Sadie is turning into quite the traveling dog. She preferred resting in the van this morning for several hours while I finished email on another project inside. I rolled the windows down for her and she stayed there quite contently until we left for our local adventure.
It was another cool and rainy day. I didn't want to risk getting stuck in the Dunes with Sadie during a storm, so I chose a more local area: my childhood stomping grounds of Highland, IN and next-door Munster, which even in the 1960s was considered the more upscale neighborhood. Yahoo!Maps said it was a 34-minute drive and 17.4 miles. They were almost right. The drive took me almost 40 minutes and 19 miles down backroads into Munster.
(As a kid watching the TV show "The Munsters" I thought the family actually lived in that town. And when I found out "The Munsters" really didn't exist, I wondered why anyone would name a town Munster.)
When people ask me where I am from, I say Highland, IN, as it's the first town I remember living in. This is where we lived before my parents divorced and my sister and I were sent overseas to our maternal grandparents in Berlin.
I only spent seven years in Highland, until 1967, living in two different homes in opposites corner of the town, which lies between Cline and Indianapolis Boulevard. This is NWI's extension of Chicagoland. Munster lies to the west, Griffith to the east. It's a bedroom community of small single-family brick or vinyl-siding homes surrounded by mature trees. Most people here worked at the steel mills along the lake.
My first mission was not so much my old neighborhood, but rather a brewpub I had read about that had gotten some good reviews: Three Floyds in Munster. "We are right below the Town of Munster Water tower" said the website, and that was no exaggeration: a small building in an industrial park, away from any main traffic, is where this small but very good brewpub is. The outside decor is rather nouveau, with a two-headed muse up front.
I walked in at noon as rain clouds began to form. I sat at the counter and ordered the wheat beer, the Gumballhead beer with lemon. The ABV was 4.5%, one of the lowest beers the brewery made, and I was quite satisfied with both the head, the flavor and the color. I also sampled two best sellers, the Alpha King Pale Ale and Pride and Joy, a medium session beer. Both were quite good but with an empty stomach I didn't want to try any more alcohol.
The clientele at this place were all upscale and older. The youngest people in the building were perhaps the brewers, three of who came out for quick water breaks. Two of the three men were heavily tattooed and my server, Phil, hid his head under an oversized beret.
I would definitely come back to this place.
To reward Sadie for waiting patiently for me in the van, I walked with her around the nearby Munster Veterans Memorial, a beautiful 3-D memorial depicting various conflicts, each with its own monument and historical marker. The most emotional one was the 3D one depicting a Huey helicopter in a rice field picking up two soldiers, one who was dead from a Bouncing Betty and missing his lower extremities. The statues were beautifully rendered by Julie Rotblatt Amrany. As visitors meandered along the brick-laid path other scenes from other wars came to life, and one could even press a button to hear a short audio recording about that particular war.
Across the street from the memorial was another man-made lake and restaurant overlooking the fake lake and water fountains. But we didn't stay long, as I now wanted to walk Sadie around my old stomping grounds, Wicker Memorial Park
As soon as I got out of the van, the rain began to pour. So much for my planned hike with Sadie around the park's perimeter, a pleasant six-mile loop around the golf course and along Wicker Creek. Sadie didn't mind the rain but she did seem spooked by the lightning.
Now the roads were wet and some were flooded. The recent rains have saturated lawns and meadows; there is no place for the rain to go but on the roads.
By 2pm I was in Highland, driving down Highway Ave a half-mile to Liable road where our old home still stands, now painted blue. The small pine tree that my mother planted on the side of the house facing Highway Avenue in late 1967 is now taller than the two-story house, towering a good four stories high.
Behind the house used to be Orchard Park Elementary School, but the school has long closed and a new center stands, larger and imposing in the block. This school was then a Baptist daycare but I couldn't tell what it is now.
Downtown Highland has changed a lot since I remember my days here. the "Eat" restaurant is now a Nikos. The old Benjamin Franklin Five and Dime is now a furniture store. The old Marathon gas station is now a Woody's Garage and Pegasus has long been taken down from the facade. The old brick school house where I went to kindergarten is now a gazebo.
Marshland used to thrive a half-mile north of our house, near the interstate. And although there are tracts of swamps, the larger swath has been drained and filled in for a town recreational area off the interstate. I used to pick wild iris and cattails here and find beaver dams in the swampy woods; I'd pretend I was far away from the house and on a wilderness expedition, the start of a life-long love affair with the outdoors. For an adventurous kid a half-mile seems like a mini-marathon.
I don't know anyone in Highland anymore so it's no longer my home, but it's always pleasant to stop in and reminisce.
I was approaching 3pm, time when Erin had to take Ethan for his month well-baby check-up. When she called me at 3:30pm I was already heading back east and simply went straight to her place off I-65 and I-94, a quicker but ugly way to get to her area. This was now 22 miles to my northeast. When it began to downpour again, Eric called, asking me if I could pick him up from his job. I was happy to save him a wet walk home since I was on my way anyway. I was in his town in 20 minutes, twice as fast as if I had taken backroads.
Since we were now all together now we drove east into Michigan City, the last town in Indiana before I-94 trails into Michigan. This is the town my father's parents settled in when they immigrated from Lithuania, he in 1910 and she three years later. What was meant to be a short stay until the Russians were kicked out of Lithuania turned out to be a life-long stay for them, as Lithuania was conquered by the Soviet Russians and spiritually and culturally forced into repression.
Michigan City was home to many Slavic immigrants during the WW years, including small neighborhoods of Lithuanias all working at the steel mills. Now the town in many sections is very run-down and in dire need of major infrastructural overhauls. The lakefront with its marina is nice, but a few blocks south of the lake boarded-up buildings rule. Michigan City has seen better days. Because I always loved running around Washington Park here as a child, I'd like to see the town spruce itself up.
We shopped for clothes for Erin, then had dinner at another brewpub, the Shoreline Brewery, but despite good food and service, none of the beers I sampled didn't measure up to the ones I sampled at 3 Floyds. My Don't Panic Pale Ale was served headless and lacked body. I will not go to this place again.
I dropped the kids off just in time for another round of rain and was none too relieved to make it back to CP. If it rains again tomorrow like it did today, I may not attempt the drive down to Indianapolis-Bloomington. What's the use in a three-hour drive in the rain with an even muddier and colder hike with the dog? Although I don't mind hiking in the rain, I do mind a wet and muddy dog in the van.
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