RAMBLINGS

Posted by Sheila Connolly (or what's left of her)

I think I left my brain in Indiana. Bouchercon in Indianapolis was wonderful, as no doubt every blogger in the blogosphere has told you, and I won't repeat it here. The best part was the chance to meet and talk with so many people I know only on-line, or at most see once or twice a year. It's nice to know that the writers' community is made up of real people–and they're great!

Since I was headed west, I took a detour of a few days to visit my sister, who lives in western Kentucky. Although she's my only sibling, and we're from a family made up of only children and orphans, I don't see much of her. Time was she used to come visit me, in Pennsylvania and in Massachusetts, but since the birth of her first grandchild three years ago, she's been a part-time caregiver for him, which limits her mobility. Since I had never met the young man, and since I hadn't visited her since her son's wedding in 2003, I thought it was my turn to make the trek.

I flew to Indianapolis and rented a car, and took off southward. First revelation: there's a lot of corn in Indiana. My sister had given me directions by way of a state highway, rather than the big roads, which proved a very pleasant choice (especially for driving in an unfamiliar area–did I mention I am directionally challenged?–in an unfamiliar car). It took me through small towns and...cornfields. Alternating with soybean fields.

Now, a year or two ago I wouldn't have paid much attention to this, other than noting that the corkstalks were brown and bare. But since I've been writing about food and organic crops recently, and since I've seen the movie Food, Inc., and since like so many people in this country are creeping up on Type 2 diabetes, I've found my attitude toward corn has changed. I won't preach (much: read the labels on the processed foods in your supermarket and see how often they include corn syrup, usually high on the list), but I this time I was much more aware of the names of the seed vendors posted by each and every field. There were a lot of them. It's a big business in this country.

And don't get me started on soybeans. Their cultivation nationally can be more or less summed up in one word: Monsanto.

So I spent 176 miles each way amusing myself with internal rants about food production in this country. But the other noteworthy thing I noticed was how empty the roads were. I have lived on the East Coast much of my life, with a ten-year detour to California, and those roads are crowded! There are people everywhere, and most New England roads are based on Indian trails and cattle paths, and usually take you through the middle of a quaint old town where there's a five-way intersection with little signage. Lots of fun.

Indiana was peaceful, as was the bit of Kentucky I drove through. Although the roads were usually two-lane, there were few impatient people riding my back bumper (good thing, because there were few areas where one could pass). Even the truckers were polite. Everyone followed the speed limits (gasp!), and the changes were clearly posted as you approached then left the towns scattered along the route. The towns themselves were usually small, with a lot of Victorian buildings, although there was no shortage of strip malls. But compared to some parts of the East Coast where the strips malls are continuous and the town centers non-existent, Indiana was positively rural. All in all it was a very pleasant drive, and I didn't even get lost. [Note: I asked Mapquest how to get where I was going, and it gave me two pages of detailed instructions. But it could have been boiled down to a few lines, and all the middle ones could have been compressed into "Follow Rt. 231 wherever it goes."]

In Kentucky I did have a chance to spend some quality time with my great-nephew Carter. God, that makes me feel old! I remember when I was about Carter's age, meeting my youngest great-aunt (on my father's side), who seemed impossibly old to me. Doing the math now, I find she was only in her seventies then. (I'm not!) Anyway, Carter is a charming, articulate, intelligent, capable young man, I'm pleased to say (BTW, my sister reads this blog). He is skilled at both crafts and sports (great hand-eye coordination for his age) and we had fun.

We spent part of our time together watching daytime children's television. Obviously, since my daughter is now 24, I haven't paid much attention to this lately, so it was interesting to see how programs have changed. I'm happy to report that there is much more educational content these days (e.g., Little Einsteins), and Carter followed raptly and could sing along.

Back in my day (in the Dark Ages, when we had only a very few black-and-white channels), we were stuck with a few cartoons, Romper Room, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a handful of Westerns (mostly with singing cowboys), and the so-called funny men like the Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy. I discovered early that I hated the funny men–they were mean and dumb. I liked Westerns, and I enjoyed Mr. Wizard (ah, the budding forensic scientist in me).

But now I find I have mixed feelings about contemporary children's shows. They provide stimulation and some education, but they're still electronic. Children need to interact with people, including their peer group (note: Carter does attend group day-care a couple of days a week). They need to socialize, and the characters on screen, no matter how smart or cute, aren't real.

When I was a few years older, my friends and I used to engage in acting out our favorite shows during recess. In a way it was the best of both worlds: we watched our shows (the ones with people, not cartoons), but then we shared them second-hand with each other, and we all took roles and went beyond the scripts. I sincerely hope that this generation of children doesn't lose the capacity for creative, interactive play.

Anyway, then I went to Bouchercon and played with my friends. It was a great ten days, overall, and I'm still shoveling out the accumulated stuff on my desk and the backlog of emails. I only wish I could find my brain.