It’s The End of Downtown Noblesville As We Know It (and I feel fine)

(Apologies to R.E.M. for co-opting their song title.)

 

Two years from now the feel and functionality, even the center of gravity of downtown Noblesville will be transformed. It will become an intensely urban environment with dramatically more pedestrians and cars. It’s already underway, and will unfold fast enough to make your head swim.

 

And I feel fine. 

 

I want an exciting, vibrant downtown. I’ve been waiting decades for housing, restaurants and shops to be built in the surface parking lots–the asphalt deserts that ring our city center. And it’s finally happening.

The Levinson Building at 9^th and Maple (pictured above) is nearly complete: 85 apartments, 337 parking spaces, and a family-friendly restaurant with a broad street-side dining space. Before the end of the year some 140 people and 120 cars will call this single half block parcel just a half block from the courthouse, home. The builder finds half the tenants of their Indiana buildings are at or near retirement–an active population with more disposable income. That’s good for downtown shops and restaurants.

By the approaching winter, the Lofts On Tenth (pictured above) could be occupied. Currently under construction along 10^th, between Clinton and Wayne streets, it replaces a long-term eyesore with an attractive building. It will house 7 small retail spots and 23 apartments. Let’s estimate another 45 people and 40 cars.

 

County Parking Garage: Hamilton County is about to break ground on a new 5-story parking garage along Clinton St., between 8^th and 9^th streets. They'll will move all employee parking from the surface lot at Conner and White River to the new garage. This long overdue project is good, but a mixed bag. They only need 4 stories today, which leaves 1 story of additional parking for downtown during the day (hopefully), and presumably the entire building on evenings and weekends. But the relatively easier access county employees once had down Hwy 19, St. Rd. 32, and 8^th to their parking is gone and now they’ll have to filter through commercial and residential Old Town to get to and from parking. 

Construction begins this summer on East Bank (pictured above), a 4-story building on the old County parking lot where White River meets Conner St. and includes the demolition of the McMillan Auto Care. Its 219 apartments will overlook the river, with a 295 car garage and 5,000 square feet of retail centered at 6^th & Conner. Let’s expect approximately 350 more residents using most of the 295 parking spaces. Completion is expected spring of 2023.

Though it’s across the river, consider the Village of Federal Hill (pictured above): 163 apartment units, a 430 space parking garage, and a staggering 30,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. This and the city’s plan to make west Logan a more bikeable/walking artery reaching west to the staggering Nexus development (pictured below) at the old Marsh plaza, with almost 300 living units and another 36,000 sq. ft. of commercial space (and a bike share facility) will functionally drag the center of downtown from the courthouse square to the river. 

Let’s do the math for spring of 2023. There will be approximately 600 more people living within about 2 blocks of the courthouse. They’ll be shopping, eating, living, going to downtown parks, art shows and music events, and having friends and family visiting them. Imagine sharing the sidewalks, crosswalks, restaurants and Farmer’s Market with that many more people. Also consider that they’ll also have at least 550 cars located in the same radius, coming and going from 3 parking garages. Imagine sharing the streets with them. As I said, downtown will become a far more intense urban environment. 

 

And that math I estimated doesn’t include the Nexus development further west, the biggest development of all.

 

But that’s not the end of it.

 

I’m a Realtor who sells commercial property in this zone. Without divulging private conversations or anyone’s personal business, trust me that every single remaining parking lot or parcel of ill-used land you see downtown or immediately west of the river has a landowner and/or a deep-pocketed developer dreaming and scheming about it, right now! In 4 years, barring a recession, the numbers could be double what I’ve just laid out.

 

And I feel fine. Not because I’m a realtor, but because I’ve lived here with an under-performing downtown for 3 decades. Yes, it gets better all the time, but still a shadow of what it could be. I want more cool restaurants, distilleries, shops and special events to enjoy. That potential is unfolding.

For more info on each project and a maps showing locations, follow this link the City of Noblesville's website: Noblesville Projects

The Book That Could Save America

You believe lies. And so do I.

In fact, we likely each have many beliefs or opinions that couldn’t survive solid research. Yet, we cling to them. The 2020 election demonstrates how profoundly divided our nation is and I’m convinced that the intensity of the division is built largely upon utterly false beliefs. Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me, by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson details the scientific research into how we mentally assemble and defend our sometimes mistaken opinions.

