September 28, 2013 - Marvin's

When I was in high school, my dad "retired" from being a sheet metal worker and decided to open a store in downtown Greencastle that would cater to the DePauw students and also provide custom embroidery on apparel for anyone that wanted it.  I helped him out when I could and learned a lot about the Greek system and all things DePauw.  It was also during this time that I discovered Marvin's.  My father loved that the place celebrated fat and salt and would order their daily special often when he was working at the store downtown.  I thought that I was cool because I was the high school kid who got to eat at Marvin's.
Marvin's is a restaurant that is celebrated by DPU alumni as the dive restaurant that would deliver 3am food at 3am.  The reputation of the place is built on the GCB (Garlic Cheesburger), which is something akin to two hockey pucks of beef with plastic cheese that has been sprinkled liberally with garlic salt and slammed into a hoagie roll.  It is the perfect "I've been drinking and need something to help me prevent a hangover" food. 
Tonight I went to Marvin's, which has relocated from it's original dive bar looking place into a building that has far less character.  The pictures of people holding signs that say "Marvin's delivers..." while they are standing in various locations in the world are all over the place, but something is missing from the days of the old location.  I ordered a stromboli and got a drink, while my parents got the GCB and fries.
I don't know if my tastes have matured or if I was just blinded by the false sense of maturity when I was younger, but I wouldn't say Marvin's is much more than just an ok college restaurant now.  The meat was overcooked and the service was about the same as it has been the past couple times I went there.... sorta slow.   The cheese that my mom got with her fries tasted like plastic mixed with salt.  I will probably continue to eat there, but I think I am going to venture into their pizza offerings and skip the sandwiches from now on.
I believe in local restaurants, but I also believe in offering quality to your customers.  

September 24, 2013 - Travel

I took twelve days off from doing the blog.  This wasn't really on purpose, but at the same time I didn't feel like staying up late just to type thoughts about how those days aligned with us being back home and all.  I have been super busy traveling and wasn't even in Putnam County for most of the time. 
I traveled to Napa, CA for work and brought my son and husband with me.  We had a great time for 7 days, of which I was working for three, traveling for two.  We spent some time in Yosemite and San Fransisco, which were great fun.  Yosemite was beautiful and reminded me of my time spent in the Rockies.  I nearly cried as a gazed at mountains that I wasn't prepared to hike over, across, and down... especially since we had a one year old with us.  San Fran was nice and we managed to find some really great restaurants and bakeries in Chinatown, rode the trolley, and took the tour of the bay in a cruise boat. 
When we got home, Walker celebrated his first birthday in a low key way.  Cake and grandparents were present and not much else, which was just fine by him.  My mom made the cake since we had returned the night before and didn't have time to pull out all the stops for a birthday party and cake.  My aunt stopped by to give him a gift, and he received a few cards from family too.  He also got to play with cousins after his cake party.  These things wouldn't have happened if we didn't live near our families. 
The day after his birthday, my son and I got on a plane for a trip to Cleveland so that I could spend 4 days working with schools in the Cleveland area.  He is going to daycare at the place where he used to go while I go to work each day, and we spend the night in a hotel. 
I had a few reflections in my travels in the past few days on what makes a place suitable to live and raise a family.  San Fran was great, but super crowded and expensive.  Napa was great for a family, but everything was brown and dry and expensive.  North Olmsted is great, and I wouldn't be opposed to moving back here because it has everything we would want... but no family, and no land to really own of your own. 
As I flew over Southern Indiana in the return flight from California (layover in Dallas), I noticed that once we got to the Ohio River, the trees and greenery perked up.  That beauty didn't stop until we were right near the Indianapolis airport.  I had flown over more than half of the country and nothing was as green and lush as Southern Indiana.  I know this because I had a window seat, but also because I was looking for something to be critical of when I landed, having come from a really great place in California. 
I also appreciate that when we landed, my parents were there to pick us up.  We were a short ride home from the airport, and fall had begun to settle in the air. 
Even though I love to travel and explore, my heart is really in Putnam County.  You never really leave a place you love, so even if I head off to another location... in some ways I am always near that 42 mile marker on U.S. 40 in Western Indiana.

September 10, 2013 - Libraries

This day was special.  My son went to the Putnam County Library for the first time.  He loved it. The library that I visited when I was a child has been transformed into a modern library/information/community center.  The original library building had been added on to and my favorite section, the children's area, had been moved to a downstairs addition.  I carried my son through the old portion and paused, which prompted a worker to ask if I needed help.  I replied that I was just reminiscing and hadn't been there since the remodel.  He stated that I didn't look old enough to have been in the old building.  I assured him that I had read every book that once lived in this section of the library, and I had many fond memories of coming there with my mom and sister. 
The library has a great collection of DVDs, CDs, books on CD, and other digital media.  Of course they have books, but I noticed that there was a special section of computers set up just for little kids to use to play interactive games.  There was a lot of puzzles set up for little hands like my son's to grab too.  They had an entire collection of children's learning DVDs and music CDs too.  It really is a nice library, and I know that we will be back many more times. 
As I was checking out, I had to get a library card.  The lady asked if I had had one before, and I said I had, but she couldn't find my name in the system.  I remember having a card.  In fact, I had to have multiple cards when I was younger because they wore out.  They used to be made of paper and every time you checked out a book they actually wrote the number of the card in the little index card that went in each book.  When I checked out 40 books at a time it took a while to write my number over and over.  It has been a long time since I lived here, but my new library card is part of the evidence that we are back.

