Dear Perham: What Growing Up In A Small Midwestern Town Taught Me.

Childhood was a dream.

I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood. I ate ice cream for dinner and had Build-a-Bear playdates with my friends. I biked to the neighbor boys with my brother always to have them run away from me and make me be the seeker in hide-n- seek just so they could scare the living daylights out of me. And how could I forget all of the times he and the boys would lock me out of the tree house that was marked “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” and sling shot acorns at me…I painted my nails crazy colors and ate watermelon with salt with my mom on the deck during the hot summers. I raked leaf piles with my dad and plunged into the mountain of leaves and laughed until my ribs hurt.

I raised baby turtles with the neighbor girl and made cardboard castles to play in. I climbed the sunflowers that my mom grew in her garden (Yes, I climbed them) and picked raspberries every day until I was sick. Snow days meant my mom would call in from work and we would go play outside and make snow forts and snowmen and then sit at the dining table with a big mug of hot chocolate with a pile of marshmallows on top. I got my driver’s license at 16 and I drove a "shitty" black, Ford, F150 until I graduated from high school. I got so much shit for driving that thing, but I can’t help but laugh and smile that that was my car. I went to school k-12 with all of the same people and I could name off every single individual that walked across the stage to grab their diploma and what their plans were (Maybe that’s a slight stretch from the truth, but honestly, not by much).

I grew up on the lake. Little McDonald Lake, just 12 minutes out of Perham. My family and I lived in our lake. We swam in it, we skied on it, we tubed on it, we cannon-balled into it, we had picnics in the boat on it. We ice skated on it, we drove on it, we fished in it and we took good care of it. The lake was my childhood. My parents had to beg and sometimes drag us out of the water. It’s where all my friends came to play and where all of our relatives wanted to be during the summers. My brother created crazy things like wakeboard jumps, bike jumps (Which went down the steps to the lake and onto the dock. Mom and Dad did not approve to say the least.) and a rope swing that all the neighbor kids used. I was fortunate enough to walk outside my back door and have the ability to do all of these things with ease. My parents still talk about the couple that lived in our house before us. They were divorced and selling the house for just a little over $100,000. Incredible deal…and it came with a second lot next door and a lot across the street. With that price, came some fixing up to do though. I always wondered how in the world people could enjoy their summer if they didn’t have access to water when they wanted it.

Childhood is so magical. I feel so nostalgic writing about mine. It feels like I could go on and on about how wonderful mine was and how much I would like to go back to it. It was so simple, and I wouldn’t trade it for anyone else’s. I think about all of the things that I didn’t understand back then. About how those things that I didn’t understand were actually things that were messy, and serious and scary. We just worried about what ice cream flavor we were going to order and whether or not our teachers would pair us up with our best friends for projects.

There are no secrets.

Having secrets in a small town is like seeing a unicorn. Impossible. (Did that even make sense? I don’t know). Even harder being a high schooler with a secret in a small town. It’s like there are tiny microphones and cameras everywhere. You can’t hide because people’s circles are so big. Everyone is connected to someone who is connected to someone. People know where you live, who your parents are and what your parents do. They know what car you drive and where you are at all times. I knew about breakups before the significant other even knew, I knew about the affair with the town’s head football coach and who got suspended from sports teams for drinking or doing drugs. People are always watching, and they are always listening. I tried keeping a boy a secret. Well several boys that I talked. By the next day noon, though, it was the talk of the entire school. Sometimes it’s like gossip is all small towns have for entertainment.

You’ve got an entire town invested in your life.

It was hard to leave the house and not run into 20+ people that you knew in Perham. Sometimes I loved it and sometimes I just wanted to go buy ice cream with my hair a mess and a cozy ugly outfit without seeing somebody I knew. There is something about the communities in small towns that are appealing, though. Everyone is working towards improving the community and creating equal opportunities for everyone. The wealthy contribute heavily to fundraising, education and the bricks and mortar of the town as well. I felt as though from the time I was born into the city from the time I left for college, the whole community was invested in me and wanted to see me succeed. Patients that my parents worked with knew me and would ask how I was. What my plans were for the future. Customers at the coffee shops I worked at would build relationships with me and invest in me. Authority figures in town even knew me well and asked about my life. I don’t think many city folk can say that they knew each of their school principals, superintendents, fellow doctors, pastors, business owners and county commissioners on a personal level. That part of living in a small town made it special. People want to see you thrive and they will see to it.

