Warren, Indiana

It was the wet and the cold that forced me into a motel outside of Franklin, though it might have been the subconscious concern of the many ghoulish creatures on the loose during the Halloween season.  I checked bookings.com to find a cheap motel that included breakfast, as I knew that I could stock up on food for the day.  Franklin, twenty miles south of Indianapolis, with a population of 23,000 and intersected by Interstate 65 had plenty of motels to choose from, many with breakfast, though none were specific about what it might include.  I was happy my choice was one that offered waffles, a not-uncommon feature of motels these days.  Some entrepreneurs has made a fortune selling do-it-yourself waffle-makers to the various motel chains.  

Franklin was also large enough to boast of two colleges—Franklin College and one of the forty Ivy Tech Community Colleges scattered about the state.  I’m always surprised by the amount of “higher education” going on that I come across in small-town America.  It may be concentrated at the massive name colleges, but there is plenty more.

I had been drawn to Franklin for its Carnegie, long abandoned for a much larger library.  The Carnegie was now a residence divided into two condos.  It fully acknowledged its heritage, not buffing out the “Franklin Public Library” on its facade and mounting a portrait of Carnegie in the hall separating the two units.  

The front had been embellished with patios and shades over its windows, but it remained as stately as when it was built, magnified by the flourishing vegetation surrounding it.

I bypassed Indianapolis swinging east around it so I could go through Shelbyville to check on the site along the Big Blue River where a friend from Chicago, Michael Helbing, would be erecting a forty-foot high sculpture of intersecting tubes next month.  He had won the $150,000 competition that attracted an international field.  He was a most fitting recipient, as he grew up in Shelbyville.  Janina has written about Michael’s work and also about the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago that he helps run, as a Vietnam vet.  Michael’s wife Wendy is also an artist and ardent hiker having soloed the Appalachia Trail.  She and Janina regularly hike together.  She has also joined Janina and I on a couple of mini-bike tours.  We will most definitely be on hand for the unveiling of his latest work.  Chicagoans who would like a sample of what he does can go to Wicker Park to see a thirty-foot tall stainless steel tree of his that he erected this past July in a park along Damen south of North Avenue.

Michael’s Shelbyville sculpture will face the Highway of the Vice Presidents, Highway 9, that runs for 196 miles in eastern Indiana from Columbus to the Michigan border.  It passes through the home towns of four of the six Vice Presidents from Indiana—Columbia City, home of Thomas Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson, Shelbyville, home of Thomas Hendricks, who served under Grover Cleveland,  Huntington, home of Dan Quayle, who served under the first George Bush and Columbus, home of Michael Pence, presently serving under Donald Trump.  Indiana’s two other Vice Presidents were Schuyler Colfax, who served under Ulysses S. Grant and  Charles Fairbanks, under Theodore Roosevelt.  Of the 48 Vice Presidents, fourteen went on to become President, but none of Indiana’s.  Pence has the chance to be the first if the Democrats take over Congress next month and proceed with their threats of impeachment. Indiana might be known as the state of Vice Presidents, but eight were born in New York and three others considered it their residence when they were elected.

I had visited Shelbyville’s Carnegie, one of the most preeminent in the state, four years ago on my first ride to the School of the Americas protest, but was happy to pay my respects once again.  The same with the Carnegie in Greenfield to the north on Highway 9, that has been repurposed as an upscale restaurant called Carnegies.  I turned east from there to Knightstown, whose simple, but solid Carnegie hadn’t changed much in its one hundred years.  I was concerned that a sign in the window saying “Grant Recipient” meant that it was going to have an addition.  There was no need for alarm, as the librarian said that the grant was just going for furniture for the chidlren’s library in the basement.

Along with the Read posters there were other urgings to read posted on the walls—“Just keep reading,” “To read is very wise”—and some advice from Dr.Seuss—“The more that you read, the more things that you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  That could be by new slogan.  The library retained most of its original features, including a vintage lamp on the circulation desk.  It may not have been adorned with columns or a dome or stained glass windows, but it was as regal as any Carnegie.

When I told the librarian the next Carnegie on my agenda was in New Castle, twenty miles away, she didn’t realize it was a Carnegie.  That was understandable, as it has been overwhelmed by a huge addition, increasing its size ten-fold.  At least it wasn’t like the abomination in Lawrenceburg that smothered the original Carnegie.  This was just added to the side with the original entrance turned into a patio and the original library rendered a large reading room.

Back into the northern half of the state, the forests were minimal and the camping more of a challenge. I could have stayed at the Steve Alford All-American Motel, named for the star guard in the Bobby Knight era, outside of New Castle. A giant sneaker in the UCLA colors, where he is presently the head coach, was out front and the marquee said “Go Bruins,” the UCLA mascot.  There was nothing about free breakfast, but there was still an hour of light left, so I wasn’t tempted.  

I ended up behind an abandoned farm house overwhelmed by vegetation.  The thick, unmown grass made for a soft mattress.  It was cold enough, below 40 after dark, to necessitate my wool cap for the first time.  My tent was encrusted with frost in the morning.  I needed two layers of socks and two layers of gloves until mid-morning. The weather continues to be most unfall-like.  The first week was in the high 80s, twenty degrees above normal, and now it has been ten to fifteen degrees below the normal of 65.  It is quite a contrast to last fall when the weather was so perfect all October I couldn’t stop riding, extending my ride week by week. 

 It was a fifty mile jump to the next Carnegie in Elwood. It was in the upper echelon of Carnegies, constructed of limestone rather than brick, and bigger than the smaller town one-room school house style, but it had been outgrown and replaced by a new bland library across the street twenty years ago.  It was presently vacant and in disrepair with a few broken windows.  The last tenant had tried to turn it into a museum, but couldn’t raise the funds to do it.  What will become of it, the librarians didn’t know, other than that there was no chance that this monument would be torn down. 

The small town of Warren had an unaltered Carnegie akin to the one in Knightstown.   

It exhibited its pride with a standing plaque out front, as every Carnegie should have, emphasizing its significance.

I had the chance to correct the address and status of the Carnegie in Rising Sun on Wikipedia.  I wasn’t able to change the coded color of green to yellow, indicating that it no longer served as a library, but a day later someone else had tended to that, renewing my faith in this great resource that is much more right than wrong and continues to be indispensable.