September 9, 2013 - How Can You Make A Living THERE?

One of the benefits to living in the age of the Internet and high speed service is that there are a number of jobs that can be done from anywhere.  The job that I currently have is one of those.  This is part of the reason that our move back to Putnam County was predicated on the ability of my husband to get a job around here. 
This past weekend at the sports park, I met a man who was pushing his twin daughters around the trail.  After engaging him in come conversation, I found out that he and his wife had lived in Indianapolis, but had moved out here because they had jobs where they worked from home.  They didn't see any reason to live in the city when they could enjoy the quality of life that the country offered. 
I would like to see some data about the number of people who work from home who live in Putnam County.  Obviously, many people work at the local factories or commute to Indianapolis, Terre Haute, or one of the other nearby cities, but I imagine that there is a growing number of people who, like me, work from home. 
The ramifications of this include: this county needs better, more reliable internet service and more stores that are open 24 hours.  If you work from home, you can usually make your own schedule.  I know that I often work at night, when most people are asleep.

September 8, 2013 - Hidden Treasures

My son and I went to visit the newest member of our extended family today.  She was born about a week ago to my cousin, Sam, and is, technically, my 4th cousin.  Sam and her husband have been staying at her aunt's house while the aunt is on vacation.  She gave me directions to this house and I was excited to see where she lived because I had always wondered who lived down that road. 
After a drive down a half mile long driveway, I arrived at an amazing home.  There was a huge pond with a waterfall and bridges.   The house overlooked the pond and had a wrap around porch that offered views of the property.  It was a show house if I ever saw one. 
I have discovered, in the search for property and through meeting such as the one today, that there are some really nice homes in this county.  I have also seen the absolute worst homes.  It is amazing to me that there can be a 2 million dollar estate right next to a double wide that needs to be condemned. 

September 7, 2013 - You Make Your Own Fun

Growing up, I didn't have a pool, cable TV, video games, a computer, a cell phone or anything that automatically entertained me.  My sister and I had to use our imagination to entertain ourselves.  We would, of course, read books to escape from the reality of where we were.  We would watch some TV, but that was usually limited to local stations and we weren't allowed to watch a lot of shows.  We would take off and explore the land around our house and make up our own games and adventures.  We learned about biology and other life sciences through this exploration.  Our creativity was growing every second we were coming up with our own entertainment.  We learned how to compromise because we only had each other to play with.   Sometimes we got a kick out of something as simple as seeing who could jump across the wide part of the creek, other times we tried to make up a story about the people who originally lived in this area.  Our imaginations were working hard. 
Today, I thought about heading to the brother-in-law's pool, but then I remembered that we had a plastic frog sandbox/pool thing in the yard.  While my son napped, I went out and scrubbed it with water and bleach and started to fill it with water.  I found some water friendly toys inside, and once my son woke up, we put on our swimsuits and "went to the pool".  If we had been at my parents house, I might have found a clear pool of water in their creek to do this activity, but we made the best of our current situation and splashed and played for over an hour. 

September 6, 2013 - Life and Death

There is one thing about living on a farm... you will experience life and death.  I was chatting with a co-worker today about how his children had to bury one of their chickens.  His son had put the chicken in an enclosure to keep it "safe", but didn't realize that the chicken would get heatstroke in the safety of being in the space.  I, too, had experienced death today.  I saw a sow being escorted from her pen and noticed that she was limping.  The workers had her in a chute, where they shot her in the head and she died instantly.  I could tell she was ill, and I believe that she knew she was about to die, as she was just sorta grunting along until the worker pulled out the gun, at which time she let out a horrible scream that ended as soon as I heard the shot. 
I remember taking a hammer and killing as many baby mice as we could out of the corn crib when I was little.  I remember watching baby sheep and goats die from deformity or from a mother laying on them.  I saw my chickens and ducks get partially eaten by raccoons and opossum. 
For all the death that you see when you live in the country and are around a farm, there is an equal amount of life and birth that occurs. 
The farm where I now live produces an astronomical amount of pigs every month.  I heard a shipment of about 1200 baby piglets leave the farm earlier this week.   I remember waking up in the middle of the night to go out to the barn to watch my mom and grandparents help a ewe birth her lamb(s).  I got to raise chickens from baby chicks. 
I don't think that I have a warped sense of life and death from these experience, but a realistic one.  I know of people, including people that I love, who don't want to accept the reality that we all will die.  Reality is that that we are all dying... that every living thing is part of that cycle of life and death and birth.  I think that many people would be well served if they experienced that cycle first hand, as I have been able to here, growing up in and now returning to this rural area.