Jonel Linder's Hometown
The hometown that I consider to be my hometown is McClusky, North Dakota. This town is located in the geographical center of North Dakota. The town it’s self is about 500 people a majority of people are old and senile. The town has a grocery store, gas station, court house, mechanics shop, hardware store, hair salon, two bars and restaurants, a high school and grade school. In the summer the town has a pool you can go to and there is a lake called Hoffers Lake that offers areas for camping and a great place to go fishing. The second week of July there is a festival called Mid Summers Fest. During this festival there are live bands and beer gardens so you can drink yourself to oblivion. There are also many activates for children as well. In the park there are all sorts of different games you can play. My favorite was the Plinko game. Plinko is a large sheet of wood with nails in it. At the bottom of the board are numbers. You drop the ball from the top and pick a number at the bottom if you ball ends up on the number you win.
The town it’s self was founded in 1905 by a man named McClusky. During the mid 1960’s the government started a project for a canal that would be named the McClusky canal. At that time the town was booming. There where even more than one grocery store in the town at the time. Even as I was growing up there where still more business than there are at the current time. I guess there are some classes in High School that have as little as 4 students. I guess the town is slowly dying as people move away to find a better life. I can honestly say there is no reason to go back there other than to see a few relatives.
Another town I could call as my hometown would be Turtle Lake, ND this town is known for there turtle races. All the children go out n catch a turtle to race. In the middle of the main street there is a large circle drawn. All the turtles have numbers painted on there backs then placed in the center of the circle. The first turtle to make it out of the circle wins! All of this takes place during the Turtle Days. The Turtle Days are very similar to the McClusky Mid Summer Fest. The reason I would consider this town to be another home town is due to the fact that this is where my grandparents homesteaded in the early 1900’s. After I was born I got to live on that homestead. The house it’s self had changed very little since it was constructed a hundred years ago or more. Now the house is pretty much destroyed. It is still fun to go back to visit it once in awhile. You can almost get a feel of the past as you walk through all the old buildings.
This town is also where I went to Kindergarten, First Grade, and half of Second Grade. While I was in grade school there I had a group of friends that would ride bikes all over town. My mother would get so mad for not knowing where I was at. The town has a lot of memories for me. I would go to visit my grandmother there every summer in the Manor. One summer while visiting I got hooked up in the wrong group of kids. We found that the school door was open so we wandered around in there to in advertently find a can of silver spray paint. Well to make a long story short I was the one to get blamed for vandalism.