Personal Narrative: A Place At Clear Lake

In the corner of Northeast Indiana, just five miles from the border of Ohio, and five miles from the border of Michigan, there is a small lake. This is a place where everybody knows everybody. A 20-year-old would hang out and watch the Notre Dame game with a 70-year-old. This is a place where your neighbors have been your neighbors for longer than you even remember. This is a place where everyone goes to Pizza King, for ice cream five minutes before closing. And we all stand in a long line and talk about our day. And nobody minds the line. This is a place where people come to take a break from their everyday lives. One morning when I would have usually been at the lake, I was not. I woke up to my friend Kennedy screaming, “EVA GET UP, YOU

“Wait, what did you say?” she asked. “Justin Bieber is at the lake! Clear Lake posted a picture of him wakesurfing! I think he’s staying at Kramer’s. You have to find him and you have to take a picture with him!” I said. The Kramer’s cottage is just down the shore from ours. “That explains why there were so many people at the tennis courts,” she said. About 20 houses down from my cottage, there are tennis courts. I have been going to the lake for 14 years, and I cannot remember a time where there has ever been anyone at the courts. My mom said, “There must have been 40 people crowded around the tiny courts! And our neighbor just told me it was because the Biebs was playing tennis. It was insane, Eva. Who knows maybe I’ll see him!” I groaned in jealousy. “Okay Kennedy and I are going upstairs to eat breakfast, if you see him take a picture and send it to me! I’ll text you later, love you” I said and hung

Later that day, my mom sent me a video of her, my dad, and my neighbor wakesurfing. I turned up the volume, and I could hear Justin Bieber’s song ‘Baby” blasting. They were trying to lure Justin to them. You could have heard it a mile away. It all seemed so close, but so far. I was still 200 miles away from the lake and Justin. Almost everyone at the lake has a story of seeing Justin, meeting him or even hanging out with him. Even my good lake friend, Brianna met him. It is still surreal to think that a famous singer with millions and millions of followers came to a lake 6 miles long in the corner of rural Indiana.
About a month after he visited the lake a video posted on Bieber’s YouTube channel. It was him at Clear Lake. The video shows him eating Pizza King, tubing, wakesurfing and just driving around town. It made me realize that Justin Bieber is just a person. Sure he has millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram, and his songs are on the radio, but he is not much different from you and me. Later on Twitter, Bieber said “small town living is the best.” He couldn’t have said it