Home Away From Home - Carlos Uruchurtu

Home away from home

To the Editor:

St. Johnsbury, Vermont. What a beautiful place to live and commune, conveniently located in the beautiful state of Vermont, a good, natural state. From my point of view, having lived all my life in Mexico City, it was a radical change in scenery. For the first time I was actually seeing community at work.

When I first heard of the town of 'Saint Johnsbury' I was expecting it to be a town full of rush hour, smog and commerce, more like my neighborhood back home where everything is always busy and full of grime.

When I arrived in St Johnsbury three years ago, I found my predictions to be erroneous; St. J. did not look like the "images" from my imagination. I was dumbfounded when I saw this place. It was a small, traditional little town with just a few stores like a 'Rite Aid' and a 'Caplan's'. The first thing I asked my parents when they dropped me off in school was, "What am I going to do here?" My dad simply responded, "What isn't there to do here?" Over and over, I found myself questioning what that meant. After a few weeks of being here, I missed my house, my family, my car. But over time I got used to the idea that I needed to meet people rather than sit in my room playing computer games.