Small towns are something special

Editor’s note: This column is being reprinted from Feb. 16, 2005. Jack loved telling stories about his exploits at Hoosier State Press Association events over the years. But far more than that, as you’ll read here, he loved his hometown.

I was lost.

Coming home from a state press association conference in Indianapolis, I’d avoided the tried-and-true route home.

And I’d gotten lost.

Part of that was intentional, I guess. It’s always fun to take a more leisurely approach to what can become a routine trip. Over the years, I’ve often found myself going to Indy via interstates and coming home via county roads.

But this time I was lost.

My first mistake was to wonder how much Carmel had been transformed since the last time I passed through. The answer was that it had changed enough I didn’t recognize the place.

Moving north from the I-465 loop, I found myself in unfamiliar territory and figured I’d have to rely upon the old go-north-a-bit then go-east-a-bit method of working my way back to Jay County.

I guess I expected the clutter and sprawl of the greater metropolitan Indianapolis area.

What I hadn’t counted on was the sameness of it all.

Beige subdivision after beige subdivision filled the landscape. Every retail outlet was a national chain. I could have been in the middle of Indiana or the middle of Iowa or the middle of a dozen other states for that matter.

Character, that overlooked something which gives the best small towns a unique feel all their own, was nowhere to be found.

Instead, there were overpriced cookie-cutter houses and bloated McMansions.

All of them carried pricetags that would choke any Jay County homebuyer; we’re all accustomed to getting plenty of house for the money. But folks were paying for location, location, location; Carmel and Fishers are apparently where they want to be.

Heading east, feeling my way through a part of Hamilton County that I used to know well 35 years ago, I found myself muttering under my breath, “You couldn’t pay me enough to live here.”

Too much traffic. Too much sprawl. Too much ugliness. Too much sameness. And too darned many people.

I looked down the street of yet another beige subdivision as I drove past. In every driveway sat either a mini-van or an SUV. I wondered if people occasionally found themselves walking up to the wrong front door; they all looked so much alike.

Years ago, back in college, I remember talking with friends who had grown up in the suburbs. They loved it.

It never occurred to them that they were missing something.

And when I told them about growing up in a small town, where every house on the block looked different, where bankers and truck drivers lived across the street from one another, where I knew kids from virtually every social and economic background, they looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

That’s OK.

They saw it their way. I saw it mine.

Guess I’m still crazy after all these years.