Fairbury

When I left Fairbury in May, 1996, I didn't even look back at it in the rearview mirror. I was ready to get out of there and was glad to leave it behind. In the more than 20 years since, I've realized that, while I wasn't cut out to live in a small town in Nebraska, parts of that experience contributed a lot to my teaching career. The smallness was sometimes isolating, but it gave me a great chance to learn what kind of teacher I wanted to be. The successes and failures were 100% mine. When I start to get overwhelmed by group work and social media, I even miss it *a little.*

One of my current coworkers is from the area around Fairbury and we had talked off and on about visiting there. On a beautiful fall weekend (between play practice and Nebraska football), we headed down to see a few of my old haunts. It was a fun trip. The girls loved that they got Arby's for lunch (how is it that I've lived almost next door to Arby's for so many years and never eaten there?) and I enjoyed getting to talk for over two hours with a friend. The house I lived in looks exactly the same. The more we drove around, the more I remembered of the town. As small as it was, I don't think I really went a lot of places in town. (In my defense, I was a first year teacher.) The absolute highlight for the girls was an amazing playground in the City Park. It was like nothing we've ever seen. Elsa and Anna felt like they were living American Ninja Warriors.

It's a buffalo!