Things I've Learned While in High School

#1: No matter how old you are, you're still a child at heart. You still have that little streak of immaturity: you still get a little jealous when you see your best friend hanging out with someone else, you still laugh when the ketchup bottle "farts", and you still get a kick out of sucking the helium from balloons. You go to Wal-Mart with your friends and make a beeline for the toys and the candy, you sport T-shirts that display your favorite childhood cartoon characters, and I'm willing to bet that we've all eaten a Fruit Roll-Up within the past year. When you see a sprinkler watering a lawn, you have the urge to run through it. You got a Slip N' Slide for your 18th birthday party. You still get excited over sparklers and snappers on the Fourth of July. There's just something about a particularly bright flower that makes you want to pick it and tuck it behind your ear. You were first in line to see The Lion King 3-D. You still like to twirl around in flowy skirts and slide across wooden floors in your socks.  There's nothing that tastes better to you than an ice cream cone in the summer or a cup of hot cocoa after a snowball fight.  You love amusement parks, from the roller coasters all the way down to the bumper cars and everything in between.  Last time you bought Band-Aids, they were the Spongebob kind, because those just make it hurt less.  You miss the days of falling asleep on the couch and waking up in your bed.  Sometimes you still need a night-light and your stuffed Pikachu to cuddle up with.  You often think that life was so much simpler back when the opposite sex still had 'cooties' and all you needed was your mommy and a best friend to make your life complete.  Sometimes you wish that you could throw away your calculus homework and 'count the apples' again.  Sometimes you wish that you could have stayed a child forever.  You gain knowledge, when you grow up, of the world around you.  You learn of love, pain, death, and war, and a your innocence flies away like that balloon that you lost at the fair when you were little.  I don't know about everyone else, but I've managed to hang onto a precious little bit of that innocence, just enough to remember what it was like back when life was still simple, and I don't ever plan on letting go.   

R.I.P. West Liberty...

...or at least the West Liberty I'll always remember.  There's not a doubt in my mind that we will rebuild, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that it will never, ever be the same.  We've lost so many historic landmarks to the EF-3 tornado that ripped through on Friday, March 2nd, that the appearance of the town will be changed forever.      

Main Street.

                                                                 Commercial Bank.

 Methodist Church.

Christian Church.

 Courthouse.

Freezer Fresh.