Ten things I love about Grand Ledge . . .

1. As you walk through the produce section at the Felpausch, from time to time you hear thunder. It happens just before the produce is automatically misted so you know to get out of the way and avoid the shower.
2. At the Sun Theater when the $2 movie doesn't start quite on time and when the sound stops working part way through and they have to stop to re-thread the film, nobody freaks out.
3. The blind man who stops at the Lickety Split ice cream stand and talks with you while you lick your ice cream really fast to keep it from melting down your arm on hot summer nights.
4. When you're waiting in your car at the Saginaw Highway and Hartel Road stoplight with the windows down you can hear music playing from the grocery store parking lot speakers.
5. When you show up to bring your son to the first practice for Grand Ledge Area Youth Football, there are literally hundreds of parents in lawn chairs watching their kids run through drills.
   
6. Several times a year there is a parade that winds down bridge street and across the Grand River as American flags wave and Police officers and Fire fighters toss candy to children.
7. On Friday nights in the fall the Comet Marching Band marches from the band room to the football field and the drum line plays "Grand Ledge Series 96." Then, when the band reaches the home bleachers, they break into the fight song as the band parents lean over the back of the bleachers to catch a glimpse of their kids.
8. Grand Ledge is exactly half-way between South Lansing Christian Church and my best friend Fred and his wife Mariah's house.
9. As I look out my kitchen window I see a groundhog walking from the neighbor's barn to the pond and hear the fountain splashing and the bullfrogs croaking.
   
10. Buying Michigan sweet cherries at the Meijer and spitting the pits out as my son and I walk across the parking back lot to our subdivision.