I used to think nothing exciting ever happened in my town. Everyone is upper middle class, lives in a four bedroom house built after 2005, and drives an Escalade or a Lexus. Everyone thinks their kid is going to be in the NFL, or going to be a college star at Penn State, no matter the sport. We Are! There is no other school besides Penn State.

 

That is until their kid gets cut from the seventh grade baseball team, and a forty five year old in Lulu Lemon pants, lip injections, and a Chanel cross body reams out the athletic director on a Tuesday afternoon. I know someone who did this. They held Michael back in eighth grade so he would be the biggest one on his team in high school. They wanted to ensure a travesty like getting cut from the seventh grade baseball team would never happen again. Not in Garnet Valley, not to her son. He never was even offered any scholarships. High school sports are everything to these people. College sports are the goal. The pros are the dream. Everyone’s kid is going to the pros. It wasn’t until graduation that I realized just how little I wanted to be like them. I don’t want to be like people who don’t know that the world is beyond Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania.

 

We do live in an actual valley. It’s named after the now abandoned garnet mines that lie under Wegman’s parking lots and high end gyms. Garnet Mine Road runs through the middle of the town. The mines were active from 1879 until 1912. They had an okay run.

I used to think nothing exciting ever happened in Garnet Valley. That is until the superintendent had sex with three teachers, and reporters were waiting outside during gym class, trying to take advantage of curious sophomores and their inconclusive information.

 

And then a lacrosse star was killed half a mile from his house. Texting and driving on a residential road he drove down every day to get to practice. The speed limit was 35, he was going 60. The girl he t-boned sat across from me in English. She still carries the guilt, even though it wasn’t her fault. His family cried. His team cried. Everyone cried. Even those who didn’t know him cried. They cried because it was the first time that they realized we are not invincible. For the first time, they became aware that the bubble we grew up in was penetrable.

 

And then a boy in my grade was killed two months later. He didn’t have many friends. He was notorious for being a drunk and a stoner. He had a bad temper. I used to watch him bully sixth graders from my locker. One night he walked along the highway after drinking a case of Four Lokos, and thought the eighteen wheeler would see him. It didn’t. Some cried, but not like they cried for the lacrosse star. That’s when I realized people don’t cry for stoners like they cry for wasted scholarships.

 

Garnet Valley was a fine place to grow up; safe, friendly, and normal, but I swore that after college I would never end up in this cliche of a place. To raise a family, maybe, but not to be remembered.

 

I used to think nothing ever happened in my cliche, but then a well known gym teacher’s daughter was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We all rallied for Brielle, preparing to make her final year or two as influential and positive as possible. There were fundraisers and rallies, and ceremonies at football games.

And while his dying toddler danced on the sidelines, the gym teacher was sleeping with a middle schooler.

Eventually, we all found out. The mom’s cried, the dad’s rallied in rage. He sent her messages on Twitter, one’s that eventually showed up on the news. “You are a very sexy lady”, is what the forty year old with a pregnant wife and dying daughter sent to the fourteen year old, before they had sex in his locked office after softball practice. It was consensual, but only for those who knew the meaning of the word. It was love in false pretenses. Love for the girl who didn’t know what it was like to be touched under safe circumstances. Love for the girl who felt wanted by the forty year old with a dying daughter. An eighth grader and a gym teacher who was only released from jail only so he could attend his daughter’s funeral.

 

I used to think nothing ever happened on my street. That is until my best friend’s car was broken into because someone had no other way to get drug money besides her paycheck from Texas Roadhouse. Or when I awoke on a Sunday morning to the news that my neighbor had been robbed. They ripped him naked out of the shower and duct taped him to a chair. I was scared, but only for about a week. Then I went back to my bubble.

 

I live in a historic house. I moved there when I was in fourth grade. It was built in 1687. I’m sure lots has happened in my house, I just don’t know that I want to know about it. People have lived and died in my house, over and over again. There’s definitely ghosts, I’ve heard them: toilets flushing while I’m home alone, or blenders going off when they aren’t even plugged in. You follow the sounds to only find dead silence. Nothing.

The realtor told me chickens were raised in my bedroom in the winter time for about a hundred years. I’m just glad it didn’t stain the hardwood.

 

There’s a grist mill a mile away, and the remnants of a paper mill a quarter mile away. Thomas Willcox founded the paper mill, and his great-great-great-something grandson lives next door to us. He doesn’t like my dad.

 

Everyone likes my dad. Everyone.

 

Thomas Willcox and Elizabeth Cole Willcox married in Wilmington, Delaware in 1729. They were the start of a whole bunch of Willcox’s now scattered around the country, but a few stayed close to home. Literally. Their mansion still stands 300 yards from his great-something’s farm.

The great something who doesn’t like my dad.

 

I live on Ivy Mills Road, where the ivy has taken over the last of the four walls still standing of the old mill. Thomas Willcox built a mill and sold his first piece of paper in 1729. It was the first paper mill in the United States. It was a two day trek from Philadelphia, but there was no where else Benjamin Franklin could get his printing paper. So he was known to frequently make the journey. Ben and Thomas were good friends. If they were still alive they would probably get beers at Hooters on Friday nights. Benjamin Franklin. Down the road from my house.

 

I asked my sister if she knew that the Ivy Mills Paper Mill and Willcox Mansion were considered a national historic district. She said, “No”, and then went back to making coffee. Her bubble was closed.

 

Nothing ever happens here, in Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania, or on Ivy Mills Road. At least nothing unusual.

Except once in awhile, Ben Franklin stops by.