(By the way, the picture in my link was taken about 50 miles or so from Argent’s hometown. I’m in total agreement.)
snerk
I swear, the link to this is on the front page of Yahoo right now. I didn’t go seeking it out.
But it’s okay, 'cause LaPorte’s in the bleak part of Indiana.
Of course IN has it’s nice parts–I don’t know a state that doesn’t. Let’s just say that IN doesn’t show its charms at a glance. Southwestern IN does have rolling hills–it looks a great deal like KY to me. If you all feel we are picking on IN, let me say that a great deal of IL is also boring and yes, bleak. It may have been stunning when it was prairie, but a cornfield is cornfield is a cornfield when it comes to aesthetics.
In the movie, Breaking Away, the area around Bloomington is gorgeous. I disagree that it’s the most beautiful campus ever, but that’s a matter of opinion.
Perhaps we are too hard on IN, but those who sing its praises just might be exaggerating a bit–how about we say that IN is a mixed bag?
RE John Cougar Mellencamp–why would I care if he’s a nice guy in RL? I don’t like his music and there is no denying he liked to change his name in the past. (tangent: what is it with this board and having to like/approve of celebs? Public figures take positive and negative attention–it goes with the status).
Thanks for all the info, everyone. Argent Towers, didn’t mean to start a rag-fest, but my OP was quite honest - I really didn’t know anything more about Indiana than Hoosiers and Quayle. (And Indy 500, now that I think about it.)
Notre Dame is in Indiana? that’s the “Fighting Irish” football thing, right? I did not know that.
Yes–in South Bend. And in IN, it’s “noter dame” not notre dame as in France.
The Midwest is so huge and fairly thinly populated–get out of any college town or city and the income level and face of rural poverty is hard to avoid. Rural poverty IS bleak, IMO, as bleak as urban poverty and somehow sadder (stemming from a romantic leftover Victorian vision of the “countryside”). Because IN does not have a Chicago or (time was) a Detroit or a Des Moines–Indy is not as large–it has more well, areas of paucity so to speak.
When I moved from Long Island to San Diego I spent a night in Indiana. Between sleeping and driving I probably spent about 10 hours in the state. I don’t think I missed much. Does that answer your question?
The Indiana state song is On the Banks of the Wabash, a moving but ultimately depressing dirge in which the narrator reminisces about his deceased mother and would-be bride. “I loved her,” he explains, “but she thought I didn’t mean it.”
Well, OK. That’s what happens when you get a reputation as a cut-up.
For more upbeat occasions, when death would ruin the mood, Hoosiers prefer Back Home Again in Indiana. Jim Nabors warbles it every year at the auto race. Back Home Again quotes On the Banks, but without the dead people, in an early example of successful “sampling”.
Fort Wayne actually was the second home of Farnsworth Television, and at least the fourth of Philo Farnsworth himself, born to a Mormon family in Idaho (where he supposedly got the idea for TV scanning while plowing a potato field). He first set up a lab in San Francisco and later moved it to Philadelphia before taking over the former Capehart Radio plant at Fort Wayne. (Homer Capehart once held the U.S. Senate seat later held by Dan Quayle.)
Indiana did have yet another claim to early TV. Purdue University ran experiment station W9XG for several years in the 1930s, with financing from Majestic Radio, a major manufacturer of the day.
Now to music. Indiana can also claim Hoagy Carmichael, a Bloomington native and IU law graduate; Cole Porter, born to an influential family in Peru in Miami County; the Four Freshmen, vocal/instrumental pop group originating at Butler University in Indianapolis; and Wes Montgomery, the great jazz guitarist of the 1950s and '60s. There are others, too.
Re: scenery. No, sorry, Illinois has no scenery. “Alluvial plains” are not scenery; they are “flat”. Corn is planted on them.
Indiana has Brown County.
We got Crab Orchard, World’s Largest Duck Hunt Barrel.
Beaches, plural? I don’t think so. We have Zion. It’s pebbles. Indiana got Indiana Dunes. No contest.
Rugged cliffs? Well, we do have A cliff. Starved Rock? Yep, it’s a cliff all right. Nothing to compare with Brown County.
There’s some moderately interesting scenery down in Shawnee National Forest. I once saw a double-wide with a yard full of chickens that I want to retire to someday. And of course the reclaimed strip mines are lovely and green in the springtime.