 

To overcome these prejudices, we have to overcome our powerful natural urge to defend our worldview in the face of contrary evidence. Here’s an example.

 

Lance Armstrong was a hero to my avid cycling friend. And for good reason. Armstrong beat cancer and became the world’s greatest cyclist, winning the Tour de France 7 times. But from the first victory in 1999 he was accused of using performance enhancing drugs. My friend defensively regarded the accusations as sour grapes from competitors. He was feeling “cognitive dissonance,” the term given to the protective mental struggle we experience when confronted with information contrary to our beliefs. By 2012 Lance Armstrong’s teammates and closest associates revealed that he was the ringleader of the most sophisticated doping scheme in cycling history. 

 

To my friend’s credit he accepted that the overwhelming evidence wasn’t a conspiracy, but proof his hero was in fact a cheater. Mistakes Were Made demonstrates that’s not the typical outcome. Our brains go through enormous gymnastics to defend our beliefs in the face of opposing truths. Once we embrace something as true, take some decisive action, or get emotionally attached to an idea, the self-justifications and biases take hold.

 

“Most people, when directly confronted with proof they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously.” -Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” That’s because of cognitive dissonance. 

 

Back in 2012, the Trayvon Martin shooting came up with a friend. I said, “The actual facts of the case don’t matter. America’s so divided, everybody knew which side they were on before they’d heard all the facts.” Nostrils flared, jaw tight, she stopped the conversation in a bluster of anger. The mere chance I might blame George Zimmerman was too much. “I can’t bear to hear people twist the truth!” she said.

 

She was experiencing cognitive dissonance; her deeply held beliefs confronted by an opposing view (though I only suggested opposing views existed). It was so upsetting she couldn’t bear to hear the words.

 

That’s why we increasingly seek news channels that soothe our biases. Like country fans who only listen to country stations or a hip hop fan who only listens to rap, many of us are immersed in carefully constructed filter bubbles. Nothing we dislike gets through. And just as the algorithms of Spotify and Pandora keep our musical taste narrow, FOX News and MSNBC rarely challenge the political blinders we’ve affixed to our minds. If they did, we’d change the channel.

“As fallible human beings, all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for actions that turnout to be harmful, immoral, or stupid.”  -Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

 

The political manipulators in our culture know this well. They design social media posts meant to inflame our biases, knowing we’re so ready to have our opinions vindicated, we won’t fact check their claims before we hit share. And so we spread false information about our mistaken beliefs, thinking we’ve proving ourselves right.

 

Apply that to a politician we hate or admire, or to those waving rebel flags or Black Lives Matter signs. With our tendencies to defend and justify beliefs, it’s no wonder America is polarized. While reading Mistakes Were Made, I was embarrassed to see some of my own prejudices and BS reflected in the stories and research.

 

I once saw the Dali Lama speak. Someone asked him a very simple question: “Will the world ever know peace?” He replied like a prophet: “Only when we learn to disarm ourselves from within.”

 

Facing our own prejudice, biased bullshit is a great way to disarm ourselves, and learning the lessons detailed in Mistakes Were Made is a great way to start. No Facebook post will change our minds. Only we can change our minds.

 

During the Obama years, some of my conservative friends believed he was born in Africa, was a secret Muslim, and insisted he “hated America.” Some of my liberal friends are convinced that Trump has been compromised by Russia, deliberately destroying democratic norms at Putin’s bidding. At some point we have to face the idiocy behind these conspiracy theories and recognize that few of our opponents are monsters from hell. They’re just people we disagree with.

 

It’s been said we’re in a tribal, post-truth society, a time where truth doesn’t even matter. All that matters is the version of reality our tribes ascribes to. But if we’re to survive as a nation, we’ll each need to step back from our warring tribes and face the lies they and we embrace. 

Kurt Meyer's novels can be bought at the Noble Made shop on Noblesville's courthouse square, or from any major online bookseller.

“Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of The Lost Are The Last To Die

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of The Myth of Perpetual Summer

A Gravel Pit Lake Tests Noblesville's Commitment to Communication

Communication is the buzzword in Noblesville’s City Hall. Our new mayor and new council members mention it often. The goal: Communicate proactively with constituents about projects and policy. Don’t blindside them with backroom done-deals after it’s too late for real public input. But Hamilton County Parks’ and Beaver Materials’ plan for a gravel pit lake on North Allisonville Road will test this admirable commitment to communication.

