Ben Franklin supposedly said that “beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” And according to Samuel Johnson, Franklin’s contemporary on the other side of the Atlantic, ”a tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.” Sound wisdom from sage men.
A sense of mission now stirs within. I must become a seeker of felicity. I must imbibe “the proof of God’s love” on the “thrones” of far-flung taverns across the land. And as a missionary, I must then spread the word. As I set out, I feel as did Red (Morgan Freeman) in Shawshank Redemption: “I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.”
Now and again, we’ll post one of the “dispatches” from the original Area 45 website. Here was the first, which set out the underlying conceit for the blog.
Breaking News!
DATELINE: JULY 6, 2007 (CROWN POINT, IN)
A political tsunami continues to tsweep across Northwest Indiana after Wednesday’s surprise decision by federal and state authorities to abolish the political subdivision known as Lake County, Indiana, which shall henceforth be designated as “Area 45″ – the nation’s first official political wilderness. Citing habitual and immutable government mismanagement [and noting Bobby Kennedy's decades-old (but still viable) characterization of Lake County as one of the most corrupt places in America] senior officials in Washington and Indianapolis announced – on Independence Day, no less – their joint plan to withdraw from “the quagmire that is ‘”Da Region.’”
In an operation dubbed “Major Moves,” the Indiana National Guard will assume immediate responsibility for the orderly evacuation of thousands of expected refugees, some of whom have already begun fleeing in panic. A “reverse amnesty” plan was also announced, which provides that all current residents will be permitted to emigrate, unmolested by local authorities, until August 1, 2007, the anticipated completion date for a high-tech border fence that will surround Area 45. U.S. Air Force personnel immediately established a no-fly zone over Area 45, but guaranteed monthly airlifts of humanitarian assistance (and handguns) into Gary Airport. In deference to local custom, Hercules C-130 transports will also conduct periodic airdrops of absentee ballots into Area 45 for use by those citizens who remain (and in the names of those citizens who leave). A spokesman for Rand McNally indicated that Area 45 would hereafter be designated as “a blank spot on the map” with a warning to would-be travelers into the region: Area 45 – Restricted Access – Here Be Dragons.
A small cadre of county officials gathered yesterday afternoon in the hallways of the government center to address the concerns of their employees, many of whom (as usual) had taken the day off or already gone home. Seeking to put a happy face on this involuntary secession, the group (1) defiantly vowed to continue “business as usual.” (2) announced the formation of the Lake Urban Enterprise Association (LUEA) for the acquisition of real estate abandoned by the refugees, and (3) proudly unveiled the proposed new flag for Area 45 – the Jolly Roger – which, as one cynical observer noted, has long been Lake County’s unofficial logo.
Federal officials refused to comment on rampant speculation that New Orleans and the entire state of New Jersey are next in line for political wilderness designation.
By: The Unknown Coresspondent, Embedded in Area 45
Let’s kick-start this reincarnated blog with an apocryphal history of the Calumet Region. Warning – a few of the “facts” here are actually true!
There are places on this planet where it really does seem like “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” places where that old adage is more statement of fact than caution against illusion. Chances are, since you’re reading this, you’re in one of them – the Calumet Region. Great minds through the ages have struggled with the big existential question: Why am I here on earth? Locals ask the same question, with a slight change in inflection: Why am I here on earth?
But if you want to add a little more gray to your life, if you want your soul to mirror a November sky in this region, then sneak a peak at some of our local history. The G. H. Hammond Packing Company located here in 1868 because “it was not wanted elsewhere.” In the 1880’s, the Aetna Powder Company, then considered a nuisance industry, selected this area for the site of its plant because it was a “favorite spot in this desert region” and “the most desolate available in the United States.” By the middle of the 19th Century, the Calumet wilderness had gained notoriety as a hideout for criminals. That’s a surprise!
Surely there’s more to it than that. Surely there are historical gemstones hidden beneath the layers of accumulated slag. But if not, if that’s the way it’s always been (and always will be), then why can’t we tweak the historical record a bit to enhance self-esteem? Why not blend fact with fiction at a ratio consistent with, say, a lawyer’s closing argument? Why not infuse our local story with a bit of therapeutic mythology? Why not just make up some sh*t?
