“We had a village out there in Small Farms.” Transcript for A Wonderful Childhood I grew up in the Midtown section of Gary. It was a place called the Small Farms. It was called that for a reason because where I lived there were no sidewalks, no paved streets. I remember as a kid, we […]
neighborhood life
Green Light to Go Out of Town
“Did you want to take a stand… or was it just an inevitability, ‘Man, we can’t stay here any longer?’” Transcript for Green Light to Go Out of Town It didn’t take a lot of, “Let’s sit down and have a Ward Cleaver moment with Beaver, you know, and tell him what’s going on in […]
Fences
“Just leave me alone. I’ll leave you alone. We’ll be good.” Transcript for Fences Ok, what I think makes a good neighbor is fences. That’s what I think makes a good neighbor, and that sounds mean to say that, but when I was living in Portage, one of my neighbors wanted to put up a […]
Getting Rich for My Blood
“It’s just changed. It’s a bigger town feeling than it used to be.” Edited by Rich Elliott. Transcript for Getting Rich for My Blood Living in Valpo’s been great. My kids were able to roam the city and skateboard and rollerblade, and they were active in school. So, community-wise it’s been a real positive experience. […]
Making Enemies
“People are so afraid of change.” Edited by Rebecca Werner. Transcript for Making Enemies 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 get […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hold the Line
“These were good people who honestly believed that there was a real problem in terms of the difference between the races.” Edited by Rebecca Werner. Transcript for Title of Story Well, at the time of Richard Hatcher’s election as Mayor of Gary, we didn’t know how that election was going to go, but we knew […]