 

For decades Hamilton County leaders, some elected, and some anointed by their economic power, have treated the general public like a nuisance to maneuver around, rather than what the public truly is: their only reason to exist. But just as Noblesville’s new leaders are trying to govern beyond these old bad habits, the County and Beaver brought the old habit to City Hall for a stamp of approval. 

 

Beaver hopes to dig a 20’ deep gravel pit where 191^st Street T’s into a rolling farm field that falls west toward Potter’s Bridge Trail and White River. They’d dig for 10 years, then turn an eventual lake over to the County to add to Potter’s Bridge Park. Lovely idea. Only problem, they never asked surrounding homeowners in Allison Trails and Potter’s Woods if they wanted a gravel pit next door for the next decade. Prevailing winds from the northwest would aim dust and noise, and gravel trucks at both neighborhoods. Before even talking to neighbors, County Parks had already put up signs in the empty farm field heralding their done deal.

 

On September 14^th, Beaver and Hamilton County Parks presented their plans, hosting a meeting for the neighborhoods at Potter’s Covered Bridge. It didn’t go well. What was to be a carefully managed rollout collapsed into a shouting match between angry residents on one side and a defensive Beaver and the County on the other. 

 

Now what? In old Hamilton County tradition, Beaver and the County are moving ahead intent upon forcing their will on these neighborhoods.

 

But the property needs a rezone and the elected officials who can give the green light to this horrifically communicated plan are the very same Noblesville officials who have been calling for communication. I don’t envy them. They’re all good people. I just hope they govern with their newly stated ethics front and center.

 

From my perspective, there are 3 ways to govern. You can represent, lead, or dictate. 

 

Before even announcing their plans, the County put

up a sign at the site of their proposed gravel pit lake

that read, "More Parks, More Fun." I was vandalized

last weekend and then removed.

Want to Represent? That’s admirable. Figure out what the public wants and give it to them. But don’t govern as if you know better than the public, even if you do. That’s dictating, not representing.

 

Willing to Lead? That’s tricky, but also admirable. You have an idea the public hasn’t considered. Be up front and get out front with your idea and educate and “Lead” the public through the wisdom of your vision, bringing them along with you. 

 

But if they don’t follow and you do it anyway, you’re dictating, not leading.

 

Or you can go low and just Dictate, which has been the politically inbred, one-party reflex of 

city and County governments for the 35 years 

I’ve lived here. We’ve all heard the excuse, “I was elected for 4 years to do what I think is best.” No you weren’t! We don’t elect kings. We elect Reprentatives and Leaders. In truth, dictating is fine when settling mundane affair. But if you’re changing the rules and the lay of the land for the entire community or for even just families in a few neighborhoods, you’d better be Leading or Representing.

Dictating is easy. Leading and Representing are hard. No wonder dictating often wins in a one party town. I so wish the County and Beaver Materials had Lead from the very beginning, involving the surrounding community in the planning process so that City leaders could Represent the public’s desires on a rezone. But old habits die hard. I honestly believe we have the people in place for fresh Noblesville government. They’ve been put in a tough position. 

 

Frankly, I’m neither for nor against the gravel pit lake. And I know my opinion isn’t as important as that of those who’ll live near it. 

 

Noblesville’s Plan Commission and City Council should vote no, for now. Not no on the gravel pit lake, but no for failed communication during the planning process. Send a firm statement that says, “That’s not how we do things here anymore.” Vote no now to tell Beaver and the County to start from scratch and include in their planning the Noblesville residents who will spend the next 10 years living beside the digging. If the plan survives, bring it back and vote on its actual merits.

Buy a copy of the Contrarian's novel, The Salvage Man

 

 

“Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of A Thousand Falling Crows

Buy a copy of the Contrarian's novel, Noblesville

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of Whistling Past the Graveyard

What Trump's Election Taught Our Children

Image by B. Kenley

When my children were small a wise older parent told me, “Don’t worry so much that children do what you tell them to do, worry that they’re watching everything YOU DO.”

There is great truth in that maxim. If kids ignored our stated values and simply watched our behavior, what did they learn from Donald Trump’s election?

Your Vote Does Not Matter

At least in presidential elections.

Twice in the past 5 presidential elections, the candidate that a majority of Americans chose didn’t get to be president; Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. In fact, Clinton got 2.5 million more votes than Trump, but Trump will be president.

