Indiana, Take Me In

People will sometimes ask me where I might want to end up living eventually. These people are usually my peers, and I believe their curiosity, which I share, comes from a newfound realization that some of the plans we made might need a little tweaking. We live in places in chunks of two and three years, and we puzzle over where we will end up on a more or less permanent basis. So when I am asked, I give an honest answer: “Indianapolis.”

People will almost invariably laugh at this. They think I’m kidding. They think it’s absurd. And I, for an irrational moment of defensiveness, think that they are assholes. Here’s the thing: I have lived on both coasts, in the south (very briefly), and in the middle. One thing I have noticed is that though each coasts believes it is better than the other, they come together in mutual agreement that they are both superior to the middle. People in California in particular tend to think of the Midwest as more of a theory than an actual place—as in, the place you fly over when you’re going to New York. When I was in high school in Berkeley, a girl in the class above me asked me once, in all seriousness: “You’re from Chicago, right? Do you know my friend Anna?”

Oh yeah. Anna from Chicago. She lived two doors down from me.

(Pause while a small piece of my soul dies.)

The coastal condescension reminds me of the phenomenon in which Harvard and Princeton disagree as to which is the best but can at least agree that they are both better than Dartmouth. As an alumna of both the Midwest in general and Dartmouth in particular, I can attest to the outright fallacy of the claims of the Snooties—both regional and collegiate.

I have no problem with people being loyal to the cities and regions of their upbringing—I think that’s only natural. I take issue, however, when loyalty becomes disdain for other places. Sports rivalries, I will grant you, inhabit a different theoretical space, but the fact that many people I know, honest to God friends of mine, are willing to discount a place they have never even been is downright annoying.

I grew up in suburban Illinois, but both sets of my grandparents lived in a small town in Indiana, about an hour northwest of Indianapolis. My parents were high school sweethearts, and before that they were childhood neighbors: they grew up across the street from one another. As a result, both sets of my grandparents were localized in one square block of Crawfordsville, IN, and I emerged from childhood with strong connections to both Illinois and Indiana.

In some cases, my loyalties between the states are a bit mixed: the Bulls of the mid 1990s are sacrosanct, and so is Walter Peyton. After the genuflection to Sweetness, however, my allegiance leaves the Bears entirely and heads to Indie: I firmly believe Peyton Manning is a demigod, and I live and die by his right arm. The best pizza in the known universe is made by Pizza King Pizza, serving central Indiana since 1958. The best hot dog in the world, though, comes from the Chicago recipe: mustard, cucumber, tomato wedges, celery salt, pickle spear, and chopped onions on a poppy seed bun. God help you if you even think about bringing ketchup anywhere near it.

Fortunately there are enough regional characteristics to eventually overcome my being an Illinois/Indiana crossbreed to make me simply, proudly Midwestern:

Any beverage that is sweet, carbonated, and comes from a bottle or can is called pop. If you were to order any of the following items from any fair, you would not be met with blank stares as you would anywhere else: black cow, brown cow, elephant ear, Turtle Sundae. (For the record, I have tried to do a patch job on the sacred Turtle Sundae out east, but walnuts do not replace pecans. Epic fail.) Sprinkles are called sprinkles and milkshakes are called milkshakes—because that’s what they are. Halloween costumes must be roomy enough to cover a snowsuit. Ears of corn are purchased by the dozen in roadside shacks—the grubbier the better—and traffic delays caused by tractors and freight cars are simply a part of life.

During my senior year of college, I interviewed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which is (in my opinion) the crown jewel of the most underrated, visionary museums in the US. It is set on 100 acres of land grant in the city and is home to historical houses, botanical gardens, outdoor installations, and a new state-of-the-art museum facility. The director, the magnificent Max Anderson, is nothing short of a badass, whose staff would follow him off a cliff in a heartbeat. I spent the most remarkable day in the IMA, at the invitation of the director, touring the departments, meeting staff and curators, and looking at art. At the end of the afternoon, I left the museum and walked out into one of those perfect, Midwestern spring afternoons: warm and a little humid, but with a cool breeze. I was high from the amazing museum and the kindness of the staff, and the thought of an empty I-65 through the cornfields made me borderline euphoric. I knew, in a very real way, that I had come home and that I would probably spend many adult years trying to get back there.

And so I would issue a challenge: to those who would cast aspersions at the Midwest, maybe spend some time there first. Go to Indianapolis, go to Cleveland, go to Minneapolis, and spend time in the parts of the city that are the equivalent of where you hang out in your East Coast and West Coast cities.

And when you’re pulling out of the beautiful museums and parks, on streets which follow a blessed grid instead of a cow path, notice how people will let you turn left across traffic. Then you can ask yourself if such a miracle would occur anywhere else.