vacation summary / making a difference in mitchell
Written by jlgaddis on July 15, 2006 – 4:39 pm -I haven’t posted for two weeks now, I was on vacation the last time I did, so I thought I’d give a quick summary of my vacation. I flew from Indianapolis to Tampa where I was picked up on a Wednesday. We hit up a bunch of local restaurants, pubs, and bars and consumed lots of alcohol. There was swimming, of course, and visiting the “touristy” stuff. We headed over to Daytona to watch the launch of the space shuttle (which was postponed, so we missed it) and watched the Pepsi 400 NASCAR race (Firecracker 400, if you prefer).
Now I’m back in Indiana, and have been moved from Bloomington back to my hometown of Mitchell. I moved to Bloomington a little over a year ago so that Lindsey and I could live together and it was clear a while ago that the whole relationship thing just wasn’t working. I’m now back in Mitchell and getting settled back in. I’ve now went from 10-minute commute to work back to about a 45-minute commute, but that doesn’t really bother me. I drove this route for years, so I’m pretty used to it. And I save a helluva lot of money living down here as opposed to Bloomington.
This town — Mitchell, Indiana — is a complete waste of land. There’s nothing here. What little industry was here has long since moved out (with a few small exceptions). More importantly, in my opinion, is that there are no recreational activities here, especially for the kids. A year or two ago, the city got a grant to build a large new playground directly behind the swimming pool, but that’s about it. The teenagers lucky enough to have access to vehicles generally get out of this town as much as they can. When I was a teenager, we had skating rinks and bowling alleys and such, and there “wasn’t anything to do then”. I can’t imagine how the kids here these days feel.
I’m going to try to do something to change that. I’m relatively well-known to our elected officials here, as this is a pretty small town (population ~4500, I think). I also have lots of younger relatives who I constantly hear complain that “there’s nothing to do”. Extracurricular activities at the schools are dwindling, from what I hear, and in the summertime there’s simply nothing to do.
It was the same way 10+ years ago when I ran around this town, and it mostly leads to kids getting into trouble. Right now it’s summertime, so there’s the usual little league baseball and such. There isn’t, however, any popular activities to occupy the kids’ time.
I remember reading reports that most kids who get in trouble do so between the hours of 3pm and 10pm. This is the time period directly after school lets out for the day. There are now more single-parent families than ever and lots of these kids come home from school to an empty house. The lack of supervision and activities leads to them getting into trouble.
I’m no superman and I can’t perform miracles, but I’m going to start getting active in this community and see if I can’t do something to help this place out.
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July 15th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Like always you are so right. Last time I was in Mitchell it was like a ghost town. I couldn’t believe it. I remember atleast finding friends “cruising” Main or something. I was like where is everybody? But I know where they were. . they were either in another town, doing drugs or having sex because that is all there is to do. They banned everything, you can’t skateboard, you can’t even be seen walking down the street without a cop slowing down and giving you a suspicious look and they wonder why they are having so much trouble with the youth. Why there are so many teen pregnancies, drug overdoses, drinking and driving. . idiots! Gaddis for Mayor! The swim team in Mitchell is awesome. . man I hope they still have that. Anyway I’m behind you baby!
I am excited you back in Mitchell, I am not missing you next time we come down. We are gonna parrtayyy!
We are gonna raise hell like the old days. .be prepared.
Luv, Beth Ann Take Care!
July 18th, 2006 at 12:40 am
Exactly.
I honestly don’t know why people live in Mitchell anymore. When I lived in Bloomington I came here once every few weeks, and that was just to see my family. Granted, I’m back here now, but this is temporary. I’ll be back in Bloomington before too long.
There is just nothing here. There’s a tattoo shop that recently opened downtown and the guy there told me that he’s been harassed by the cops. He’s not doing anything wrong, as far as I can tell, yet they still have to find somebody to fuck with.
Definitely look me up next time you guys are here. We’ve missed each other three or four times now. IT CAN NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!
July 20th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Seems like communities that I have lived in–as Mitchell similiarly appears to be–has this thing where they isolate themselves, maybe do to this bible belt phenomena (no offense to religion per se), or something. So anything out of that culture is shunned. Try Morrison, Tennessee! Man, that place will make you excited if you see a Wal-mart, or a chinese person.
YMCA’s are pretty cool. Not sure if you guys have one, but those are always good to have. I know in some little town in Tennessee they called for getting a skate park; a rather elaborate one, and that seemed to create a “cool” scene for those kids, and sort of permeated a new “culture” that was different for the community, since of course all walks of life like to do that particular activity. It kind of hinders the redneck aura in the air to, which typically opens kids up to broader things, since of course skateboaring is I guess an “alternative” thing. And of course music venues, like Rhinos in Bloomington, ran by Brad Wilhelm, Harmony School being the owner. I think kids are bound to this orthodox ideology thing do to the older generations who are stuck in the past and I guess fear anything new.
August 31st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
[...] Recently I posted a “rant” entitled “Vacation Summary / Making a Difference in Mitchell” in which I rambled on about the sad state of Mitchell, Indiana, my hometown. Well, my first step is starting to make a difference was to launch a new website… there’s an expletive in the name, so if you have virgin ears stop here… [...]