After I parked this morning I walked by this tree on the way into the office this morning:
At lunch time, I saw this tree:
Different trees, of course. Different species, even. But they’re just a block away. That was pretty much the day, outside.
The sun was shining, probably for about 15 minutes altogether, this morning on my way into the office. At least I had those bright, pretty skies for the brief time I could spend outside this morning. It was gray later. I didn’t look for other tree fruits on my way out. We’d progressed to a full on misting event as day turned into evening. It rained tonight, so we ran the gamut.
Gamut is an old English word, stemming from medieval Latin. It originally had to do with a musical note, but turned into an expression that discusses the entire musical scale.
On my way to the car I was also thinking about this song:
That’s a cover on an album of covers that won a grammy for folk album of the year in the early 1990s. The song was written by Janis Ian. Janis Ian is still playing, some 50 years into her career. And she seems like a pretty hilarious grandmother on Twitter, too. She had 34 dates in 2015 and has four booked for this summer, according to her website. And, look, here they are, Ian and Griffith together, in 1993:
Janis Ian & Nanci Griffith – This Old Town… by Superpatri
Anyway, that song, for 20-some years, has seemed to me like every flatland piece of America in the 20th century.
Here’s something from the 19th century, December 11, 1889 in The New York Times:
That was the “then,” portion of the story. Which brings us to the turn of the century, William McKinley’s America:
“Thus a heterogeneous mass of people poured into this part of the Northwest Territory, good and bad being pretty evenly mixed. The Southerners were sound material, yet the bad among them were very bad indeed.”
Let’s discuss them!
“Today their descendants — many of them, at least — are the typical Hoosiers that one hears of in the newspapers. They carefully elude the refining touch of education and even as far as possible the census taker.”
If they’d just talk to the poor downtrodden census taker, we mean, he’s just some geek we found in Ohio, then everything else would be better off for those people in Indiana. Poor buggers.
“Down in some of the State’s southern counties they are at their worst.”
Ain’t that always the way, dear reader?
“In Brown County, an almost impenetrable section of hills, they are in their glory.”
Less than one percent of the state lives there today. But the county only reports a poverty rate of 11.4 percent, with 22 percent having at least one college degree. The arts and being outdoors getaway destination are the chief industries there these days.
“They would be as much at home in the mountains of Tennessee and Alabama as in the Hoosier hill ranges.”
Come again?
“They are indifferent farmers, and have no interest in the world beyond the hog quotations in the St. Louis or Cincinnati market.”
I could go plow that field, but whatever. ‘Didja you hear ’bout what Mertle’s sow said in Missourah ‘other day?
“But, as if to mark the difference, the adjoining county of Bartholomew contains a different people.”
Now, Bartholomew is about the same size, and a full 28 percent of them have college degrees and there’s an 11.9 percent poverty rate. Cummins Diesel is based there. Chuck Taylor, the sneaker guy, was from there, just like Vice President Mike Pence and NASCAR champ Tony Stewart. A popular cartoonist, a software CEO and the former president of thee National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues all call Bartholomew County home. In the 1900 census, taken in the months just after this article, Bartholomew was the mean population center of the U.S. Except that was probably incorrect because of those lyin’, census avoidin’ Hoosiers.
“They, too, are among the Southerners who came to Indiana, but they have kept pace with time’s advance, and are thrifty farmers or active tradespeople.”
Not at all like their slovenly cousins in Brown County.
“Similar contrasts might be pointed out in other sections.”
You go elsewhere the differences are the same. We suppose. We can’t be sure, so we’re speaking in generalities. Not like we have the Internet, yet.
“Even in going south from Indianapolis for a ride of an hour on the railroad one encounters the original Hoosier in his worst aspect.”
You get out of the city, God be with you. We’ve seen it. Have you ever been to Pennsylvania?
Hard to imagine exactly who The Times liked back then. Odd that so many people still think they have such a narrow view of things.
