My Week in Indiana, in Short

I haven’t really said much about what I’ve been doing in Indiana—because most of it is boring—like the fact that I visited three different branches of my Indiana-based credit union in less than 24 hours.

Beyond that I kept pretty busy with a myriad of activities including spending time in the Indiana University libraries and talking to people.

I also went through some boxes that I put into storage six years ago finding stuff I’d forgotten that I actually owned—a lot of it I decided to send to charity because I felt that since I didn’t remember it, I didn’t really want it any more. Other things I gave to friends, some is moving to Germany, and some is going back into storage until I get fabulously wealth and can afford to ship heavy boxes across the ocean.

That said I found more than the letter to the solider, I also found the work I did as a budding journalist back in the late 1980s with my family newspaper, the Ambidextrous. I even found the issue announcing the birth of my nephew. I might post some of it up here, but I’ll want to delete some of the material—especially the extra embarrassing stuff.

Big Table for Big Appetites!

Food-wise, I had some nice meals in Bloomington: I ate at Bloomingfoods on West 6th, Wee Willies on South Walnut, Mama’s at 10th and the Bypass, the Irish Lion downtown, as well as Sweet Grass and Scholar’s Inn.

Sweet Grass is a relatively new southern food restaurant in Bloomington and I went there with Reko. Admittedly we were there the evening of the final NCAA men’s basketball game of the year, so that might have skewed our impression, but we were the only customers at 7:30, and the place seemed generally dead. I suspect it won’t last if not because the food is mediocre but because the website doesn’t have its address posted.

Wednesday evening I went to Scholar’s Inn and got thoroughly drunk, had a great conversation, and had the best meal I’ve had in years in Bloomington. It has been many many moons since I’ve gone to Scholar’s Inn—it’s a bit off of my normal Bloomington track—and in fact I only remember it existed because I walked from my hotel to the nearest drug store to pick up some supplies. The atmosphere was comfortable, our waiter competent and friendly, and the meal was really good.

Looking south from Fourth Street.

Thursday morning was the first time I had a bit of down time—unfortunately it matched up with a cool morning—but not nearly as cold as it was in February, so I headed out and walked the B-Line Trail, a trail running through Bloomington that up until a couple years ago was a railroad track. It’s much nicer as a trail, but the distance is not that great—I hope that it will be extended in the near future.

It’s now Saturday afternoon and in 24 hours I will be in one of America’s less pleasant and busy airports, waiting to board the flight home.