We grow up learning the history of our state from a very early age. Even though I've been a Hoosier ex-pat since 99 I could still pretty accurately tell you the story of the Pigeon roost massacre, the Battle of Tippecanoe, the New Harmony community (like Shakers but not Shakers) and other intricacies of that boot shaped place. I know that Clinton is as far east as Prairie grass grows, and that The Region is a real place. I can tell you how my own family came to Indiana after the revolutionary war (land grant), where they settled (Nineveh) and the true stories of how we got to where I sit now in the grand scheme of things.
My kids are learning a different history and sometimes that's weird to me. They are learning the history of the place they are from, Georgia.
They are learning the lessons of tornadoes that caused devastation, and families that created a local art form that is legendary.
What is a little interesting is that it's seeping into my own brain. I knew as soon as we came into this room at the Northeast Georgia history museum that we were seeing some Meadors family work. It's interesting, that little nugget of history has made it into my collective knowledge base of these 8 years.
Each state has it's own thing, it's own history and it's story. It's what defines the people of that place. It's too bad, in a way, that there isn't enough time in school to learn these intricacies of each state. We'd understand WHY sometimes I think, when we cast our eyes across the Union, if we understood what came before.
For me Georgia always represented a civil war place and that was about it. But having lived here so long, I've learned that the civil war is just one thing that happened here. Just like the Pigeon Roost massacre is just one thing that happened in Indiana, it doesn't define the whole of the place any more than that. When you don't live here, and you see the snippets of this place, it's easy to see it through the wrong eyes. I think that's true of everywhere.
It's one of the 13 colonies, most people forget that. Folks usually think New England - but no, we are one of them.
Some really amazing things are here, were here, and will be here. I think maybe that's why I like it so much. I dislike being so far from my family, my family beyond my walls. I love being in this foreign place that has become my home, that my children call home.
This stupid snake isn't one of those amazing things though. What on earth would possess someone to make this damn thing.
"Ceramic snake killed by ex-pat Hoosier" is the first thing that came to my mind upon seeing it. Stupid snake.