Diversity is hard to come by, but when it’s there, you learn from it.

The first diverse person I knew and friend that I made was in kindergarten. My teacher took off leave to adopt a son across the country. (At the time I didn’t realize this, I just thought she was having a baby!) His name was Leo and Leo was black. I know not a lot of us remember our time in kindergarten, but I do remember not thinking anything different of Leo. He was the same as me; a kid.

Perham is probably occupied by 90% whites. Growing up I really hated this. Almost everyone was white, republican, straight and had no ability to be think diversely and be open minded. People were skeptical of the others. Which sucked. As I grew up and got into high school, Perham was a little more diverse, I think, but not by much. My junior year of high school I sat next to a girl who was Muslim. It would be a lie of me to say I didn’t question her or stereotype her. Horrible I know, but all that I had been taught in school was that Muslims were mostly bad and everything that circulated in the news about them was bad too. I hadn’t heard many positive things about them. She wore the most beautiful outfits and I adored her. I wanted to ask her a million questions. I wanted to learn from her. She lived in town apartments with her mom, dad and siblings. Her mother could not speak English and her dad worked as a line worker. She and her siblings walked to school every day as they only had one car. She prayed multiple times a day during school and loved to draw. I wanted to ask her things like “What’s it like to go to school here?”, “Do people treat you well here?”, “Are you ever scared here?”. I got to be kind of good friends with her and I am so grateful that I took the time to get to know her. I think she was grateful too.

So, I moved from Perham, Minnesota to college at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. And WOW…was that a culture ~shock~. I knew it was coming, I just didn’t realize how big it would be. I met people from all over the world, with all different backgrounds, physical features and mindsets. I even took a sociology course which I got to hear a variety of perspectives on society and how it treats each of them. I’ve been living in Minneapolis this summer and I got to experience George Floyd’s effect on not only Minneapolis but the entire country. I am started to become more educated and it is fulfilling. I felt ashamed a little bit to be so sheltered from all of these people, but I was going to learn, and I still am learning.

On another note of diversity, sexuality in Perham was hidden. Two of my childhood friends were very quiet about their sexuality until they graduated from high school. Those who had different sexual orientations in Perham, kept very quiet about them. People were very quick to judge, and most were very close-minded. One of those friends, Anna, was someone who would visit her grandparents during the summer on the lake, She always wanted to swim, ride her bike, go fishing, and play video games. The older we got, the more I realized how much of a tom boy she was and that we did not like the same things quite as much. Eventually she stopped coming to the lake and instead started hanging out with a girlfriend, and then she turned into he. I never really understood the idea of transitioning into a different gender, and at first, I really didn’t want to understand. It made sense though for him, all of our childhood he was more into masculine activities, and he dressed more masculine and kept his hair more masculine. We don’t talk anymore, but I take the time to read his posts on social media about transitioning and I am very accepting of his choices. He is happier this way and it was probably something that had been nudging at him his whole life, and I can't image what that must feel like.

We hate the city people coming to our lakes, but…

Perham is a city that thrives on tourists. In the winters, it’s barren…and we tend to stay inside cuddled by the fire, and there’s not a whole lot going on. But, in the summers, it’s hella busy. Every weekend hundreds of tourists come to Perham and they eat at all our favorite restaurants, they make traffic, and they take up space, and they take over the lakes like they own the place. Well, we hate it. I hate it. But…you keep our city standing and in business. So, I have a love/hate relationship for you city people. You can only wish you lived on a lake year-round.

Life can be simple, and that is ok.

Living in the middle of nowhere can be boring, or simple as I will put it. We don’t get fake ID’s in high school and go “downtown” to bars, we don’t have concerts in huge stadiums, no professional sports to go to at our leisure, no limos for prom or fancy venues. No crazy party plans on the weekends, no prom king and queen and no huge class sizes. I could go on and on about how boring living in a small town can be, I could also go on and on about how much better is it. Now that I’ve grown up some and have lived in Minneapolis for a few years, I have come to appreciate how “simple” or "boring" can be a good thing in life. I thoroughly enjoy coming home on the weekends to my house where it’s quiet and just my family. I can leave my phone in my room and forget about it for the day and not feel obligated to check it all the time. I can wear my pajamas all day and have no plans, and I can drive 10 minutes to the store to buy ice-cream going through one single stop light.