By Glenda Winders
"You can't go home again," so the saying goes, but my recent trip back to Bloomington, Indiana, proves that old chestnut isn't always true. It is possible to go home again — you just have to be ready for some changes, many of them huge improvements.
My trip down memory lane began when I drove into town on Third Street and caught sight of the insurance office where my family and I lived in the tiny apartment upstairs for a year when I was in first grade. My bedroom looked out over a small city park, but in my imagination it might as well have been Manhattan.
The drive on through the central Indiana University campus, my alma mater, was also memory-filled since most of the new buildings and athletic facilities lie far-flung on the perimeter of the university's grounds. One of these is the John Mellencamp Pavilion, an indoor football field where, at least for the players, football season lasts all year.
The football stadium where I got free admission for selling hot dogs and popcorn was still the same, and so was Assembly Hall, where I went to more basketball games than I can count. McNutt Quad, the dorm where I lived as a freshman, was still just as it was on appropriately named Fee Lane.
But the reason I had come back was to check out the art scene, and that's where I found an explosion of wonderful changes that have put IU and Bloomington on the cultural map.
Some of those modern changes can be credited to Herman B Wells, who was a student at IU and later became president and chancellor, with his term lasting from 1938 to 1962. It was his idea to place Fine Arts Square right in the center of the campus so that students would be exposed to the arts as they walked to their classes.
The centerpiece is Showalter Fountain, a gift from Grace Showalter in memory of her late husband, with a sculpture, "The Birth of Venus" by Robert Laurent, in its center. That brought back memories, too, of the summer evening when my children and I were sitting around the fountain's rim listening to an outdoor concert and my 1-year-old daughter decided to dive in.
The lecture hall where I struggled to stay awake during my 7:30 a.m. art history class, however, has now morphed, according to Abe Morris, the public relations manager, into one of the best university art museums in the country. In the present-day building designed by I.M. Pei are some 45,000 objects that range from Picasso to Pollock, Monet and Diego Rivera to Indiana's beloved native artist, T.C. Steele. The light-filled atrium off which the galleries are located is often used for free noontime concerts.
Next door is the university auditorium, where as a student I heard the Supremes, Ray Charles and Dave Brubeck in concert and performed my final exam in a class called "Oral Interpretation of Literature." The venue still hosts high-quality performers, but its other claim to fame is the Thomas Hart Benton murals that adorn its walls.
While Benton never lived in Indiana, he was commissioned by the state legislature to paint murals depicting the state's culture for the "Century of Progress" pavilion at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. When the fair was over, the murals hung in the horse barn at the Indiana State Fairgrounds until 1940, when Wells convinced the legislature to donate the pieces to the university. Benton assisted in the installation and restoration and was present when the murals were dedicated in 1941.
Next door is the Lilly Library, which was brand-new when I spent my afternoons there researching illuminated manuscripts. Today, however, it has become the repository of some 400,000 books by such authors as Sylvia Plath and Upton Sinclair, and thousands of pieces of sheet music, manuscripts, mechanical puzzles and comic books. Best of all, the materials are accessible by both students and the general public.
Some of the most dramatic changes I saw were in places to eat and drink, for example the brew pubs that have sprouted up all over town. I had lunch one day at Lennie's near the IU campus and discovered so many fresh, healthy menu choices made from local ingredients that it was hard to make up my mind. In the end I decided on a barbecue chicken salad and — not being a beer-lover — a glass of their own root beer that was some of the best I've ever tasted.
My libation choice is wine, so I was delighted to find how much the Oliver Winery had grown in the years I'd been gone from a small operation that produced only honey mead to a full-on destination winery with a list of many wines at good prices, a large tasting room with a pouring staff who dispensed information as liberally as they did their product, and beautifully landscaped grounds that can be booked for special occasions.
Dinner provided the biggest surprise of all. Ordinarily I would have opted for one of the city's many ethnic restaurants, but I had heard from friends about FARM Bloomington and its dedication to local meat and produce, so that was a place I wanted to try. What I didn't realize was that it was housed in a building that was formerly the Eberle Hardware store, where my father worked for most of the years I was growing up.
It was a bittersweet evening for me. The food was as fabulous as I had been told it would be, and the basement where I sometimes used to read books and play while I waited for my dad to finish his workday has been converted into funky themed spaces for private parties. What an ingenious use of the space, I thought, but I still teared up as ghosts of my dad, his co-workers and my own younger self flitted among the real-live diners.
Happily the decor still harkens back to the place's hardware history, with the original oiled wood floors and the walls adorned with farm implements. Chef Daniel Orr told me that the Eberle family has been supportive of the operation — even donating many pieces that help maintain the farm-to-table ambience.
Another change for the better was also a tear-jerker for me. When I left Bloomington a few years after college, Lake Monroe, a reservoir and the source of Bloomington's water, had just been completed. The largest lake situated entirely in Indiana, today it is a water recreation destination, the site of the Fourwinds Resort, marinas with more than 800 boats and many expensive homes, one of which belongs to the aforementioned Mellenkamp.
I have a home there, too, but the difference is that mine lies below the lake's surface. The house where my family moved after the apartment over the insurance office was one of several in the path of progress that were swept underwater when the area was flooded. It wasn't as opulent as the houses now on the shore, but it makes for a colorful story.
WHEN YOU GO
For general information about Bloomington and the Indiana University campus: www.visitbloomington.com
Lennie's: www.lenniesgourmetpizza.com
Oliver Winery: www.oliverwinery.com
FARM Bloomington: www.farm-bloomington.com
Glenda Winders is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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