Scotdale Road
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Location/ School districts.Scotdale Road is a small "cul-de-sac" on the edge of LaGrange Park and Westchester. Since I lived on the edge of LaGrange Park my family attends Lyons Township (Public) High School which, through my experiences, was an amazing experience, one that was considerably life changing. To get to our block you can take Manheim Road North (or South) until you are in between 31st and 22nd. In between those two streets you can see the Parkholm Cemetary on one side and the Forrest Preserve on the other. Growing up and going to Saint Francis Xavier Catholic School was bit difficult for me. Its a 7 minute drive to school but I did not live close to anyone that went there, so making friends was a bit difficult. At that school everyone knew everyone but you only really made friends if you lived close to each other or were able to hang out a lot. My living on the opposite side of the school from everyone else made that pretty difficult but I was indeed able to make friends BECAUSE I was bullied. I lacked the ability to ignore people who picked on me so I made a big fuss about these kids, I had an extremely rough time. However because of this I was able to make friends with other kids who were bullied; kids who would lift me and stick up for me. These kids mainly consisting of my present two closest friends. Clint Kefer and Jacob Marzo. They didn't live close to me or even in the same town. However because of them i believe that my hometown was expanded. I not only know LaGrange Park extremely well, but also her "sister" town: Lagrange.
Bike Path/ Cemetery/Forest PreserveFor as long as I can remember there have been really amazing and really horrible times revolving around the bike path, the forest preserve or even the cemetery. When I had not learned how to ride a bike yet my sister and I would ride in this little mesh-covered compartment and my mother or father would pull us along on the bike path. Me and my sister would be looking around and laughing at things, having a good time. We would sometimes take the bike path to Brookfield Zoo where we would work on homework and have these extremely large bags of popcorn, one of my favorite snacks.
The cemetery and Forest Preserve are a bit different. As I got older my dad and I started to go airsoft with an old friend of his and his son (who's 6 months older than me). When my father was younger him and Joe were extremely close friends, so even though they live a while away we consider them family. Back to the cemetery though! My friends and I would take my dad's and my airsoft guns and would go play in the cemetary. For a while it was fine until people started to think that we were firing off real weapons and called the police... well shit! The first time the police showed up a few of my friends decided to run until I stopped them saying "if your running away while carrying an AK-47 they could most likely think its real and threaten to shoot you! We weren't really doing anything bad enough to get in trouble." So as the cops collected our "bb-guns" and asked us what we were doing on of our friends parents (along with my father) walked down to talk to the cops. As it turned out the officer there new my friends father and they had a nice time catching up. That same cop was actually interested in our weaponry and how realistic it was. He ended up trying out one and he told us to instead of doing it in the cemetery find somewhere deep in the forest preserve where we would not bother anyone (this is all "off the record" though). |
SocietalAs I was growing up in my home I had the privlige of growing up basically surrounded by my family. Across the street from me is my fathers brother, his wife and kids and next door to them (also across the street from me) was my fathers sister her husband and their kids. While growing up the oldest child with two younger sibling I also had a role model, my 4-year-older cousin David. Him and his cousin (my second cousin) Kevin used to come over to my house to hang out. When I was in middle-school I remember wrestling against both of them at one time, I hated getting beat up upon by two older teenagers at a young age but now I am glad that I was able to have a "big brother" to look up to and base my own feelings towards my little brother. At first I did the same thing to my brother that they did to me but as we all got older the respect for each other grew stronger.
Safe HavenOne thing that my mother primarily but my father supported was the Safe Haven aspect of our house. At a very young age one of my neighbors kicked out his daughter when she was 17 (I was most likely 10-12 at the time). When this happened she had no where to go, she had been my babysitter for years and she was a good friend and a nice person. She showed up one evening asking my parents for a place to stay for the night. My parents said they would do anything to help her. She ended up leaving to stay at a friends house until her situation had resolved. But it was not too long after that time that she and her parents moved out. This small gift that my parents were able to give to her, a safe place to stay when she had nowhere else, has impacted me in ways that may seem irresponsible but I consider essential. It taught me how to care for those who had the strength to ask for help when they needed it. The next time this happened was when my best friend had got into a fight with his father as well and was kicked out for the night. He ended up calling me from the back of a cop car crying and asking if he could come over and spend the night (on a Wednesday i believe). As a freshman in high school i still felt the need to run it by my mom but she said he could without a doubt. When he arrived my mother saw the cop car and was then questioned by the police on whieghter or not we would be able to support him for little. My mother handled them while I helped my friend bring his things in. As I have grown older I have implemented this kindness into my lifestyle. I consider opening your home, or giving someone a ride when they cant do it themselves is a small kindness that I believe is essential to society.
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