A Small Town Named Colp

A Small Town Named Colp

DaZhion Baker, Staff

When I was a younger kid I lived with my grandparents in a small town slightly west of Herrin named Colp. I loved this town. All my friends lived by me and played every day. Everybody got along it was amazing.

The only thing that ruined this was that my grandparents would argue a lot, but it was never very serious. The arguments were so unserious that a 9-year-old child could stop them.

It was like a cycle they’d start arguing, and my grandma would threaten to move out or move back home to where her family was, MV.

One day after school my friend and I got off the bus filled with excitement because we were going to ride our bikes and play like we always did. We lived so close that I could see my house from his. We planned on going in to eat and then coming out to play 30 minutes later.

As he goes into his house I start towards mine. I saw a truck in front of my house but I didn’t recognize it. As I got closer I still couldn’t determine whose large truck this was.

 Once I finally get close enough to my house I see the truck is a UHaul.

 I soon discovered that my grandmother was actually moving out. I ran into the house to try to stop my grandma, but they were arguing and not listening to anything I was saying. I ran to my bathroom and shut the door my grandpa entered after me. He hugged me and told me to be strong for him.

But I still didn’t want to go, so I cried and begged some more. All my grandma said was let’s go. The “ride took about 45 minutes I cried every minute of the way because I didn’t want to leave my papa alone. 

We arrived at the new house a small house on 23rd and Herbert, which was not what I was used to. At my old house, we had extra rooms and lots of space. At this new house, I didn’t have room for anything.

Shortly after I went to register for school at JL Buford from where I moved, things were a lot different, There were more kids of my color. 

At JL Buford, there were fights every day and kids using curse words to put each other down. After about a month I adapted, to it but not the right way I started to act out in class and get in trouble a lot. I started to be friends with kids who were troublemakers and didn’t make good grades and that started to reflect on me. I thought acting out and getting into trouble would get me back to Colp but that wasn’t the case.

After more and more months passed, my grandpa would make frequent trips to MV to be with us still and I would make trips down to Colp to see my friends and even revisit my old school. Things have been like this all up to my senior year of high school. 

Now we own four houses and I use the one in Colp as vacation and I can drive my 2013 Dodge Avenger that my grandma saved for me down to my old stomping grounds and see my friends anytime.