When supporters of the Electoral College argue that all those red states show a country that didn’t want Hillary Clinton and that highly populated coastal cities shouldn't be allowed to pick the president, American teenagers in government classes across America know that’s bullshit. They see through the suggestion that reds states are totally red. In Michigan, Trump got 47.60% of the vote over Clinton’s 47.33%. So virtually half of the voters in Michigan wanted Clinton as president, but because it was a quarter of one percent less than those who wanted Trump, they’re votes were not added to those of the big coastal cities. It’s like they never voted at all. In my state of Indiana, 43% of presidential votes (Clinton votes) were thrown in the trash and likewise, not added to those of the coastal states.

Our young people know that the Constitution once forbid women from voting and enshrined slavery in its text. It was far from an infallible document. The Electoral College has the power to erase the will of the majority and has done so in 40% of the presidential elections since 2000. Our children know that, too, and it’s the most powerful evidence any cynic ever needed to argue that voting doesn't matter.

The Truth Doesn't Matter
Politicians have been called liars from the days of ancient Greece. But with Donald Trump there needs to be a term bigger than "pathological liar." To Trump, the truth is a matter of expedience. What is the most manipulative version of reality he could express in a particular moment? He just says it. If he needs to say something utterly contradictory later in the day, he will. And he never, ever, admits he lied. You could literally spend a day watching YouTube videos of Trump saying one thing and then another video in which he claims he never said it.

Adults develop beliefs and get emotionally attached to them, the beliefs become part of our identity, such that we'll relentlessly ignore proof we're wrong. Children are less stone and more clay. They watched their parents ignore Trump's relentless contradictions and hipocracy and internalize that incongruity as an acceptable norm.

Our children were watching and saw this: What is true does not matter. Say whatever serves your personal needs and never, never admit you're wrong. Then, attack, defame, insult anyone who catches you in a lie. That's called, "Tellin' it like it is."

Sexual Assault And Bullying Don't Matter

It’s not surprising that a politician would have multiple accusations of unethical or illegal behavior. But Trump is markedly different in a unique way. From the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry to many of the accusations about Hillary Clinton, there were no confessions or video-taped hard evidence to verify the accusation. They were simply accusations with varying amounts of conflicting evidence. But in Trump’s case, most of the ugliest accusations about his character can be verified in a video clip of him on YouTube, IN HIS OWN WORDS!

So when you hear someone say Donald Trump is disrespectful toward women, worse yet that he’s repeatedly committed sexual assault. You don’t have to believe them. Just go to YouTube and watch an endless stream of videos of Trump across three decades, bragging about womanizing, mocking older women for not being young and sexy, or offering a bizarre endless stream of leering sexual comments to women, such that he makes Bill Clinton look like a virgin choir boy.

In fact there is such a breathtaking mountain of evidence of Trump’s disrespect of women online as to make denial idiotic. This all culminated in the release of a recording in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Today, there are a total of 16 women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual assault.

Yet, American parents still elected him president.

Consider this troubling statistic: 1 out of every 5 women is sexually assaulted while in college.  I have a daughter in college, so this isn't idle supposition. I wonder about the boys who sexually assault those girls. How did they come to believe that if you're attracted to a woman, you just wait for the right moment, then reach out and grab her? And rape? It's the most under reported crime. Afraid of the turmoil and embarrassment of pressing charges, girls often remain silent. It's heartbreaking. There's a thread in our culture that whispers to boys, "You know she wants it." Companion strands in the same thread tells our girls, "You better just keep your mouth shut about it." 

A new, big strand in that thread is the election of Donald Trump. You can admit to sexual assault and 16 witnesses can confirm it, and American parents will still elect you president.

A friend told me her 8-year-old granddaughter had been watching TV this fall when her kid show ended and the news came on. Without her mother realizing, the little girl listened to a news report that played the tape of Trump bragging about assaulting women, and then interviews with several women who claim he assaulted them. When that little girl woke up the day after the election and found that Trump had won, she was inconsolable and sobbed, "Why would people choose him?" 

That little girl learned her lesson; "If it happens to you, you better just shut your mouth." And what her male contemporaries learned? Well, we know what they learned.

Our Children Are Watching
We wife and I don't preach politics in our house, but the news is on from various sources. Kids listen, often not when we want them to, and other times, they're listening when we think they're not. As we know, that's how kids learn.

