Everyone has an opinion about people from New Jersey. Like ‘em or hate ‘em, people from Jersey are hard to ignore. The same can’t be said for people from Indiana. They seem nice enough and unless you have a grudge with Bobby Knight or the University of Notre Dame, your opinion about the Hoosier State is probably flexible.
Several days after our wedding in 1979, we packed up and moved from the urban northeast to a city surrounded by corn…Muncie, Indiana. I had accepted a job at Ball State University and a change of scenery suited us just fine.
The move left more than a few folks back home confused though. Why would someone move away from the New York City area to Indiana? It sounded more like witness protection than a career opportunity but we had the last laugh. We paid about half price for housing compared to New Jersey and were able to travel for years while they paid their hefty mortgages.
We moved from Muncie to Munster, an Indiana suburb of Chicago for a few years and then settled in Mishawaka, a neighbor to South Bend. Our honeymoon drive to Indiana had lasted for 15 years until Allen ISD came calling.
Our friend Donna from Indiana or Michigan was visiting this past weekend. It’s an either or because she lives in Michigan but works in Indiana. Locals just call it Michiana - seriously. Anyway, the subject of Indiana came up at our graduation party and I challenged folks to tell me what they knew about Indiana.
The list of facts was rather short. We determined that they have a big car race, they used to have Bobby Knight, you drive through it to get somewhere else and no one actually knows what a Hoosier is. All four statements were accurate.
It’s easy to imagine Indiana as a big field of corn bisected with interstate highways and believe me; there is no shortage or corn or highways. Still, during my 15 years as a Hoosier, I came across some interesting facts. For example:
At the height of Michael Jackson’s fame, the state legislature moved to put the Gary, Indiana native’s image on the state license plates. The proposal never passed.
The song Indiana Wants Me was written by R. Dean Taylor, a Toronto, Ontario native. The song Back Home Again In Indiana was written by a Hoosier though – it was James Hanley of Rensselaer. Sung by Jim Nabors, the song kicks off the Indianapolis 500 race each year.
Speaking of “The 500,” did you know that the first long distance car race ever was held in 1911at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. You probably didn’t know that David Letterman was born in Indianapolis. You probably did know that he graduated from Ball State University which is affectionately called “fruit jar tech” because of its roots to the Ball family and Ball jars.
James Dean grew up a few exits north in Marion and John Mellencamp really came from a small town (Seymour).
Basketball is very big in Indiana. The largest high school gym is located in New Castle with a seating capacity of 9,325. Down the road, the Anderson “WigWam” only seats 8,995 fans.
According to www.50states.com, Indiana means, "Land of the Indians" but there are fewer than 8,000 Native Americans living in the state today.
My favorite fact is that the state seal shows a bison leaping in front of a rising sun. A former governor was once asked what the seal represented. “It means you have to get up pretty early in the morning to see any bison in Indiana,” he said.
So the next time you are passing through “The Crossroads of America,” take time to look around and enjoy the scenery. The corn is pretty good too.
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