Hick Chick

I'll be blunt — I'm from Hicksville. You might think your town qualifies as a Hicksville too, but guess what: I'm really from there.

It's true. Way up in the northwest corner of the state, less than a mile from Indiana and about 45 minutes south of Michigan, is Hicksville, Ohio, population 4,000.

And yes, it's as small as it sounds. We have three traffic lights. We have no movie theaters. We have designated horse and buggy parking for the Amish uptown. We don't even qualify as a city yet — we're still a village.

I graduated with 67 kids in my class. Most of our parents are also HHS alums and many of our grandparents are too. It's not the sort of town a lot of people make it out of, but I'm hoping that I'll be different.

Not that small town life doesn't have its perks. I knew everyone I graduated with, plus just about everyone in the three grades above and below me. A lot of my classmates and I still keep in contact, too. The whole town is like that — close and friendly. Yes, people can be gossipy and in your business at times, but all small towns are like that.

However, being from Hicksville brings a certain stereotype with it, and unfortunately a lot of it proves to be true. I'm not a farmer, but my grandpa is, along with a lot of other people in town. There's not much diversity either, unless you count the exchange students that come over every year. But I don't think we're any more redneck than any other small town people.

And don't think that just because the name is Hicksville nothing exciting ever happens there. OK, a good majority of the time we're all bored senseless, but every so often the Ku Klux Klan from Indiana marches through our downtown area. I don't know why, since a majority of us are white…but they're fun to throw eggs at.

And on nights when no one can think of a single thing to do, there's always TP-ing. Once when my friends and I were TP-ing one of our guy friends, his dad caught us and chased us down a country back road at 80 miles an hour because he thought we were vandals. Oh, the thrills.

Speaking of vandals, Hicksville has its share of course, but for some reason the Hicksville Police Department can't ever seem to find them. Our weekly paper, the News Tribune, publishes police reports on the back page and the following was one of this week's entries: "Aug. 24, 2:33 a.m. Police did not find any reported suspicious persons dressed in black and waiting in the bushes on the 100 block of W. High St." Thankfully, the police were able to locate something later that day: "1:16 p.m. Police located smashed cucumbers on Bryan and Hicks Streets. Two juveniles were located and cleaned up the mess."

Sometimes when these vandals are caught, the police really let them have it. One of my old favorites went something like this: "After being told to stop throwing snowballs at passing cars, three children were told to act their age." Now if that's not efficient law enforcement, I don't know what is. (You can actually read these yourself at http://www.hicksvillenewstribune.com .)

So that's my town. But I'm not bitter. Yeah, I have to drive a half-hour to get to the nearest mall or Taco Bell. And so what if some Hicksville people are so obsessed with farming that one guy from my high school actually got his senior picture taken with his John Deere tractor — his pride and joy. Believe it or not, I've actually enjoyed growing up "Hick." When people ask where I'm from, it's always a great conversation starter. And hey, at least I can be proud that I'm not from one of the neighboring towns — Farmer.

Kara McDonald is a junior magazine journalism major. She can be reached at km199799.