In church one Sunday in the months before election day, our pastor was explaining Revelations, reading through a list of human qualities that God detests. "The arrogant. The self-satisfied. Those who love money above all else" he ticked down the list on a video screen. "Narccissits who see themselves at the center of the world . . ." My wife's 11-year old son leaned toward us and whispered, "Donald Trump."

Oh my, how our children are watching.

Buy a copy of Kurt's latest novel, The Salvage Man

“Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of A Thousand Falling Crows

Buy a copy of Kurt's first novel, Noblesville

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of Whistling Past the Graveyard

The Contrarian's Favorite Music of 2016

My appetite for new music is as strong as when I started buying albums and 45s at the age of 8 (I think it was a Monkeys album). Now, after 48 years that have included acquiring some 2,000 albums, 1,500 CDs, and a private 22,000 track digital database (and now streaming services), there’s no denying that my new favorites reflect I’m in my mid-50s and gravitating toward music that echoes the sounds I grew up with.

C. W. Stoneking: Gon’ Boogaloo

As a kid, I hated the blues, even dismissed Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Texas Flood” when it came out during my college years (it would later become one of my favorite albums).  Now, other than Americana, blues is generally what I listen too. C.W. Stoneking’s latest album speaks to those preferences.

Upon first listen to Gon’ Boogaloo, you might think you’re hearing a long lost 1950s gem recorded on primitive equipment, showcasing an overlooked Chicago or Delta bluesman. But Stoneking is a white Australian and the album was recorded in 2015. This album is a buoyant celebration of roots blues.

The song that first grabbed me was The Thing I Done. Its rhythm says ska, but the raw power of the feral guitar snarls the blues. The call and response of Tomorrow Gon' Be Too Late will easily put a big fat smile on your face, and while the chirpy female harmonies opening Good Luck Charm are reminiscent of early ‘60s girl groups, Stoneking’s voice arrives to steer the vibe toward gospel. The Zombie, is a fun number that should make your Halloween playlist. And the final track, We Gon’ Boogaloo truly could have been recorded in the mid-‘50s, a rock n’ roll rollercoaster delight about the giddy pleasure of buying a new record that makes you wanna dance. And this one certainly does!

Jayhawks: Paging Mr. Proust

My first introduction to the Jayhawks was in 1995 with their now signature song Blue, back in the days when we called their sound “Alt-Country.” And though nowadays they’re categorized as “Americana,” many thought the groups’ best days lay back in the 90s and early 2000s. Their last reunion in 2011 resulted in Mockingbird Time, a huge disappointment. So I wasn’t expecting much. But Paging Mr. Proust ranks in the top 3 albums of the Jayhawks 30-year output. It finds frontman Gary Louris catching a 2nd wind in mid-life, regaining his song writing, singing and guitar playing pinnacle. It’s simply astonishing to find a group well past its prime producing like a band half its age and eager to make a statement.

In the late ‘90s the band left behind their raw, stripped down, folk-rock picking and added polish to the songwriting and production. In doing so, they created a sound on albums like Smile and Rainy Day Music that would have put them on top 40 radio and on arena tours had they been a band of the 1970s. This newest effort is in that vain; harmonies that are at times romantic, then melancholy, then soaring, and guitar driven songs that could be strumming, sing-along soft rock, like Lovers Of The Sun and Pretty Roses In Her Hair, or grinding, feedback blowouts like Lost The Summer and Ace.  

Louris’s reenergized songwriting is crystalized on The Devil Is in Her Eyes. It's like he's fallen in love long after losing his innocents, elated to find such joy is still possible. Over an infectious jingle-jangle guitar, his strident tenor calls:

"Hail stones and butter scotch,

Firewalls and forget-me-nots,

Baby won’t you take a chance on me.

Heels dug in and braced to fall,

Hung my holster on your wall,

Baby won’t you take a chance on me.”

And as the song’s chorus arrives you’ll be cranking up the volume just when the band’s signature harmonies lift it to a new high that soon gets punctuated by a blistering guitar solo.

This was the soundtrack of my 25 mile summer bike rides in the Hoosier countryside in 2016.

