I must explain, then, why Indiana gets only a rating here, which means "I could live without it." From the very start, when my parents moved to South Bend from Sunnyvale, California in the late 1950's, I had a hard time adjusting to Indiana's weather. It is far too hot and humid in summer, and much too cold and snowy in winter. I might add that the terrain is boringly flat, which may be great for growing corn, but precludes winter sports other than ice-skating. School was also a problem. My birthday being in October, I was almost always the youngest in my class from second grade on. It was difficult for me to catch up with the local curriculum.

That slow start did not stop me from becoming a Eagle Scout or lettering in varsity football or graduating third in my high school class. Nor was I totally bored growing up in Indiana. Weekend recreation included camping, fishing, and swimming in the country, dancing, bowling, and shooting pool in the city. But perhaps because I was a non-native, I never got into Hoosier Hysteria (the basketball fever so well documented in the 1986 movie Hoosiers starring Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper), nor did I go car-mad every May for the Indianapolis-500 autorace or bike-mad for Bloomington's Little-500 (the annual cycling event so well portrayed in the 1979 film Breaking Away). Moreover, I was interested in very some un-Hoosier 60's things like psychedelics, Zen Buddhism, and growing my hair long. It must have been my West Coast birthright showing through.

In 1969, I entered DePauw University in Greencastle. Two years later, my former high school, South Bend Central, was demolished because the downtown was being turned into a mall. The city planners had decided a school was no longer viable in that area, and the remaining students were relocated to suburban facilities. I felt quite bitter about that at the time. There would be no more mighty Bears. Gone the orange and blue. No more the dynamic mix of races that characterized education in the inner-city. Eventually, I would lose contact with all of my former classmates. It was as if an important part of my past had been erased.

On the other hand, some aspects of the past never go away. One of my last memories of youth in Indiana was being arrested and jailed. It happened one evening in 1973, just a few weeks before I was going to leave America to work for the Peace Corps in Malaysia. A group of my Sigma Nu Fraternity brothers and I were having some beers at a local tavern to celebrate our graduation from college. Somebody rushed in and said we had to quickly move cars that were allegedly misparked in the bar's lot. My friend Jim's new Saab was among them, so we hurried outside. But the local police officers and a tow truck were already on the scene, and they wanted $50 cash in "fines and towing charges" from each owner of the seven vehicles that were protruding a few inches into an unmarked no-parking zone.

I know a scam when I see one. And I'd had just enough to drink to let the peace officers have a piece of my mind. That, of course, got me a free ride to the town jail under charges for public intoxication and disorderly conduct. I remember muttering the public relations slogan that the police department was airing at the time: "Call a friend - call a cop." To which the arresting officer replied, "I ain't your friend, buddy." They took my belt and shoelaces so I would not hang myself in the cell overnight. The next morning, my fraternity brothers bailed me out, and the case was settled through plea-bargaining a week later. I left the country and never lived in the state again.