This Father’s Day Weekend reminded me exactly why we moved back here: in a funky, friendly and familiar kind of way, Indiana rocks. With Greg happily ensconced in a shooting class (because we don’t just talk about guns in this state…we like to shoot them too), Sara and I traversed the state, visiting the Pa Pas. After playing in the same sprinklers I ran through as a child at Pa Pa Bump’s, we stopped by a park I played in about a thousand years ago. NONE of the equipment had changed or showed one extra day of wear. I felt like I could have picked out my scuff marks from 30 years ago on the merry-go-round. We then ate at a diner where I worked my way through college. And there, 15 years later, at the same table sat the owner, her husband, the cashier whom has worked there for 20 years, and the son-in-law who manages the “joint”. Eating broasted chicken in the same booth, smelling pies that Gordon has been baking in that place for decades….it’s a good thing. It may sound cheesy, but it is almost healing to be in a place where everybody knows your name.

Today we headed up to Pa Pa Bill and Kathy’s. We got to see all the really cool things they’ve done to the house and play in the beautifully shaded back yard. Pa Pa Bill made Sara laugh at his silly antics and we enjoyed a delicious lunch and jaunt around Purdue. No Indiana summer Sunday is complete without a stop to buy fresh produce, and in solid Hoosier fashion, my child mastered her first sweet corn-on-the cob well before her 2nd birthday.

Even our trip home was a lesson in Hoosier goodness. I LOVE the way a shimmery white fog settles over the fields in the late afternoon in the summers. It’s as if the humidity is so thick, it must take on it’s own ghost-like form and take shape. The race traffic picked up, and as it happens on all race days, entire caravans of families give up on the traffic, pull over on the shoulder of the highway, and break out the cold fried chicken and watermelon. Because there is no traffic in Indiana, when a race lets out, we get so perplexed by the miles of stopped cars, that many of us just succumb to the fumes and decide to die on the side of the road.

So while we didn’t spend the weekend with Daddy, we have him to thank for moving us back here. Or at least, I like to blame him for the move during blizzards and crappy weather. The housing prices are low, the wages are decent. Everyone has known everyone else for so many generations that the line between family and friends is blurred. And that too, is a very good thing. Life is much easier here. And even if I scream every two years that I MUST make a trip to NYC immediately or these corn fields will suffocate me, at the end of the day, it’s the best place to raise our girls. Cousins and Pa Pas and many other wonderful things are here, even if some exciting things are missing. Or as we say in these parts, “I reckon we’ll sit here for a spell”. Now get me some lemonade before I melt!