Hinds: Leave Me Alone

Speaking of young bands eager to make a statement . . . This lo-fi, garage rock, girl group from Madrid, Spain got noticed by lots of music fans this year. Their debut album, Leave Me Alone captures a unique style that is at once familiar, and yet totally their own. Quite a feat for young rookies. The sassy/half-drunk vocals and surf-guitar echo paints the picture of a band literally learning their craft in the garage, and spilling some beer along the way.

The track Bamboo is a great place to start, and follow that with Chili Town. Also worth a listen, just to get a sense of their depth, is the instrumental surf-ballad Solar Gap. Will be fun to see where these girls go next.

Great Songs & Honorable Mention:

-The Cactus Blossoms: Another band with a retro sound. In this case, think Louvin & Everly Brothers. Their album, You’re Dreaming has flashes of brilliance, including the title track and Travelers Paradise. If you like those, try their remake of the Beatles’ This Boy.

-Sturgil Simpson: I wanted to like the entire A Sailor's Guide To Earth album from this renegade alt-country hero, but the Jerry Reed-esque jive-country-funk that finds it’s way into a few songs just doesn’t work for me - like a dude who shows up at your 2016 party wearing clogs and bell bottoms. It just doesn't feel right. But there are true gems included, like Breakers Roar, Sea Stories, All Around You, and the inexplicably brilliant Nirvana cover, In Bloom. I won't spend much time listening to the whole album, but onto my Americana playlist those happily 4 songs go.

-Ray LaMontange: I just can’t get into LaMontange’s recent attempts at the blues, but half of his 2016 album Ouroboros is wonderfully atmospheric. It’s another half great album. Try In My Own Way and Another Day.

-Emeli Sande’s song, Breathing Under Water: Because I’m a sucker for a good pop anthem.

-Wildfire by Mandolin Orange is a brilliant, beautiful song.

Concerts:

My favorite concert moments of the year include Shovels and Rope opening for Jason Isbell in a smallish theater show in Indianapolis. It was my 3^rd Isbell concert and he didn’t disappoint. The Shovels and Rope set was marred by sound issues, but they powered through it admirably. Isbell is at the top of his game, at his writing and performing prime. His confidence and showmanship are exhilarating!

My wife and I on the Ferris Wheel. In the distant background
The Who were opening their show with Substitute.

In October we flew to Palm Springs for Desert Weekend. I’m generally impatient with oldies shows, but I’d never seen the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney. Over 3 nights all the acts but one put on stellar shows. While I actually love Bob Dylan’s blues outfit in smaller venues, it didn’t work at this massive festival with 100,000+ in attendance looking to take a walk down memory lane. This moment called for big sounds and crowd-pleasing, not self-indulgent noodling. This was the event that called for Dylan to do what he has no intention whatsoever of doing - play a guitar and sing Blowing In The Wind and Like a Rolling Stone, straight, so the audience could recognize them.

The Stones understood this, following Dylan with a rousing, high-energy show that included only one song from their new blues album (they knew it was also no time to promote unknown music). The next night both Neil Young and McCartney wowed with lots of big hits and highly professional backup bands. Young opened with a perfect acoustic set, then brought on his full band, nearly outshining McCartney. On Sunday night The Who surprised by providing my favorite performance of the weekend. Townsend and Daltry have still got it and know how to build tension and deliver big payoffs.

I left Desert Weekend marveling at how far concert events have come since my first concert (Chicago, at the Indiana State Fair) in 1975. The promoters managed to bus over 100,000 people out into the desert and provide ample, 1st class food and drink venders and clean, plentiful restroom facilities over the course of 3 days. Astounding!


Buy Kurt's latest novel The Salvage Man

“Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of A Thousand Falling Crows

Buy Kurt's first novel, Noblesville

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of Whistling Past the Graveyard

My White Privilege

The founders of my personal affirmative action program: Alvie &
Marguerite Meyer, in the 1920s, around the time they began transforming
their poor, Hoosier farming upbringings into middle class success.

Most white folks I know deny white privilege, refusing to apply American history to their own success and comfort. But I recognize full well my own personal affirmative action program.

My grandfather Meyer grew up in a poor German-speaking farming family in northern Indiana in the early 20^th Century. In fact, though he and all 12 of his siblings were born in America, they didn’t bother speaking English until they went to school – good schools. As a young man he took a solid work ethic and education to the nearest small town, married my grandmother and got a job at the post office.

