Northfield, Minnesota

Joey Hudson, 14, US

My name is Joey Hudson and I'm a 15-year-old from the small town of Northfield, Minnesota (pop: 14,016). If you have never heard, seen, or even thought of this small town, I wouldn't be surprised.

On the other hand, if you have heard, seen, or recall the town of Northfield, that wouldn't surprise me either. Northfield first became noticed world-round as the town that killed Jesse James and his gang of outlaws during an attempted bank robbery. Northfield's second 15 minutes of fame came on an episode of Jeopardy. The answer, which is now common trivia in Northfield, was: "This former Holstein capital of the world is also the only town in the United States with two colleges and one movie theater." Northfield, Minnesota, was the question.

The most recent attempt at celebrity was when a fugitive featured on America's Most Wanted was captured here in Northfield. It so happened that this same man was on a construction crew that helped build our new garage -- kinda cool, huh?

That leads us to Northfield's future claim to fame -- me, Joey Hudson. Right now, I'm a common 15-year-old, trouble-making skater who enjoys music and Nintendo. Now's your chance to read about a common day in my life -- what I do in this tiny town to occupy my own style of nuttiness.

Little disclaimer: All the events about which you are to read are true. The names of all people involved are still the same, in order to embarrass them a lot. If what is being written about involves Joey doing something stupid, we will say someone else did it, so I seem cooler.

My day always begins with basically the same ritual -- I wake up. This rare event usually occurs around 11 or 12, and involves me sitting on my mattress for 15 minutes looking at my bed. I don't know what it is, but my bed isn't even recognizable in the morning. I fall asleep with my covers all neatly laid across me, but when I wake up, they'll either be on the floor, or wrapped around my feet, with a pillow under my butt and the pillow case over my arm. So after going over the damages and counting the fatalities in this mess, I'll stand up, throw on a shirt, and put on my hat.

Rarely do I go, or do anything, without my hat. It's not that I have a sentimental attachment to it, as much as I don't have to comb my hair when I wear it. My shirt tends to be a plain t-shirt that's like a brownish green. I don't have to usually put on shorts though -- I sleep in those. Nice, loose, baggy Levi's are my thing -- I think it's the fifth pocket. Anyway, after this, I'll go downstairs and face my family.

It's not that I don't like my family, far from it, but it's facing them first thing in the day that I dread. You see, when I sleep till 12:30, every friend I have usually calls and leaves a message, so when I see my Mom it's: "Morning Joey, you need to call Adam, Matt, Mark, Scott, Andy, Jason, and Shanessa."

"Okay, when did they call?"

"A while ago."

"Oh, that helps."

After this rigorous conversation, a boy needs his breakfast. On most days, at noon, breakfast consists of Pepsi and Nutter Butter cookies, easily the world's best. If either of these crucial food groups are missing, they can't be substituted for with say, milk and an apple. That would be like trying to substitute "The Little Mermaid" with "The Erotic Adventures Of Pinocchio, It's Not His Nose That Grows" at daycare. Breakfast is usually followed by a loud work whistle that demands blood and sweat before it is satisfied. That siren is my Dad.

"Joey!"

"Yeah, whut's up?"

"Um, Adam, Matt, Mark, Scott, Andy, Jason, and Shanessa all called."

"Mom told me."

"I want you to mow the lawn today, okay?"

"Sorry, I'm going out with Shanessa later, bye."

In case you were curious, Shanessa is my girlfriend. She's a year younger than me, and one of the coolest girls I know. She lives in Northfield with foster parents and has a pretty messed-up family. We try to hang out as much as possible, but in case you have never had to deal with foster parents, it's really different than dealing with real parents. They both like me, but they don't trust Shanessa, which makes it very hard to have her come over when my parents aren't around.

But anyway, after lying about my activites, and making about six or seven phone calls in five or six minutes, I grab my board, jump on my bike and head downtown. Washington Park wasn't much more than a playground next to City Hall a few months ago. Now, with the addition of some tar, a few ramps, and a halfpipe, it's become a skater's dream. I've got a Tom Penny Flip deck with some old trucks and wheels and new Shorty's grip tape (ignore if you don't skate). It's a good board for a decent skater like myself. Washington is a decent place to skate and everything. The stuff there gets busted up quick though, and I've had my own hand in that. Once I was doing a heel-flip off one of the ramps when I hit the side of it and ripped the whole thing off. But anyway, I'll go to Washington and meet up with a couple of the guys and we'll hang around there for awhile and skate. This is usually interrupted by breaks to go get Pepsi's or food.

Godfather's Pizza and Subway are the usual spots, and eating also involves making a huge mess. After eating and destroying, we either go skate some more or go over to someone's house, depending on whose parents aren't home. Adam's house is almost always the place to go. We'll just sit around there for awhile, watching MTV or listening to CD's or something. Then, on some days we'll stay there till six or seven, then just go home, but on rare days, two or three times a week, we go to the movies.

We don't actually go to the movies though. That's what we tell our parents we're doing. "Going to the movies" is usually teenage code for "going to McDonald's and hanging out for an hour and a half or two hours." A lot of the time we'll sit behind the movie theater and make fun of each other. If you ask my parents, I've seen Independence Day 7 or 8 times. Actually, I've seen about 20 minutes each time, and so I know the whole movie.

After the movie, I'll either go home, or sleep over at someone's house, usually Adam's. He is usually referred to as Weeks because that's his last name. Anyway, me and Weeks are best friends and just hang out all the time. Whenever we're at his house we just sit around playing Nintendo, being lazy, eating pizza, and calling girls on the phone and talking all night. Some people might say that talking to girls all night isn't being fair to the love of my life Shanessa, but it's not like that. Me and Weeks have a lot of friends that are girls, and that's all it is, nothing big.