Friday, March 28, 2008

Pledge drive feature—Daddy Daughter Dance

During the Spring 2008 pledge drive, WVPE listeners got a chance to hear one of last year’s most popular pieces, Jeff Nixa’s story of the Daddy Daughter Dance:

There’s a little girl over there, eleven years old, sitting alone in her new dress at the daddy daughter dance.  She looks like she’s eating her two cookies.  But she’s really watching the other girls dancing under the balloons with the men.  “May I have this dance?” I ask the girl.  She gets busy with her cookies.  “Not now, dad.”

Read the rest.

Broadcast by Michiana Chronicles on March 28, 2008
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Friday, March 21, 2008

A Green Witch

It was an ordinary day for a hospital chaplain.  I did some visiting, consoled a woman weeping in the hallway, wrote out medication vouchers for the indigent.  Then I drove out of town to a drab trailer park to do a memorial service for a young man who had died earlier in the week.  The service was held in the trailer park’s community room.  After the rowdy service of storytelling by the man’s friends and ex-girlfriends, I joined the buffet line and loaded up on Indiana soul food: Sloppy Joes, cole slaw, bright green jello, potato chips, and Pepsi in a plastic beer cup.  I was looking around for a place to sit when I noticed the striking woman with silver hair, a black velvet dress, and a necklace with a five pointed star.  She invited me to join her.

“Nice words,” she said.  “Yeah,” I said, “I get a lot of practice.  Are you friends with the family?” “Oh yes,” she said, dark eyes shining.  “The mother and I go way back.” I sipped on my Pepsi, we chatted, and at some point I said, “So what do you do?” She held up a finger and swallowed a bite of Sloppy Joe.  ‘Oh,” she said, “I’m a witch.”

Now, at this point a lot of my fellow ministry types would pray for the Lord’s protection and suddenly remember the bible study they were supposed to be at.  But I kind of like the witches I’ve met.  Women who belong to the nature-based religion called Wicca.

I met my first witch some years ago.  Not at Halloween or a satanic ritual with cats.  But in the hospital, where she was dying.  Sally was one of our employees, beloved by many of us.  But when I entered her hospital room on the oncology unit she looked nervous.  “Um, there’s something I need to tell you,” she said, “and I don’t want you to get upset or anything.” Yes?” I said.  “Well, I belong to the Wicca religion.” “Oooh,” I said, “I thought you were going to tell me my zipper was open.  Or you tie your kids up in your basement.” We laughed, and she told me all about her faith journey.  How she was raised Christian, but grew disenchanted with the double standards in American culture.  Like being raised to love her enemy, not just her neighbor, then having her country led into a preemptive war by a Christian president.  Of the disconnect between American popular faith and the environment, painful to Sally in her deep relationship with nature, her training in herbal medicine.  I learned of the Wicca moral Law of Threefold Return: that teaches whatever good or bad actions a person performs, these will return with triple force.  She even shared a prayer for healing from the well worn book of spells on her nightstand.

So back at the trailer park, I’m having a good old time with the witch I just met.  We both knew Sally, and we found out we both lived in the same neighborhood, in the inner city.  “Oh man, how about those abandoned rental houses?” I complained.  “If you’re such a good witch, why don’t you cast some spells on those absentee landlords.  Or the crime?”

“Oh I did,” she said, munching a potato chip.  “I got rid of five drug houses with spells.” Five?” I said.  “Took me a whole year of calling Code Enforcement, police, and the mayor to get one shut down.” She shrugged, and I raised my Pepsi to her.  “You go girl.”

So next time you’re complaining about your neighborhood or global warming, don’t blame witches.  The lady at the checkout or at the bank may be one.  And don’t worry about getting hexed, or the evil eye.  But you may want to take a hard look at your carbon footprint, after you’re finished with morning prayers.

Broadcast by Jeff Nixa on March 21, 2008
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Friday, March 14, 2008

Chronicling Michiana

“Jeanette, you’ve got the devil in you, big as a hog.” That’s what my paternal grandmother told me when I was a child. No fool, she saw right through that prissy little façade that my mother created for me:  a starched, ironed dress with a big, butterfly-bow at the waist in the back, Mary Janes, and those bouncing little Shirley-Temple curls. Grandmother wasn’t duped for a moment, though; she saw my core and recognized me for the pot-stirrer that I was, despite my mother’s attempts to disguise it. In today’s world, her statement would be “pooh-poohed” as damaging to my self-esteem, an undesirable self-fulfilling prophecy. Nonsense! It was a terrific thing: a license-for-life to be naughty. How lucky could a kid get—especially a girl-child from the 1950’s who was supposed to be programmed to “make nice?”

Today, much, much later, but still in my licensed, naughty, pot-stirrer persona, I wondered about the qualifications to “Chronicle Michiana.” All of we Chroniclers originally are from elsewhere. Who are we to be sitting in this seat on a rotating basis? Won’t speak for the others, but I’m from Kentuckyiana; what do I know about Michiana? True, I have been a card-carrying Hoosier for over 30 years, and my father’s family was deposited in southern Indiana with the post-diluvian silt, so maybe my roots qualify me. Or, maybe my 30+ years here have engendered “learned behaviors,” and I now know the lay of the land (flat). Or, maybe being a non-native gives me a viewpoint which provides a perspective to look at “Hoosierdom” with an unjaded eye: that famous “fresh-perspective.” Or, maybe, it’s just not that different; people are people.

In my time in Michiana, I’ve gotten to know some genuine “natives,” people who were born here and have lived here all of their lives. They seem pretty much like those of us from elsewhere, but those of us who are from elsewhere—the bulk my acquaintances—somehow aren’t totally convinced. Can’t quite say why there are these reservations, but there they are, and here are some statements that I have heard other non-natives make over the years:

 In an adaptation of the William Shakespeare/Dorothy Parker line, (There is ongoing controversy about the originator of the quote.) regarding the fast-changing, mood-swings in the weather, “What fresh hell is this?”

 “Unlike the time controversy, the tax system in Indiana is really simple. We know where we stand; we don’t pay much; we don’t get much, and we like it that way.”

 Insert you own favorite Hoosier joke here. Even a pot-stirrer such as I has better sense than to go there!

 “Maybe they could just declare the experiment of Indiana a failure and we could all go home,”

Understandably, that last one is sure to engender a surly native response of “If you don’t like it, go back where you came from.” Well, as a matter of fact, and quite surprisingly to me, I do like it. While not perfect, Michiana has a lot going for it. It’s reasonably clean, it’s fairly safe, it has many cultural opportunities, and, if you aren’t satisfied with the local offerings, genuine Metropolitan Statistical Areas—government-speak for really big cities—aren’t all that far away, and it gave me the opportunity to meet Larry: my research assistant and the great love of my life.

In his essay, “Sound,” when he speaks of radio, E. B. White says, “In radio it’s understood that whatever else happens, there must never be a silence . . .  Someone must always be speaking . . . The rule seems to be: make sense if you can, but if you can’t make sense say something anyway.” Sounds to me like my Grandmother and E. B. White dispatched this non-native, licensed-to-be-naughty, pot-stirrer to Chronicle Michiana—with or without the Shirley Temple curls.

Broadcast by Jeanette Saddler Taylor on March 14, 2008
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A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:

Joe Chaney -- The Chaney Identity / More essays by Joe

Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise

April Lidinsky -- More essays by April

Jonathan Nashel -- More essays by Jonathan

Jeff Nixa -- A Green Witch / More essays by Jeff

Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken

Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- Chronicling Michiana / More essays by Jeanette