We drove to Indianapolis Saturday, my husband J. and I, to visit the State Library where I needed to do some research on military libraries in Indiana during World War I, specifically the USA General Hospital #35 at the West Baden Springs Hotel in French Lick.

            Traveling down Highway 231 there’s the Rose Man, offering roses starting at five dollars a dozen, in his silver and blue 1970s van. I think he may live there.  Past the Shiloh-Wesley-Chapel Church in its low-slung, caramel brick building and a smattering of business, the Carpet Barn, the Cinema 67 Drive-In, a farm implement store with giant, metal exoskeletons presented like some sort of futuristic prehistoric insect and lots of open farmland and clusters of houses.

            “The Tomato Pie Pizza Parlor looks deserted,” I noted as we passed through bedraggled little Paragon, “but then the whole town looks kind of deserted.”   

            Much of 231 from Spencer to Interstate 70 snakes along a railroad track where the land around it always looks sort of swampy. There is a smattering of houses, including a beautiful red brick one, all in a line. A sign planted in a corn field announces the coming of a technology park which, so far, remains as elusive as the coming of Jesus whose immanent appearance is announced on a sign in yet another cornfield a little further up the road.

            I don’t know how the Speedway where 231 breaks off into I-70 could go out of business but it did. It sits next to a large, white, one-story Motel that advertises daily, weekly and monthly rates. There are two cars in its parking lot.

            We turn onto I-70 through Mooresville and Camby. Camby always seems to have more than its fair share of murders and murderers for such a small town. Lots of reported haunting too. We drive past the Salvage Yard Church which shares a small, white, cinderblock building with pawn shop. On the other side is an animal hospital. An interesting looking old house lays just behind down a winding road but as I hinted at before, you really don’t want to start heading blindly down meandering Camby roads.  

            Down the road Vincent Furs is going out of business after fifty years. Everything Must Go! No Reasonable Offers Refused! The Vincent family picked a bad time to close up shop with Indiana having an extremely warm winter this year. Next door to Vincent’s, only the red-and-white striped sign for Chez Jean remains.

            “Chez Jean was Indianapolis’s first French restaurant,” my husband, who grew up in Indianapolis, informed me, “For a long time it was Indy’s only French restaurant. You knew it was a special occasion if someone was going to Chez Jean. I’m sad to see it gone.”

            Camby might as well be part of Indianapolis because from there you see row after row of sad, half-filled strip malls and industrial sites. An elegant steak house sits like the Marie Celeste in an ocean of empty blacktop.

            “Everyone was saying how the Super Bowl coverage made Indianapolis look like such a big city,” my husband said, “but that’s because they kept such a tight shot. If they had panned out a little then everybody could see that Indianapolis is only about two square miles.”

            After the recent Super Bowl pundits have been saying you can’t call Indy “Naptown” or “India-no-place” anymore but it sure seemed sleepy and half closed as we drove in about 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. It had finally taken a turn for the cold. It had snowed the day before and icy winds were whipping around.

            We drove along Interstate 70.

             “Are we driving over your parents’ house yet?” I asked.

            “We are!” J. replied. His parents had bought a house in a new subdivision in the mid-1950s. A few years after they moved in I-70 was built in what had been open fields in their backyard.

            “Do you think those keep the trucks from turning off the remote controls?” I ask; pointing to some sound barrier fencing put in place.

            “I don’t know,” J. said, “But I wish we had those when I was playing basketball in the backyard.”

            We passed some upscale houses shielded from Interstate noise by a wooden privacy fence keeled halfway to the ground and felt somewhat sorry for them. We drove through a colorful Ethiopian/Mexican neighborhood on the fringes of Downtown. We passed a Church with abstract, slag glass windows now offering units with high ceilings. I wouldn’t mind living in a Church that had been converted into Condos, as long as it has been de-consecrated, though such an idea gives my Dad the willies.

            The Indiana State Library is located in the heart of Downtown Indianapolis, near the Canal, on West Ohio Street where all the big, limestone government buildings are located. After 9/11 bulky concrete barriers were placed at either end of Ohio Street so traffic can’t get through due to overwhelming fears of car bombs and other terrorist actions. At first J. couldn’t figure out how to get to the State Library so he let me out to walk. I quickly realized I had left my gloves and scarves in the car and I was walking with tears freezing to my cheeks when my husband found his way into the compound and picked me up again.

            He deposited me at the Library while he went to find a parking space. Parking is expensive in Downtown Indianapolis and it made me think of all the people who think government workers shouldn’t be paid enough to park.

            Inside the Library I approached a security guard to see if I needed to register or anything. I didn’t and the guard directed me to the 2^nd floor.

            I had emailed in advance but they still weren’t expecting me. I pulled some folders from the Clipping File and went through those; and some books about West Baden and went through those as well.

            J. had returned from parking the car and set up his Netbook to work on his never-ending Napoleon bibliography while I worked through the clipping and books. I found the program I was after had been a Federal program and requested some books that proved helpful on the topic. The Reference Librarian made it seem like she was pulling the books from storage but they were actually in the Manuscript Division so I sat at my table until the Manuscript Librarian, who had been playing my like a ping pong ball between herself and the librarian in Reference, noticed me and asked if I was the Patron wanting to see the Ahern correspondence, which I was.

            The Library is clean and open inside. Too open, in fact, as voices carried loudly and soared to the rafters even in when whispered. They are open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays and they are closed on Sundays. I wrapped up my research before 3:00.

            “Why don’t we go to an antique mall?” I suggested and we found a clutch of them nearby in Fountain Square. We visited the Fountain Square Antique Mall but it was filled with reproduction oak furniture and any actual antiques contained within were extremely pricey. My husband remembered a diner on the corner. From the outside it looked the same but inside it had turned into a super trendy sports bar and gaming parlor, empty save for a bunch of loud, obnoxious employees. Outside the restaurant is a lobby with an ornate mail slot and a sign noting it wasn’t used for mail anymore, outside the elevators that led to apartments above.

            “If you had to live in Indy,” I said, I suppose this would be a pretty cool place to live.”

            “Why?” J. asked.

            “Grilled Cheese Sandwiches!” I replied and we laughed as we walked toward Peppy’s Grill where the grilled cheese and fries, along with, or so I’m told, the hamburger was seriously substandard.

            “I like living Downtown in a small town,” J. said.

            “Close to a grocery.” I added.

            “What do you want to do now?” J. asked.

            “Go get pizza!” I said.

            “We just had lunch!” J. teased.

            We drove to a ragged strip mall containing one of the few remaining Circle City pizza parlors and ordered two 16-inch pies, cheese, extremely light on the sauce although as pizza sauce goes, theirs is delicious. There was a doughnut shop on the fringe of the strip mall that closed at three and a Mexican restaurant that opened at four. Next to the pizza parlor was an unclaimed mattress and furniture store. Mattresses were leaving at a steady clip but the sofas looked cheap and unsupportive. An insurance business sat on the other side, its information repeated in Spanish, including the fact that they don’t take cash. Down the row was a Save-a-Lot and a Family Clothing Store that advertised Nothing Over $10.

            We waited for our pizzas and then paid the $30.00 bill and left, taking the steaming boxes with us. We then drove back home to Spencer where we arrived just in time to catch the first airing of Saturday’s Judge Judy on channel twelve.  

            “You didn’t save me much Pizza!” Max complained as he looked at the six remaining squares when he returned home from Terre Haute Sunday around 9:00 in the evening.

            “You’re lucky to get that!” J. said.

            “We really did have to restrain ourselves,” I agreed as he made short work of the remains, precluding any possibility of a cold pizza breakfast come Monday morning.