back home in Indiana

Hoosier primary today.  My dad was a Hoosier, the son of a chicken farmer who came to Chicago to get work during the depression and fell for a slick city woman from Berwyn.  Once or twice a year they would pack us three kids into the backseat of the car, fussing and fighting and wanting to know if we were there yet, and drove us to Goshen Indiana.  The farm was kind of cool, the henhouses stank of chicken piss, but even that was cool in its own way.  I guess that was as close as I ever got to those hunting trips that made you a swain to Old Betsy.

I have a Hoosier friend now who i visit once a year.  He lives north of Circle City (Indy) in a farmhouse and everything around him is flat as a pancake, the way we Illinoisans like it.  At night you can see the glow of Indy on the horizon, but if you look to either side you can see the glow of tiny faraway houses, but over the years they have become not so far away and they extend further along the horizon from the glow of Indy.  It's approaching.

Not that any of that has anything to do with anything, just talking about Indiana.  Lyin' Ted is stalking up and down Main Street practicing his quick draw and Trump is in the saloon bragging with the riff raff, his arm around some bar girl. 


I guess I should be for Lyin' Ted to win.  If Trump doesn't have the 1,237 and doesn't get the nomination, I can't see him not going third party.  If he does get the nomination it's not as likely that some faction of the republican party will bolt.  A third party is good news for us dems.  But Trump on top is pretty good news too.  I guess it comes down to I can't stand Lyin' Ted, that whiny preacher speech of his is nails on my blackboard, Trump is more like some cartoon character, I don't mind him as much.

I caught a snatch of some Trump backer on the evening news and she was saying something like she likes Trump because he reminds her of some people she knows, her brother for instance.  Dollars to donuts that brother of hers can't keep a job because all his bosses turn out to be losers and he is always hitting her up to help him pay his rent, but he's a type that she is familiar with.  I always thought that was his charm.

You know education is the path forward.  Educated citizens vote more wisely.  One of the reasons that the USA does so well (we are still number one) is that we have a good education system.  Whenever we want our kids to do well we urge them to get more education.  But whenever the schools want money we never want to give it to them.  Kudos for you for re-subscribing to the paper and for paying attention to the issues of the day.  But shame on you for voting against a school bill.