The Great Escape

As part of my job, I get to talk to vendors every day from across these great United States. Being a Hoosier boy, I get quite excited when I get to speak to someone in Indiana. However, I have noticed something odd: my enthusiasm is never reciprocated. In fact, when I mention that I am from Indiana, the response on the other end of the line is usually a snub. A chill nearly always descends upon our previously pleasant conversation, and I feel somewhat shut out.

I've been pondering this rather unfriendly phenomenon and wondering why I get the cold shoulder from my Hoosier brethren. Then one day it dawned on me.

They're jealous.

You see, almost twelve years ago, my lovely bride and I made the great escape from Indiana. I remember the night well; the images are seared into my memory. The bright lights, the razor wire, the German shepherds, the armed guards perched atop their Allis-Chalmers tractors... memories of that night still send a cold chill down my spine.

We had met up with some members of an underground resistance group (The Indiana People's Liberation Front, Vincennes chapter). I cannot divulge names or how we came to know them, because many of these good-hearted revolutionary farm workers are still wanted by Die Indiana Geheimie Polizei and certain 4-H authorities. However, through these folks, we learned of a secret tunnel under the Wabash River a few miles upstream from their headquarters. We emerged through a storm sewer grate in Palestine, Illinois, where a small band of Indiana Freedom Fighters awaited us. They gave us safe passage to suburban Chicago, where we had much assimilating and learning to do.

Many if not most of my friends and family from my generation made it out of Indiana alive. They have their own stories. Some were bit by angry hound dogs, others shot. Many were chased for miles by farm implements. Still more had to dodge basketballs thrown at them, as well as folding chairs (that would be the Bobby Knight chapter of HUFASI - Hoosiers United For A Stronger Indiana). Ours is a relatively tame story of escape in the search for a better life.

We do sneak back into Indiana for holidays a few times a year, using various tunnels and wooded areas under cover of darkness. We keep tabs on where the HUFASI are patrolling. And we always keep our ears open for the tell-tale tractor motors, trolling in search of escapees and ex-pats. We pray that someday the long Hoosier diaspora will end, and we all can return to our homeland to live free, productive lives.

Until then, our hearts will be saddened every time we hear a shot gun pop or basketball bounce in the night across a darkened cornfield. And we will remember our own escape, and be forever grateful to those valiant individuals who helped us across the border to freedom.