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
Community • Media & Technology • Permalink • Printer Friendly
Google
WWW Michiana Chronicles