Indiana in My Mind

When I think of Indiana, I have three mental pictures.  One is of a mystical, far-off place: one evening back in 1960, when I was four years old and still lived in Opa-Locka, Florida, I was told by a good  friend, also four, that he was moving away with his family to Indiana.  Way out there...it became framed as a place of great distance for me.  The second is the famous cornfield scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 movie North by Northwest.  You know, this is where Cary Grant is attacked by a crop dusting plane and hides in a thick field of high-growing corn.  And the third is the city of Hammond, Indiana as described by Jean Shepherd on his radio show...only his vision of this "suburb" just east of Chicago was based on his childhood memories: he's the dude who wrote and narrated the movie A Christmas Story that features the exploits of little Ralphie, Schwartz, and Flick.  Well, I'm about to be entertained by yet a fourth mental picture of the Hoosier State as my wife Melissa will be traveling there this Sunday for a week of classes at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion.  This town of around 30,000 people lies between the centrally-located capital city of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne in the northeastern section of the state...closer to the latter.  It will be her first trip to Indiana and she's excited about it all, as am I.  As for my previously held "visions" of this state, the only one that might apply to Marion is that, although it is a town with a manufacturing (and now educational) base, I understand that once you're a few miles outside the city limits, there are those pesky cornfields again! 

Let's see...last year Melissa went to India.  This year she's going to Indiana.  What will be next year...the Indies?  I'm very proud of her and pray and hope for her safety there and for positive experiences...and of course for her safe return...

As for this article's title, my apologies to James Taylor...