fowler

Shitty ass little town on the prairie in Indiana that is a nice place to have in your rear-view mirror at 17. More specifically, county seat of Benton County, Indiana, with 2,272 people (US Census 2006 estimate, which is down 6% from 2000 and about 15% from when I lived there) - 98.1% of whom are white, 30% of whom are of German ancestry, 13% Irish, 9% French/Quebecois/e, and 7% English. None of this makes them bad people, of course, but it gives you a flavor of the place. It's at lat 40.6'N 87.32W. Shitty climate - brutally hot in the summer (though the pool's just been redone, I guess, so that's something) and brutally cold in the winter "with nothing to stop the wind between here and Wichita except a barbed wire fence, and it blew over." It's flat here. Flat. Billiard table flat - flatter than the billiard table as I remember it at the old Uptown bar, in fact. No new houses were built there in 2002, '03, or '06, but they did have one in '04 and 2 in '05. If you're straight, white, Republican and have relatives in the cemetary, it doesn't hurt. Good town to drink in - beer is cheap and the locals, some of whom are admittedly a little under-groomed and over-fed, are nice enough. Those aren't southern accents, they are country accents that you are hearing - warsh and mayshure (measure) and idn't it/wadn't it and supposably. Go to the 100 Mile House for lunch (Buc and Mason's is long gone, as is Furr's Home Market and the Grab-It-Here), and stop by at Paddy's on 52, which has been resurrected by a hot former lifeguard... although they could all be gone, it's been a little while.