I recently decided to turn my life upside down, chase a dream (or a calling) and head west. My destination was Arizona to research and write about the death of my cousin, Kirby Brown.  Because things in life aren’t tidy and neat and rarely happen on schedule, that trip was delayed and complicated (of course about two weeks before I was to leave and with most of my possessions packed in boxes or in storage) and will happen in a short time, but not now.
So I came home. I decided to make a life with my beautiful wonderful girlfriend, Rachel (and her two kids…12 year old Mason and 9 year old McClaryn). When I arrived, I knew this is where I belonged despite missing so many friends and family back east.
However, the journey was filled with a lot of eye opening surprises, and as you might imagine, life in Indiana for a lifelong East Coaster is quite an adjustment. Among the lessons along the way:
•  Driving through Pennsylvania is only slightly better than waterboarding. Unless you like “Radio Jesus,” 300 miles of nothing, and a distinct lack of cities, this is a 300 miles stretch you can skip. Drive around it, have someone else drive while you sleep, or suck it up and tune into Who’s Your Savior radio. Let’s be honest: If it weren’t for Pennsylvania, nobody would ever want to be in Ohio.
•  Not every small town is small enough. So I arrive here (“here,” by the way, is Northwest Indiana, about 45 minutes outside of Chicago) and I ask Rachel “So is John Mellancamp like the mayor around here?”  She immediately informs me, with nose turned up. “Oh he’s southern Indiana.” This intrigues me. Are the small towns in southern Indiana somehow even smaller than here? Does Indiana keep all its pink houses south of Indianapolis? Where the hell is club Cherry Bomb?
•  There is corn everywhere, you just can’t eat it. Now I love corn. I love talking about corn. I’m fascinated by the  digestive nature of corn. So I don’t mind that there are cornfields everywhere. My house is actually built on a former corn field. I was fascinated by the irony of a poor couple holding a sign at a street corner informing us that they would work for food. They were on the edge of giant corn field!! What I did not know is the corn grown in these giant fields are for: A. Cattle and B. to prepare to plant “edible” corn next summer. (Where that corn is grown, I don’t yet know. Supposedly at smaller farms they keep hidden). When I heard this news that ALL THIS CORN is not for me, I asked if we could plow it under and build a baseball field. I’ve always wanted to meet James Earl Jones.
•  Don’t get a blind haircut. No, I didn’t get a haircut from a blind barder. I went to the barber shop “in town” and chatted with the nice man cutting my hair (he’s been married for 46 happy years, can’t figure out what happened to the White Sox, and thinks having a colonoscopy every year is the secret to his good health. I kid you not. This haircut took 10 minutes). But I was facing the opposite way from the mirror and when he was done (no gel, never asked if I wanted the same hair style) he spun me around and lo and behold I was an Indianan. A Hoosier. I looked like a high school basketball point guard. My blond hair cut short on the sides and combed short over my forehead.  A little gel and a few days solved that issue, but sometimes you have to remember we’re not in Kansas anymore! Or the East Coast
•  I better like snow. Within three minutes of meeting me, virtually everybody has said something like “Survive one winter and see if you want to stay” or “I hope you got a garage” (I did, most houses here smartly have garages) or, my favorite: “Welcome to the Midwest. Winter starts in two weeks.” So, if you want to shop early for Chirstmas gifts for me, think sweaters, sweatshirts, slippers, blankets, and booze. (Okay, booze is always a good gift idea)
•  I don’t drive a truck. I own a Nissan Pathfinder, which while I was a Connecticut resident I referred to as “the truck.”  I’ve been informed (by a 12 year old always willing to share his opinion) “This is not a truck. It’s just an SUV.”  Trucks, I was further informed, have beds. Like pickup trucks. Now that’s a truck. He was not impressed that my “non-truck” hauled all his boxes of stuff or that my truck without a bed actually took his bed to his new home. If it carries more stuff than an ordinary car, drags shit, or hauls things, it’s a truck. Period.
I’m sure there will be more learnings. My eyes are wide open and my ears eager to hear things that are not country music and Radio Jesus. In the meantime, send good wishes and don’t touch that corn! It’s not for you!

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