I’m a native Hoosier and yes, we have our bleak areas but what the hell? We’re basically land-locked here so we don’t have any sandy beaches. (OK, one teensy weensy corner is bounded by Lake Michigan but we really don’t acknowledge it…Gary’s there <shudder>) We’re in the middle so we don’t have any majestic mountains. We have rain so we don’t have barren deserts.
But if it weren’t for us “farmers”, a big chunk of the rest of you wouldn’t eat. We’re polite on the whole so just be nice to us. We like our little spot on the earth so in the most respectful way, piss off. 
I can’t believe it’s taken this long for someone to mention it’s the home state of David Letterman. It’s also where Cary Grant nearly got shot by someone in a crop duster.
Am I missing something? It’s a creek in a forest. I mean it’s gorgeous in the generic sense, but what state doesn’t have scenery like that?
Anyhow, Indiana vs. Illinois, who cares? They both have fairly mundane, boring scenery. And the Indiana dunes don’t do it for me, either. I was always a bigger fan of Warren Dunes in Michigan.
All I can say about Indiana is that I try to avoid it as much as possible (except for Munster, home of Three Floyd’s brewery.) Every other time I go there, some degree of weirdness occurs. I don’t exactly hate the state, it’s just not for me. And the drive from Chicago to Indianapolis along I-65 is one of the most mind-numbingly boring drives there is.
Sure, it’s a mixed bag. Like every other state in the country. There is no state in the whole entire country that’s perfect. (Some people might say Hawaii is perfect. Other people, like someone I know who is actually a native Hawaiian, think it’s a shithole of poverty and drugs and can’t wait to move to the mainland and get the hell away from it.) California has a lot of natural beauty - it also has huge problems with crime, illegal immigration, pollution…there’s no state that isn’t a mixed bag.
As for John Mellencamp, I just thought I’d talk about him because, I mean, I know him. He’s not always a nice guy - I’ve seen him in good moods and bad moods. On the set of the video for Your Life Is Now (which I am in) he ornery and impatient - the last time I saw him, which was last year, he was extremely nice. His wife on the other hand is always nice.
Don’t ask him for his autograph if he’s with his wife and kids.
Also I’m not sure what you mean by “having to approve of celebs” on this board. I’ve never seen that. It seems like most discussion of celebrities here is very critical.
Mind numblingly boring is I-80 through Nebraska or I-57 from Chicago to Chambana.
I agree–the pics are pretty, but that scene can be found in any midwestern state–there’s creek near my house in suburbia (in a forest preserve) that has similar views.
The Shawnee national forest is moderately interesting? Ok-whatever. Clearly we are using different criteria in our judgements. There are also the river bluffs on the western side of IL and the scenic routes along the Mississsippi river.
To each their own. IN has more than its share of corn and flat lands–most of the midwest states do (IA is actually more rolling hills, but NE is flat, flat, flat); my point was that IL has more varied landscapes, geographically than IN.
AT–you brought it up. I mentioned that I don’t like him (implied in my post) and you said but he is NICE. As if I care. I don’t like his music; I wouldn’t ask him for his autograph; I probably wouldn’t recognize him on the street. He’s irrelevant to me regarding attractions (geographic) in IN or attractions, period. I think you just wanted to mention that you know him. How nice for you. What does that have to do with anything?
There’s another thread in CS re Tony Curtis which wants to castigate some posters for being critical of celebs. I read that one just before reading this one and your comments stuck out. Arguing about the attractiveness of Mellencamp or IN is not all that attractive to me, so I’ll stop now. It’s as boring as IN and his music for me. I’m perfectly happy with you liking IN and not liking IL–it doesn’t really matter.
I really love you all. But anyone defending Indiana and Illinois really needs to get a life. This is from a Missouri boy. At least we have hills.
but you call 'em a funny name: ozarks! Jeesh, hicks these days.
All we need is for someone to jump in from Ohio, MN, Iowa, and MI and we’ll be set.
I certainly did not say “but he is nice.” Hah, I’m not so deluded that I actually think that I can make someone else like a certain singer by saying that he’s “nice.” And in fact, I didn’t even say he was nice, I said he was “an awesome guy.” That was just my opinion, it was not in response to your stated distaste for him and it definitely was not intended to “defend” him or anything.
You won’t get any argument from me about that one.
Y’all forgot about former VP Thomas Marshall. He was the author of the quote “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.” Thomas R. Marshall - Wikipedia 
missred…formerly having lived down the street from his birthplace.
There is also the great union leader Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute. Terre Haute is now largely a blighted eyesore of a city, but it was once a great center of industry.