So here goes. Because sometimes truth isn’t good enough, sometimes people deserve more…
Part One: Paradise Found
For a time – for one brief, shining moment – it seemed that geography would be destiny, and a blessed one at that. The 19th Century migrants who drifted into the NW corner of the NW quarter of Indiana stumbled onto America’s hidden gem, its answer to Mesopotamia – the “land between the rivers.” No, not the Tigris and the Euphrates, but in this case the Grand Calumet and Little Calumet rivers.
These twin waterways with their cool, clear, sky-blue waters arced across the region, and over the eons their fluvial deposits laid down a deep, rich topsoil and created an agrarian paradise. Here, between these rivers and adjacent to their banks, was America’s first breadbasket. Here were the lyricist’s “amber waves of grain” and “fruited plain.” Here was the true “Fertile Crescent.”
To refugees from hardscrabble land back east, the Fertile Crescent was a farmer’s wet dream. “Gonad-high by the Fourth of July” became the new standard by which the peckerwood immigrants measured the local corn crop. The youngins frolicked and gamboled across a bucolic landscape. And all was right with the world.
Hordes of newcomers soon required governance. The first county seat was located just east of the what is now the I-65/Ridge Road interchange in the embryonic municipality of Liverpool, whose cutting-edge residents sported mop-top haircuts, swanked about in collarless suits, and spoke in queer idioms (“happiness is a warm gun’) – fads and fashions that would re-surface 100 years later, across the pond. Liverpool’s reign as the political capital of Lake County was brief, and the county seat soon shifted to Crown Point. But if the region’s politics went south (literally and figuratively), the commercial, cultural, and intellectual epicenter of Lake County remained just a stone’s throw away – in the area surrounding the converging borders of Lake Station, New Chicago and Hobart, in the area that came to be known in legend as the “Golden Triangle.”
Of all the stories to come from our past, none cut deeper into American folklore than the Tale of the Golden Triangle. Hobart soon became a mecca for Shakespearean scholars, impressionist painters from ‘round the world flocked to New Chicago, the precursor to penicillin (and a half-assed cure for venereal disease) was first discovered in Lake Station, and one-half of all books then sold in America were purchased by GT residents. Cargo-laden vessels steamed to-and-fro its ports, shipping out the grain that fed a hungry world and bringing in gold, frankincense and myrrh. The locals were, to borrow Robert Mitchum’s colorful phrase, “farting through silk.”
The people acknowledged the blessings bestowed upon them by the land and providence at a year-end festival. Once the crops were harvested, once firewood was laid in for the winter, golden-robed residents conducted a three-day celebration called (aptly enough) Stockwood – a bacchanalia of wine, women and song that many believe later inspired the toga-party scene in Animal House. Droves of Midwesterners from surrounding states soon flocked to Stockwood, as noted in the journal of one long-ago pilgrim: “By the time we got to Stockwood, we were half a million strong, and everywhere was a song and a celebration.” The number of wannabe attendees soon made it necessary to winnow ‘em down via a lottery. The fortunate few were awarded a gilded pass, and lucky was the man or woman who could then proclaim, “I’ve got a golden ticket.”
But (to quote Ralph Parker, noted local philosopher) “sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.” In a blink of the historical eye, the Fertile Crescent vanished around the turn of the century. Ragweed replaced corn, the amber waves of grain became dark amber waves of cattails, and all that now remains is a shrunken remnant located just south of the Borman expressway, east of Burr and west of Grant, in what is affectionately known as “Small Farms.” Vanished, too, are all traces of the Golden Triangle. The opera house – gone. The polo club – gone. Literacy – gone. Nowadays, the casual diner in the Red Rooster Restaurant at Ridge and Colorado is but vaguely aware, at best, that he sits at the heart of a glorious empire that once was and will never be again.
So what happened? Who or what played the serpent’s role and drove our forefathers from this local Eden? Historians around the world continue to probe the cause and origin of The Decline and Fall of the Golden Triangle, with some consensus. Most pinpoint a single event, one that rivaled in consequence the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel. It was the creation of…..the absentee ballot.
