City Folks Just do Things Differently Than the Rest of Us

Copyright Nov. 15 2000 Adrian Jones
Published Nov. 20, 2000, The Post-Tribune

"When Johnny comes marching home again," begins the Civil War poem, "We'll give him a hearty welcome then." And indeed, the weary soldiers trudging home this week will be ready for a hearty welcome--from the family room couch.

This week the smell of a real home-cooked meal will spread the nation from the halls of Montclair State to the shores of Trinity University. The weary soldiers, having battled mid-term exams, fraternity & sorority rush, and countless late nights in the lab, slowly return to Northwest Indiana ready to crash into the arms of their favorite bed.

Returning home they expect everything to be the same. Mom will make the same steaming cinnamon-spiced oatmeal, Dave Butterfield is still mayor of little ole Valpo--as he's been since just after we were born--, and a friendly crowd will still be found somewhere under the cloud of cigarette smoke at Denny's.

Then there are those things that have changed, if ever so slightly. Indiana Federal bank has changed its name again. The favorite stores at Southlake Mall are slightly rearranged, as if purposely to confuse us. Down at Purdue Joe has become a star on the lacrosse field. (What's lacrosse? You mean that little town, LaCrosse?)

And then there are the big unexpected surprises. You mean she is a lesbian? They got married? He became a Republican? Who is shooting heroin?

When I get on the plane home tomorrow, it will be partially to seek refuge from the incessant group projects of venture capital class and the midterms of competitive strategy class. It will also be to delay for a few days the job interviews and chronic nagging of having to decide what to do when I finally grow up and "become a real person," as my best friend says.

For me, returning home also means witnessing the changed seasons. City dwellers are remarkably unable to handle (or even notice) the change of seasons like the rugged souls of Northwest Indiana. There's good reason. In the big city, days are of three kinds: days too hot, days too cold, and days that are just right. The lattermost, the Goldilocks days, are inevitably spent locked up in the office.

Indeed, city dwellers find themselves attendant to the ills of whatever extreme of weather is prevailing, but none of the benefits. Cities have blackish slush, not powdery white snow; they have heat brownouts, not lazy days at the beach; their residents have to change their wardrobe four times a year to accommodate the few minutes a day they have reason to spend outdoors.

Few city people ever think to spend a fall afternoon cleaning out the garden; gardening is going to Crabtree & Evelyn and buying this season's aloe gardener's hand soap. Before coming to college in Philadelphia, some of my favorite days were spent building the biggest leaf pile possible. And on first day the snow fell in the woods behind my house, even the most meager snowball would suffice.

Suddenly, though, there's a grey area, a fuzziness that separates two things previously so inseparable. Both Northwest Indiana and I have changed and grown, both together and separately.

Chatting enthusiastically with old friends over warm hot cocoa, we realize suddenly we each have an additional set of bosom buddies, friends we want to introduce to each other, were they not at home in Florida, Connecticut, and Colorado, struggling to introduce us to their old friends. Although we have each been shaped by a new set of experiences and new interests, we know that Northwest Indiana is home.

For instance, pop, which I had to struggle to rechristen soda, is now once again just pop. Blissfully, few have any clue what a hoagie or cheesesteak is. Distance between two destinations here is not measured in terms of the cost of a taxi ride between them. There's no subway stop anywhere in town. And there's the freedom of having one's own car--a car that allows one to do hedonistic suburban things like driving from Barnes & Noble to Old Navy, even if they're only 200 ft apart.

As soon as the gray has faded, it's time to return to school for the final stretch till Christmas break. The soldiers, energized by mom's mashed potato with melted butter, dutifully return to battle.

Reader-Columnist Adrian Jones of Valparaiso is a senior finance and real estate dual-concentration at the University of Pennsylvania.

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