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| Mike at Elkhart County Courthouse |
It was July, 1969
that I moved from Detroit Michigan to Elkhart County Indiana. And while I
enjoyed Detroit, the Tigers, my school, Carstens, I gained, in Elkhart County,
a deeper connection to nature. Detroit was all brick, cement, glass. One
reported area in terms of city blocks, such as “that bank occupies a full city
block.” In Elkhart County, the report
was “his farm was of 150 acres.”
I enjoyed the aroma
of disturbed soil being prepared for planting.
The weather was given
a wide stage upon which to perform its visual and sonic effect as rolling
fields of corn, green and uniform, received the alternating blessings of rain
and sun.
The evenings were
alive with the sound of peepers, frogs, and other musical creatures.
It was the nighttime
sky above acres of farmland that became the instance in which I learned how to
spot the Big Dipper.
Yes, the theater of
nature, Elkhart County, not only entertained my senses; it informed my
intellect causing a richer connection with nature.
Arthur Franklin Mapes described
Indiana well in his poem which has been made the Indiana State Poem…
” God crowned her hills with beauty,
Gave her lakes and winding streams,
Then He edged them all with
woodlands
As the setting for our dreams.”
I claim those sentiments for Elkhart County even more so.
