There is no doubt that Geneva is a fantastic place, but from time to time I think everyone forgets how great our town is—that is, until something reminds us.

Even I sometimes find myself being reminded of how lucky I am to have grown up here without ever realizing I need to be reminded! My reminder came Monday morning from several sources.

The first source came after logging into my Facebook account and finding I had been tagged in several pictures from over the weekend. Nervous that the pictures were from my 21^st birthday over the weekend, I cautiously clicked on the notification. To my delight, the pictures were not from the inside of Old Towne but rather of me and my niece.

Now, normally a picture of me and my niece would be enough to put a great big smile on my face, but this particular picture put an extra-big smile on my face. It was of me and my niece sitting in our usual spot in front of U.S. Bank watching the Swedish Days parade. My sister added the caption, “The Swedish Days tradition continues.”

Continuing the tradition of Swedish Days to the next generation of our family is something I had never really thought about, but when I do, it’s something that reminds me what Geneva is all about. We are about history as well as progress, tradition as well as trying new things. We are about the people. (When I say “we,” I mean the family that is Geneva’s citizens.)

My second reminder came this morning during one of my many daily checks of Geneva Patch. I saw that a certain opinion writer decided to tell all of Geneva’s citizens how they can make Geneva better. After reading I realized it was simply an article about things that annoy him, and it was merely him venting through any public forum he can find.

For starters, I agree Trader Joe's is a fantastic place, but it is located in BATAVIA, so it has nothing to do with how citizens can make Geneva a better place. I also agree that people on cell phones can be annoying, but let's not forget that while the majority of us like to use Third Street as a nice place to walk and get some ice cream and relax after dinner, some people actually do business on Third Street.

And not only shop owners are doing business—Let's not forget the various professional practices that are on Third Street, including lawyers and brokers. All of these people doing business are inevitably going to need to use their cell phones, frankly, I'd rather have them walking around our downtown doing business than one of our neighboring cities.

While reading this article was very annoying for MANY reasons, it caused me to think about why it was annoying to me. This thinking was a great reminder of why Geneva is such a great place.

While I have called Geneva a great place many a time in this article, I believe there is always room for improvement. If we all want to really make Geneva a better place, let's keep doing what we are doing. Let's stay involved in our town, or get involved if you aren’t already, no matter your age.

Let's remind each other of what our great city is all about. Let's keep Geneva a great place to live in and do everything we can to make Geneva the best city in the country.