Baraga, 1,000 Miles Away

There is a lot to say for a small town. There is a sense of community that can’t be found in a big city. Part of it starts with a small weekly newspaper, the L’Anse Sentinel. People from home subscribe to it across the country after they move away. I don’t hear of many people subscribing to the Detroit Free Press after moving away. It’s close knit, it keeps you feeling at home.

I’m still convinced that I’m the luckiest guy in the country to be able to set out on this project, and it’s only right that I come from a small town with about 1,300 people. Since I’ve left home I’ve heard from people I haven’t heard from in years. I’ve talked to people I had never talked to before. I found out that there are people all over the country who grew up back in Baraga.

Because of this trip I got to stay with Jim and his family in Casper; Jim grew up in L’Anse. I got to hang out with my best friend from high school in Helena. I’ve heard from Christina in San Francisco who is a few years older than me. I’ve heard from Dana and Gina who I used to have crushes on when I was in 6th grade and they were in 10th or 11th grade, they now live in Texas. I heard from Mindy who I haven’t talked to or seen since she graduated, she’s also in Texas. I heard from David in Florida who graduated four years before me. I heard from a family in Pittsburgh who grew up in Baraga. Tonight I’m staying with Debbye who graduated from Baraga high school in 1984.

I’m over a thousand miles from home and I get to talk about home with others who grew up there, I get to eat a pastie, have Volworths hot dogs, read the L’Anse Sentinel, look at pictures of Lake Superior, and have a connection to home where I never thought I would. It’s one more pretty cool thing that I never expected on this trip. It’s full of the unexpected and there is more to come.