In 1977, when I first came to live in South Bend, I told Judy, “This isn’t Indiana. I grew up in Indiana. This isn’t Indiana.”
I was born in Marion, Indiana, known more for having been a hotbed of high school basketball than for the 1930 Grant County courthouse lynching that was commemorated in the song Billie Holliday sang called, “Strange Fruit.” People didn’t talk about that where I grew up. When I was four, we moved to an old Green Township house in the country. While I continued to hear a lot about the importance of high school basketball, it wasn’t until 2010 that I learned in a book called Our Town by Cynthia Carr that Green Township had also been the home to many of the men who fermented the lynching. My own back yard.
When Judy and I moved to South Bend she told me she had never heard of such a thing as a “Mr. Basketball.” She thought I was joking.
“Like Mr. Potato Head”? she said.
“This isn’t Indiana,” I said.
Judy and I met in Bloomington, during our time at Indiana University, 50 years ago. I liked it there, but after four years I was ready to leave.
I’ve never wanted to leave South Bend.
South Bend is home to one of the country’s great universities and a regional campus of I.U.
For two years I walked to I.U. S.B. from home for the classes I needed to become a high school English teacher at the ripe old age of 35. I am thankful that New Prairie would welcome me. Going back to school was a wonderful experience. When I drove a cab during that time in South Bend, I also learned a lot about the struggles the people of our community face.
Among the things I am thankful for in South Bend are a symphony orchestra, a civic theatre and a lyric opera company. WVPE serves the area with a pubic radio station from Elkhart where I am fortunate to have the avenue of Michiana Chronicles as an outlet for my expressions and the opportunity to be heard. In South Bend, there’s a food co-op and a jazz club and a civil rights center affiliated with Indiana University. There’s a history museum and a dynamic public library. I am thankful that I am a consumer of all of these.
With Judy, I attend movies, theatre, and concerts at the DeBartolo Performing Art Center at Notre Dame a few times a year, and also a mere 10 minutes from my house, basketball and hockey games. Several of my friends teach at Notre Dame or IU. The history of Notre Dames incudes the prideful account of turning back the Ku Klux Klan, in 1924. Later that year Indiana voters chose a member of the Klan to be governor, a man also from the area of Indiana where I grew up.
Both Notre Dame and IU bring to town renown speakers with expertise on social policy. I don’t take advantage of these opportunities enough, but stopping to consider my thankfulness at their being available makes me want to do so more. Saturday, artists and community organizers welcomed the pubic at Lang Lab and 900 people showing up for the Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration at Century Center Monday to pledge their commitment to social justice reminds me of my good fortune at living in our community. Judy volunteers at a local elementary school kindergarten, and at the offices of the United Religious Community, and she directs the Michiana Jewish Historical Society. Judy walks the walk, and it is for her that I am most thankful.
I converted to Judaism and became part of the South Bend Jewish community 25 years ago and for that I am deeply thankful. I found there a spiritual home where I could, with others, acknowledge and express my thankfulness through recurrent ritualistic practice, and be reminded of my responsibility. Again, I find my thankfulness reinforces my instinct for service and positive behavior in my life.
It’s been a tough week for a lot of us. Keeping these things in mind is helpful.
Music: It Ain’t Necessarily So, Ahmad Jamal, from Chamber Music of the New Jazz
