My Country Home
By Dana Tanner
25 Jul 2008
What city do you live in? What neighborhood?
I live just south of Harrisburg, IL in a rural community formally known as Independence Township
What are some adjectives that describe your neighborhood?
rural, scenic, peaceful, serene, home
How long have you lived there, and what brought you there?
Come September 2008 I will have lived here for 1 year, but my husband grew up here with his grandparents years ago. We have both tried to buy the property from an uncle for quite some time and are so happy he finally gave in. We truly do feel at home here. Even I feel at home here. It is almost as if I grew up here as well and I am back where I belong.
What is your favorite thing about this place? Your least favorite?
I love to be able to walk out my front door each morning to the birds chirping and the cows grazing in the pasture and each evening I enjoy the sounds of a country life. I feel a peacefulness surround me when the crickets pause their music for a lonely coyote to let out a call to his pack across the way. There is no other place I'd rather be than right here and nothing I about this wonderful place that I dislike.
Do you feel that you belong there?
I absolutely feel as if this is the place we were meant to be all along and I am so happy and proud of my little country home.
What is the most common misconception about where you live?
I have friends and even family that prefer the hustle and bustle of the city life. They prefer not to encounter the bugs and creatures of the country. I embrace the country life from the bugs to the creatures. I lay back in my lounger and take in the smells of hay and fresh grass, the sound of music from the crickets, the howls of the coyote and enjoy the peacefulness of it all without the hustle and bustle of the city with the cars zooming by or the neighbors having their daily spat. I could never live in town again. The country life means peace and serenity to me and it might to others as well if they would just slow down, sit down and take it all in.
What is a special fact about your city that you have to live there to know?
Harrisburg, IL is the Gateway to the Shawnee National Forest, home of Garden of the Gods and actually considered God's Country by most locals.
What aspect of your city do you secretly love?
Many complain about our little town being behind the times from everywhere else and only good as a retirement community. While this may be so to an extent as the job market isn't very plentiful here we are a community that bands together when needed. As recent floods ravaged our little town and many were left homeless and with no government help our community banned together to help those affected by donating clothing, housing, food, and furniture. We are still a community that greets its neighbors and passersby on the street, despite how times have changed other cities and towns around us. Our kids are friends with the kids of our old school friends and the closeness of our little community is what I love most.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I grew up in Southern Illinois and have been here all my life except for a short time after high school when I thought I could move on to bigger and better things by getting out of this behind the times little community, but I soon began to miss the peacefulness and friendliness of my old hometown and returned. Now that I am home and have my little piece of Heaven in the country I can't imagine being anywhere else.