I imagine the African American version of my grandfather. That man’s grandparents were slaves. His ancestors' culture, religion, and language were substantially suffocated by slavery, then Jim Crow. If he had a school, it wasn’t as good as my grandfather’s. He too probably grew up in hard circumstances, but there was no postman's job for him. Though he might have been a janitor at a post office earning far less than my white grandfather.

I once interviewed a Hoosier African American woman whose husband was the rarest of 1930s black men. He got a degree in chemistry at IU. After graduation he applied for a job at Eli Lilly, but was told, “The only job we’ve got for you involves a broom and a mop.”

Buy Kurt's latest novel, The Salvage Man

My grandfather wasn’t ambitious enough to get a degree at IU, but qualified for a better job than his black IU peer. That IU chemistry grad never used his degree.

My grandfather learned that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded. What did the black IU grad learn? I’m guessing he didn’t learn the same lesson from his experiences that my grandfather learned from his. He might have learned a bitterness that my grandfather couldn’t understand.

After their sons entered school, my grandmother worked as a secretary. They bought a house in the 1930s and built equity with each payment. As they approached retirement, they paid cash for a new home. The number one way American families have built wealth in the past century is through homeownership. During the years my grandparents bought their homes, banks drew lines around minority neighborhoods, systematically denying loans to African Americans, and if giving them loans at all, did so at elevated interest rates. It was legal and called “redlining.”

My grandparents were good, hardworking people. There’s nothing in the rewards of their labor to apologize for. But that opportunity to build wealth was systematically denied to their black counterparts.

The two hardest working people I've ever known: My father, Jim, in
1951, and my mother, Nancy, in 1952, in their graduation photos.
They were about to set off for the middle class success that would
make all things possible for me and my siblings. I was slapped in
the face just once as a child, and it was by that sweet looking
woman on the right. I'd said the word, "nigger." While my face was
stinging and tears trickled down my cheeks, she gave me a
clenched-teeth explanation of what that word meant and why I
should never say it again.

Jim Crow laws were still in affect when my father went to college. It didn’t just keep the black versions of my father and uncle from white lunch counters and bus front rows, in their alternate American universe, blacks were segregated in poorly funded schools. Few made it to college, because of course their parents hadn’t built wealth from home ownership, wealth that could be turned into college degrees for the next generation.

Still, there's nothing about their Purdue engineering degrees for my father or uncle to apologize for. Degrees weren’t handed out like candy. They worked hard for them. But they got opportunities kept from their black counterparts, black men who likely lived with a bitterness that I know my dad and uncle didn't understand.

In my little Indiana hometown in the 1960s and ‘70s I went to safe, nurturing schools. I was blessed; born white and middle class in 1960 in an all-white town, attending an all-white school and learning along side kids whose families had not-so-different backgrounds from mine. I say "blessed" because these were places with the best resources, where the spoils of earlier generations were concentrated so that even if you were white, poor, and uneducated, there were radiating waves of economic activity that provided decent jobs.

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My father's engineering job put me in a big house on a nice, crime-free street. And there was enough money to send my mom to night school and summer classes. She got a teaching degree and taught elementary school.

In the late 1960s I saw black people rioting on the evening news, behaving with a bitterness I couldn’t understand. Though I didn’t try very hard in high school, I still got into college. I wonder how many of my African American counterparts could say they day-dreamed their way through high school and still got into college in the 1970s.

As an adult I worked hard to build a successful career as a school teacher, then Realtor, working both jobs for years, often 7 days a week. There’s nothing in my success to apologize for. 

Me in 1976: Slouching toward graduation.

Around my 40th birthday, a couple years after my grandmother died, I received a check for $60,000. It was my cut of the estates of that frugal postal worker and secretary. I’m not sorry I got it. I’m proud of my family heritage. But I’m Christian-enough to wonder about my African American counterpart – the grandson of the man who couldn’t get a post office job in the 1920s because his skin was black – the son of a man who didn’t go to college in the 1950s because his skin was black, the same guy who didn’t get a check for $60,000 like I did.

I invested that money in my home and my kids’ college funds. And so our white family’s affirmative action program continues echoing down a full century, long past the passage of the Civil Rights Act and to the end of the first black president’s two terms in office.

Two of my kids have college degrees – the youngest is still in college. They have no apologies to make for their opportunities. But I suspect, like the 3 generations of Meyers before them, they encounter black peers who harbor bitterness. With pride, I see them trying to understand.