Jenison, MI

This is the place where I graduated high school from and where I met Andy. And we were in band of all things. :-)

Jenison, Michigan is not so much a city, but a business district within Georgetown Towhship, 15 minutes west of Grand Rapids, Michigan. the district proper is actually just a small triangle of land on which rests a post office, and two shopping plazas, dominated by a Target and McDonalds.

The rest of "Jenison" may lie in Georgetown, but it may actually be a sub-division of limbo.Maps can be very confusing things. What is certain is the presence of the quasi-township in the Guiness Book of World Records. Or at least one of the streets. Baldwin Avenue is listed as having the highest concentration of churches per-via in the world.

It can be argued that these churches make up one of Jenison's two chief exports. Religion is the favorite pastime of the residents. There are well over 60 oficially registered churches on the street (although some are merely internet churches). Many are small store-front affairs, sharing building space with local orthodontists and Little Ceasars Pizza Parlors. Most are variations of the Christian Reformedchurch (or as non-members sometimes call them, "a bunch of uppity Dutch Christian Conservatives").

The other export of this tiny hamlet is the local high school marching band, a cult unto itself which commands the allegiance of a huge portion of the teenage population of the townlet.

Sadly, since Jenison is fully landlocked between the big city and corn fields, and virtually all available land within its limits is already developed, expansion is impossible. This is not a major concern for residents however, due to local belief of the village's invincibility. The legend, kept alive by the youth of Jenison and Carl Jautakis, runs thusly: Jenison is a bubbletown. To most this means a safe little place isolated from all its neighbors, where life is boring for the youth, but is still the kind of place that later, in their adulthood, they all admit is perfect for bringing up children and they can't imagine for the life of them why in the world they ever tried so very hard to get away from.