What do other folks think of The Region? What do we think?
Gary, Indiana and Lake County, Indiana. We have miles of Lake Michigan shore, dunes, forests, swampland, inland lakes, farmland, cities, roads, houses, businesses, factories and especially people.
Is it fraud and politics mixed with organized crime?
I remember playing basketball with a pretty girl when I was a Freshman at ISU. She identified herself as a "Region Rat." She said she was a "Serbian" from "up around Gary." I was more impressed that she was actually pretty good at basketball (she was on the University team) and she was good looking. That was the first time I heard the phrase "Region Rat."
Is it a living ghost town?
We didn't grow up around here. My family moved around, mostly either Indiana and Michigan although a short stint in Naperville and California were included. Once I was drafted-and-later-enlisted into the military I lived on both coasts and moved around even more. I do remember taking the Toll Road though Gary on our way to go to Chicago as kids and joking about the area being the "Armpit of America," It was because of the brown smog that accompanied the massive amount of steel mill activity more than anything we really knew about Gary and the surrounding area. Never in a million years did I think I would wind up living around here!
Is it the new sports teams?
Long story, but in 1981 I had a new job here and a house in Hammond. The job went sideways along with the economy and eventually we wound up in Cedar Lake. When we first moved here we would experience the meterological conditions that would hold the pollutants down near the ground and you could actually see a grey-brown smog come rolling down the street. The siding and even the bricks of buildings absorbed the soot and if you were outside during the worst of the smog you could find yourself coughing to the point of tears.
Is it a song from the Music Man?
We've learned how to deal with the emissions of the steel mills but sadly most of them are just gone. A combination of bad national politics and worse local politics and about three decades of life later we have a generation of people who will tell you. "I used to work at the mills" as part of their life story. Back in the day the people found it simple to leave high school and get a job at the mills. They would put in their forty years or so and then sit back and enjoy the grandkids. That day is long gone!
How about Cedar Lake?
Here in South Lake County the rural is beginning to turn into suburban. Lots of cornfields have given way to bedroom communities. Like a lot of people I used to drive into Chicago for work every day, one of millions in our concrete fingers reaching up to the sky just trying to make an honest buck and get back home in one piece, all of us knowing every pothole and bottleneck on the Dan Ryan and when to take the Blue Island route. Ever notice the Ryan is ten degrees hotter than the rest of Chicago in the dog days of summer? You learn to look for the vehicles that always seem to be on the road at the same time you were every day. There was a flatbed half-ton truck I think I saw 98% of the mornings as I drove in. Region mind meld? It got to the point that I found myself watching traffic for that truck...I am quite sure, since I drove a flashy company car, that a lot of people noticed me.
Crown Point?
Anyway, I guess I belong here now. My kids were born here, went to school here, got married here, had children here. Maybe I will be a Lake County guy for the rest of my life? Here in South Lake County we are not in the middle of the hustle and bustle but we are close enough to get there easily if we want. Lake Michigan is close. Chicago is not so far. We have lots of great parks, including a world-class Frisbee golf course at Lemon Lake! So it seems to me that if I am here and you are here we should care what happens to us.
Was the area around Lowell the site of the first auto race in Indiana history?
So many new residents in Lake County have come from Illinois, where voting Democrat is as habitual as was smoking for film noir actors. Welcome to Lake County! Hey, this is a chance to consider and then reconsider the role of politics in your lives. Much of Chicagoland is composed of Democrats and RINOs. Genuine conservative Republicans are an endangered species in not only Chicago but places like Arlington Heights. There is some of that around here, too.
John Dillinger highly recommends Lake County, or would, if he wasn't dead!
But there is no colossus of Chicago completely dominating the county. Gary and Hammond and East Chicago have a lot of people, but not like Chicago. In this county your vote means more, in this state your vote means more than it ever did in Illinois. Sure some county offices have been owned by Donkeys since cars had running boards but every state and national office can be won by either side. Here is where you come in...
Sure, I am enthusiastic about voting and the elections!
Lake County Politics Stink! Porter County Politics stink. Fill in the blanks. There are always those who seek to take advantages inherent in governance to enrich themselves and their cohorts. There is only one anti-perspirant, there is only one deodorant. You. You have that precious commodity known as a vote. Once again I come with hat in hand asking you to take part in the primary election on May 4th. We need you to get involved and we need you to believe that your vote and your neighbor's vote and your family's vote and my vote - all of us put together getting involved - we are the answer to the local problems we know of and the state problems we can see and the national problems that talking heads discuss each night.
There is more to Lake County than the mills and the birthplace of Michael Jackson or Dillinger's escape or one of the largest freshwater lakes in Indiana. There is more than ribbons of highways and miles of deteriorating city dwellings and businesses. There is more than miles of farmer's fields and big barns. There is you. Oh, and if you happen to live in Porter or Jasper Laporte or Newton or any other county in the USA and you read this, it applies to you. The greatest tragedy in our nation is that we do not take advantage of our right to vote! People in Iraq risk their lives to have a purple finger. We yawn and sigh and say "my vote won't make any difference, they are all politicians anyway." Whose fault is that? If only the crooks and the people aligned with the crooks and the people paid by the crooks vote, then you will have crooked politicians. If everyone does their homework and checks out their candidates and votes then the crooks will be overwhelmed by the numbers and a lot of them will get tossed out on their hind ends! Please for everyone's sake get off your butt or use your lunch hour or whatever it takes to VOTE. Once per election, please. Thanks!
PS - For Tea Party Members
