Boomtown

We were back in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin for the Christmas weekend. We stayed with my brother Paul and his lovely family. Paul and Heidi moved back to Appleton a little less than two years ago and their home has become the center of family activity for my clan; as most readers of this feature know, my parents are both deceased and the six of us children try to get together at least once each year. We spent most of the time doing family things, including the orgy of present opening that the various children of our clan put on in my brother’s living room, but I want to talk a little bit today about Appleton itself.

When I was growing up, it often seemed like the larger world didn’t have a lot of effect on Appleton. While there have always been people of wit and sophistication in Appleton, it was a typically Midwestern town, more prosperous than many because its major industry, paper making, is essentially recession proof. It was a comforting place to grow up, but I always was quite eager to get out of there as soon as I could. Like many sons of a small town, I saw a big ol’ world out there and I was eager to swim in a bigger pond.

When you enter the city limits of Appleton, the sign tells you that over 72,000 people live there now. That number is deceptive, though – Appleton and the surrounding towns that comprise the Fox Cities are now home to over a half million people. As you swing around the highways on the outskirts of town, the signage of nearly every major retailer is easy to spot. The main streets are filled with small businesses, office parks and sturdy manufacturing plants. The well-kept houses, once confined to small lots in an area about four miles square, now spread out far into Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago Counties. New highways criss-cross the area, and old highways now have new names. Places that were corn fields less than five years ago are now covered with development of all sorts.

I have lived in a major metropolitan area for most of my adult life now. Jill and I are raising our family in the comfortable suburbs of the Twin Cities. I love where I live and am happy we are here, but when I go back home it becomes increasingly clear that the big ol’ world I sought is now available in the town I left some 25 years ago.