During finals week, many students spent time packing pounds of luggage away in their suitcases. They then had to wait in a security line for hours before they could board a plane and begin their way home. However, I didn’t indulge in those prizes. I didn’t pack, and by pack I mean grab two handfuls of clothes and carry them to the car, until after my parents had arrived at PA. It’s true that I lost no sleep over packing, but the trade-off was that I was going home, to the proverbial boonies. Some may argue that the western-most reaches of Massachusetts are not in fact, the boonies. Clearly, you have not been to the town of Hadley. I mean, yes, there are other areas in this world that could also qualify for being “the boonies.” If there was a store that sold Hadley souvenirs, the postcards being sold would read something like: “Hadley, that strip of farmland, kind of close to UMASS Amherst.” Despite where my home is, I am always happy to return for a good home cooked meal. Like all PA students, I enjoy a break from Commons’ delicacies. Many of my fellow students enjoy plates decorated with various leaves, colorful centerpieces and expensive entrees. Personally, my mother’s cooking is what I look forward to. She is always prepared to serve up whatever unidentifiable mass of road kill my father has hit driving his tractor home from work, and frankly, she does a great job. My father works both on our farm and on our neighbor’s. He needs to compensate for my mother, who doesn’t work because she occupies her time parenting my thirteen siblings, cooking for them, and washing their clothes, which is work enough. After we have eaten our dinner, both my mother and father turn their attention to protecting our lands. To do this, my mother arms herself with a bell and my father with a pellet gun. They have organized a system where my mother rings the bell to alert my father that she has spotted a tresspasser on our property. My father then fires at the man to scare him off. Living on the frontier is tough, but my parents take it in stride ,as their parents and grandparents have been doing for years. At first, it was rough for my hall mates living alongside me at Andover because instinctively I tried to ward people off from my room, as my ancestors did at home. So I guess what I’m saying is, sorry guys for the rocks and other hard and/or sharp objects you may have been subjected to upon entering my room. I’ve already told about my family, so now I’d like to tell about my time with my only friend, over spring break. Our nearest neighbors live merely ten miles from our property, over the hills and through the woods. I visit their only son whenever I am home. He is a nice kid, although he is mute. However, he needs no speech to be a great person and a true motivator. His actions speak louder than any words I’ve ever heard. Whenever I visit him we engage ourselves in shooting things and blowing stuff up. These activities have never failed to inspire me over the years. Every time I visit him, I take a brief trip back in time and realize that my source of inspiration to apply to PA came from him. I dreamt that maybe one day I could shoot things and blow stuff up on a larger scale, with bigger explosions. Only a few years ago I realized that through PA I could land a job where I could achieve my dream: president of the United States of America. These dreams were inspired by my time with my mute friend. For the record, I would have had more friends, but they live many miles away.
