“People are so afraid of change.” Edited by Rebecca Werner. Transcript for Title of Story If you want to talk about making enemies, I could tell you that I did a lot of zoning work, land use work. From 1965-1990, I was the man in Porter County that you’d talk to if you wanted to […]
Still Working on the Revolution
“You’ve given status to people who would ordinarily not have it…thus giving them power and ability to make change.” Rev. Dr. Gregory Jones Edited by Rebecca Werner Transcript for Still Working on the Revolution I moved to Valpo in 1988. I met Walt Reiner maybe a year before. I was running something called the South […]
Caught in the Crossfire
“I love hearing both sides. Which makes my black and white world very gray.” I think that like, all of us live this shared experience, but we see things differently, obviously. It’s like old—we all touch this elephant, and we have different parts of it, and we don’t know the other part. And I think […]
Resilience of the Residents
“I’m talking about people in my neighborhood who have been in their homes for forty years—they believe in the city and believe that it can work. Transcript for Resilience of the Residents Well, you know, I used to always think and say that even in the neighborhood where I live—because Tolleston is really older than […]
Thought I Was Stuck
“I thought I was going somewhere else. I was planning on going somewhere else. But I didn’t.” Transcript for I Thought I Was Stuck I didn’t think I was going to be the one left behind, but his name was Elmer, and he was a nice man. I miss him. I was not thinking about […]
Memory in the Light of These Sources
“You can’t come in with your history book and bang people over the head… It’s going to be more dialogical than that.” Dr. Heath W. Carter, Historian Transcript for Memory in the Light of These Sources Part of what makes the work of historians, I think, sort of dangerous or edgy in the current moment […]
Not Something That You Force
“You learn how to trust each other, you learn to assume responsibility for each other, you develop relationships… It’s something that happens in the course of time.” Rev. Dr. Gregory Jones Edited by Rebecca Werner Transcript for Not Something That You Force A good neighbor is someone who assumes responsibility for you. The example I […]
I-65 Changed All That
“You know, it was a national trend back then for people to leave urban areas and move to the suburbs.” Transcript for I-65 Changed All That Merrillville back, I guess, in the 1800s was called Wiggins Point—its claim to fame was that part of the old Sauk Trail went through Merrillville. In fact, there’s still […]
No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress
“Why don’t you come to Gary and see what Gary really is?” Transcript for No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress You know—city services are based on tax revenue and if you don’t have enough people who are paying into that tax base, then of course, you can’t provide the level of service that you […]