I chalked a lyric most of us know, but for people in Indiana it isn't background music.
Front porches bring back memories for Hoosiers. Churning ice cream with your great aunts. Watching trucks go by with your great uncle. Listening to the ball game with gramma on the radio while grampa sat there smoking his pipe while reading the grain prices in the local newspaper.
Life in Indiana is about Faith, home cooking, hard work, family and community. I better not forget basketball.
Why does a kid from Chicago come off well read on the Hoosier State?
My maternal family comes from The Hoosier State. I lived all of those things on the front porch. I detasseled corn, I prayed before a meal, I swam in a crick. I went to the 500 and to the State Fair.
Last night the state of Indiana witnessed the Indiana Hoosiers win a big football game. They are one win from a National Football Championship. Hoosier fans grew accustomed to basketball championships, but football was always a losing proposition.
The head coach told a reporter when asked how remarkable this winning season has been. He replied that his team was zero and zero. Take one game at a time and if there was one thing I lived during my Exile in Indiana. Take one day at a time and take that day with Faith, Family and Friends near your side.
When you wake up tomorrow and the next day and the next, you are 0-0. Somedays we finish 1-0 and some we go 0-1. Most days we go 0-0 from start to finish and that isn't so bad.
I plan on having a winning record when I go to the Promised Land.
