Susie and Pete
We had dinner last night at Susie and Pete’s house in Wabash, Indiana, Kim’s old home town. Kim and Betty even stayed there last night since the Charley Creek Inn, in downtown Wabash is not so pet-friendly. Gary and Oswaldo and I stayed at the Charley Creek Inn, which, despite it’s uncharacteristically unfriendly approach to Betty, is an old, turn-of-the-prior-century hotel, restored with love and a refined eye for detail into a new hub for the downtown revival for this Pollyanna Midwest town where you expect to see either Hello Dolly or the Music Man come around the corner at any moment. Wabash was on the Erie Canal route and was therefore part of the early Nineteenth Century westward expansion of the United States. In the Native American tongue of the region, Wabash means “Water over white stones” where the Wabash River flows over limestone. This river became a key part of the Wabash and Erie Canal system that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River and thus the Mississippi River and the broader ocean via the Gulf of Mexico. Whenever you wonder about the importance of place, think of towns like Wabash, which may seem like wide spots in the road today, but were major stepping stones in the building of our great nation.
But Wabash was not content to sit on its laurels as a canal town that was part of the industrial heartland of the country after the Great War Between the States. The town saw the future and maybe it’s own future and chose in 1880 to revitalize itself by becoming the first electrically-lighted city in America, neigh, in the world. This was done by installing four carbon arc lights on the top of the town courthouse, lighting the surrounding town. This all was accomplished by a steam-powered generator in the courthouse basement. For the second time, Wabash put itself on the map and was part of the Industrial Revolution led by electricity and westward expansion by rail. And yet, one hundred forty years later, here we are with a town struggling to support itself off of a stalwart Ford Meter Box factory, which makes most of the world’s most ubiquitous water metering equipment to this day, and that mainstay of American life on the road, Five Hour Energy Drink. Wabash has its challenges meeting the changing world, but here it sits with too much history to ignore.
I know as much about that history as I do because Kim has directed two historical musical theater productions about the town of Wabash. The first was called Wait Til You Get to Wabash about the town’s origins on the Wabash and Erie Canal in the 1830’s, which brought a large part of the population to the town. The second was Light Up the Town, about the Great electrification project of 1880. Both were written by the unofficial town historian and music teacher, Susie Jones. She was certainly assisted by her husband Pete Jones, the long-time teacher of American History in Wabash and a lifelong journalist and columnist for the Wabash Plain Dealer local newspaper and for the Ford Meter Box’s Meter Setter gazette . Susie was Kim’s music teacher in her youth and both Susie and Pete are fixtures of the town. They have become our beacon of Kim’s heritage and deep connection to Wabash. They have also become extended members of our family enough to include them in family gatherings and extend that relationship to include their daughter, Kate, who we just left behind in Kansas City.
Kim has performed cabarets and recitals in Wabash on several occasions and is among the Wabash performing arts diaspora. She has been honored by her high school as a notable graduate, and along with the much better-known Crystal Gayle (of country music fame), is a favorite performer at the Honeywell Center. That Center is an outsized indicator of the importance of the performing arts to this little community, and it may in large part be connected to the role of Susie Jones as the town’s longstanding musicologist.
Kim has only a dwindling list of Wabash connections at this point. Her relatives are fewer and further away, probably by virtue of her expanded horizons over the past forty plus years. Her siblings Sharon and Jeff spent as long or longer out in the world beyond the city limits of Wabash as she and have even fewer connections to the town since Kim’s musical theater roots combined with the Susie bond have kept her closer. Kim has stayed friendly with her neighbor Mrs. Delong, who, at 97, appreciates her stopping by to touch base regularly as she did today at the assisted living facility caring for her. The passage of time takes a toll on all of our hometown ties.
Bur Susie and Pete are different. There is a special bond among us that may revolve around Wabash, but transcends Wabash as well. Creative passions are powerful drivers to lifelong friendships. Susie and Kim share their passion for music and theater. And, coincidentally enough, I feel Pete and I share a great deal of equal devotion to two creative passions. The first is an obvious one. Pete and I both write stories for the recordation and posterity of the lives we lead. His are mostly about history, Wabash and the heartland Midwest he is such a part of. Mine are about motorcycling, the global condition, liberal political ideals and the world around me wherever and however I see it and choose to embellish it. You see, the second thing I find that Pete and I have in common is an insatiable and ongoing curiosity that drives to always be questioning, learning and expanding our horizons. This is neither a common attribute nor necessarily one that others value as much as we ourselves might. I am guessing that both Pete and I would like to share our discoveries with others, but would be content with knowledge for knowledges’ sake just as Kim and Susie follow the Ars Gratia Artis credo of Ancient Rome and Metro-Goodwin-Mayer.
Kim is planning a concert that Susie is coordinating with the Honeywell Foundation. I continue to write my stories every day. Pete is no longer writing his Plain Dealer column, but does contribute stories to the Meter Setter each month. He sent us off with a book of his best stories from the Meter Setter and Kim read several to me as we drove though Northeastern Indiana on our way to Cleveland, Ohio. The first one was about the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and how it came to pass as well as its impact. Perhaps the most memorable thing about that Fair was the introduction of the Ferris Wheel. The story tells the tale of Ferris’ inability (despite the attraction’s popularity during the Fair) to sell the contraption at the end and the need to see it demolished. I found myself wishing I had read that story before dedicating six unsuccessful years to building the world’s tallest observation wheel on New York Harbor.
The second story was about the silk trains that barreled across the country delivering those Asian luxury goods to the East Coast. This was something new to me and reminded me of how wonderful it is to learn something new each day. It also prompted me to set the record straight about Susie and Pete and what dear friends they have become to us.