my parents the most expensive model in the place. That was not what I wanted to do on my day of lasts.

Once Mom put the CRV into park, I basically leapt out of the car and started speed-walking down to the road. I was heading straight for the gargantuan Super Walmart on the other side of the road; I was not interested all in gazing at phones for an hour.

It was appalling to find that there were no sidewalks and that I had to walk right beside the gutter.

(Statistics show that Saint Louis is one of the more obese and under-exercised cities in the United States. Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because people are petrified of getting hit by oncoming traffic?)

I cringed as big semi-trucks roared past and an SUV almost grazed me. However, I managed to make it in one piece through two lights and up the long, winding road to the biggest Walmart I've ever been in.

What a great day to have left my cell phone and my purse at home. I mostly just walked up and down the aisles, looking at flashy discount clothes and dishware to pass the time. I looked at the price of a 12-cup coffee maker, made fish faces at the fish aquarium, and wished that I had brought my purse when I found a pair of wine goblets on sale.

The entire time, I was making a mental list of all the things I could have been doing at home. Going through my two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and downsizing, picking green beans in my garden, taking a nap, reading my book...

I started the trek back across the highway when Rachel met up with me in the CRV.

"Thought I'd come find you," she said.

Ironic how she was driving the car without a license even though Mom said that neither of us should. Rachel and I ended up parking the car in the Sprint parking lot, listening to music on the radio, and talking to pass the time.

What was meant to be my day of lasts ended up being just another day in the River Bend area. I don't know why I expected more out of it; just because I've lived here for so long doesn't mean that I get to have an entire day dedicated to a royal goodbye.

Mom and Dad ended up with the two most high-tech cell phones of all five of us. I ended up cleaning out my chest of drawers and throwing away three bags' full of paper. None of us got a nap, but at least it made for a memorable last day.