Illinois.
Illinois was the land of my elementary and middle school years. When I think of Carol Stream, I can almost smell my elementary school -- a comfy, musty combo of crayons and scratchy brown paper towels. The school had little, artificially created green hills in front presumably to add a little interest to the pancake flat Midwest landscape.
I remember church potlucks on our First Baptist Church's lawn. ("Don't eat the potato salad. The mayo has been out in the sun all afternoon. You'll get sick.") I remember playing capture the flag on the lawn and getting purple stains on my feet from berries dropped by a tree.
I remember playing kickball in my cul-de-sac in the summer. In the winter, snowplows pushed all the snow on our street into huge piles at the end of the cul-de-sac; perfect construction material for the most amazing forts. When discarded Christmas trees went out on the curb in January, we "planted" them way up high on the snow forts as if they were Neil Armstrong's flag on the moon.
Compared to the other three places I've lived, there wasn't as much beauty, diversity, or things to do -- but the people. I loved the people.
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