What I Learned as a Patch Intern

Time flies.

Sometime around midnight in mid-June, I drove into Norwood not quite knowing where I was heading. It was dark, obviously, and I was afraid of crashing the car into the partition on Route 1. 

My phone was my GPS and whoops — there goes my street.

I was driving around Norwood completely lost. I didn’t know what to expect driving around that night just like I wasn’t able to predict what the next 10 weeks of interning with Patch would bring.

The term “selectmen” was added to my vocabulary. Coffeehouse concerts were fun to watch. Whirlwind trips across New England were a blast. An hours-long 4th of July parade with everyone in town to watch brought a new perspective about patriotism in this country when we sometimes doubt our future.

I never lived in “small-town America,” if you consider Norwood as such. I do. 

As I’ve been telling my editors, friends and family: Norwood feels like a true community. From a journalistic standpoint, I would never think that a tiny concert on the Common would matter to people. Nor would a farmers market. But it does. 

This job has taught me that people demand information about the world around them, sometimes more locally than not. This information brings people closer together.

Rallying around those who need it the most, such as Kevin Morrison, is a example of such neighborly love. While larger cities experience this, there’s something different about a smaller town linking arms and supporting a cause.

I have a better understanding and apprecation of this now.

To be honest, I had some perceived stereotypes of New Englanders floating in my mind before arriving and living here — they would be snobby to those who never lived here for more than a few decades. And you know what?

Only the drivers fit each of those descriptions. But that’s another article.

But for now, I leave Norwood while taking on new challenges. This fall, I’ll be a junior at Michigan State University and Deputy Managing Editor at The State News — my college paper.

Who knows what comes after that, the set of challenges next year and beyond. One can only do the best they can to overcome any obstacle. Interning at Patch in Norwood adds another level of readiness.

Although I’ll still write articles for one more week, I wanted to say “goodbye,” and “thank you.”

Thank you for welcoming a stranger from the Mitten into your town and your home.

I wrote several stories for Patch this summer, and I hope you all learned something new. One story I’ll remember most vividly is a personal one about Norwood. Thanks.

One more thing... let's keep in touch! Follow me on Twitter @akrietz.