How it feels being from the part of Illinois that isn’t Chicago

It seems like the majority of people I’ve met in college are from some huge city, in my case mostly Chicago. When most people think of Illinois they think of Chicago, some might reference UIUC or the Fighting Illini, but usually at least second to Chicago. This article is about my hometown, but also gives a glimpse into the life everyone from Illinois that doesn’t call Chicago home.

I grew up in a town of 400 residents, probably less than that now, it was called Hume, Illinois. Hume like most other small towns throughout the state of Illinois is surrounded by corn, and I really mean surrounded; my backyard was lined with corn, my high school (Shiloh High School) was surrounded by corn, and anywhere you drove within a 30-mile radius was SURROUNDED by corn. People were ridiculously outnumbered by corn. The only skyscraper we had was a corn elevator.

Hume corn elevator (our skyscraper), taken by Nancy Reed

It can be a boring place

When you grow up in such a small town you really have to be creative as a kid to find something to do. There’s no movie theatres, no venues for local music, there weren’t any restaurants at the time, and to top it all off there’s not even a gas station for 10 miles.

Up until I was 16, my life was all about sports, fishing, Xbox, or somehow finding a way to be entertained by all the corn; which mostly meant plowing it over with a go-cart or four-wheeler.

Hume Tractor in the Hume parade, photo from the Edgar County Historical Society

High school cliques were a lot smaller

Being at school wasn’t much different, as you can only imagine what kind of budget a school with graduating classes of 25 students maximum was like. We had no air conditioning, no fancy school lunches were served, and your math teacher stayed the same from 7th grade to graduation; hopefully you stayed on their good side. Having only 12 or so girls in each class didn’t allow for too many girlfriends either and gossip only had to reach ten feet before the whole school knew your deepest darkest secrets.

With all that, it really wasn’t too bad.

You know everyone, and everyone is your friend

We never had tryouts for sports teams; everyone had a place somewhere. Friends remained friends from preschool to graduation, whether you wanted them to or not “slim pickens.” Even though this might have been the case, these friends are probably still the closest, truest friends you’ll ever have. By the end of the year, you knew everyone’s first name, probably most of their last names too, especially if they were the same age as you.

It was pretty peaceful

Violence was never an issue. At school we never needed a security guard, there were occasional locker searches or fights that got out of hand, but that was maybe twice a school year. We could get away with things that kids in bigger cities would never be allowed to do. We could fish without fishing licenses, explore deep into the country with only worrying about running out of gas, and be real kids that experienced nature and real life on our own.

Maybe even the best part, we could have keggers with bonfires out in the middle of nowhere without ever having to worry about the police showing up… mainly because we had one, maybe two police officers per town at max and someone’s dad usually knew him well enough to get us off the hook if he actually showed up; at worst they would just ask for a beer.

It taught me a lot about life

Growing up in a small town really taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. It taught me about true friendship, hard times and how to get through them, being family with more than just your relatives, how to survive on my own, how to make fun out of nothing, how to be loyal, how to make an adventure out of gas and a set of wheels, and so much more.

These lessons I hope one day to teach my kids, look back on in remembrance with all my lifelong friends, and more importantly keeping these lessons and memories with me no matter where I go or who I become.

So here’s to Hume, Illinois. Hopefully, it never disappears and continues to serve as that little, boring town that allows kids to get away with things no other kids can get away with.