Before reading, check out:  Coming Home To A Trump Town by Abbie Van Sickle

You and I are very similar.  I too am from Carroll County (Flora to be exact). I am about to graduate from Delphi Community High School, much like you, but 16 years later.  I am involved with my community through service groups and the student newspaper.  I plan on pursuing journalism as well.  But, thankfully, where you and I differ is on our outlook on the future.

What you don’t understand, Abbie, is that the “Good Ol’ Days” are not sacred.  They are not better and they should not be idolized一 you’re telling me and the rest of your readership that culture defines reality. You’re wrong:  God defines reality.  There is no worse or better culture: God is and will forever be the same throughout the ages. This mindset you have expressed has sent you into the future with a curmudgeon outlook on life in my town. If coming home has made you bitter and cross, it’s not the town’s problem, but yours.  I and 2,800 other people are very proud of our brown, gray barren land.

If it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.  This community is heavily bounded by decades of lessons from Mr.  McConnell, a movement to put a stoplight by the banks, and a solid passion for Mitchell’s.  Our parents attended either Delphi or Carroll, our grandparents reminisce about the days when the old school building on E. Main Street was in use.  We all say hi at Wallman’s  and sit in the same spots at basketball games.  If someone is sick, the community gathers.  If someone succeeds, the community gathers.  If it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.  This community can withstand anything thrown at it, for together, we are stronger than  any cruelty this world has to offer.

Time is a constant and it’s not going back (as far as I can tell you as of 2017). If you begin to develop this outlook, spend more time around youth. They will refuel the life in you and make you proud of where time is taking us all.

Here’s an itemized list of disagreements and rebuttals:

First of all, your opening image isn’t even of Delphi.

You stated, “There’s nothing for kids, there’s no pride anymore,” but who is your source? Your 80 year old grandma who is as distant from the kids as possible. I find things to do with my time, as well do my friends.  As for pride, I’ll leave these here:

“The place that I remember from my childhood in the 1980s had a courthouse square surrounded by small shops that vanished, one by one. It was a silent hollowing out. A woman’s clothing store, where I could twirl in front of the three-paneled mirror in the back. A soda fountain that always smelled deliciously of fresh sawdust, its counter lined with glass candy jars. An appliance store where the owner’s young son hid in the tree out front. All gone.” Of course they’re all gone! The shops you grew up with are long gone because that is how this country works一 this is not a fault of my town or a fault of anyone.  Those shops are gone because times change and not always for the worst.  That’s how capitalism works: you should know that from the West Coast.  The old and stale move out to make room for the new and useful.  If the same shops still surrounded the square, this town would desperately and dreadfully be trying to cling to the past, much like you.  If you want to visit the new Brick & Mortar, Andy’s, Garden Gate Tea House, Cabo’s, Blue Moose, or Mitchells, try using Google Maps on your phone. You might miss the turn with a map in your lap.

“The grocery’s selection has dwindled, and my parents are now driving to the state capital every few weeks to grocery shop.” I believe Wallmanns, Save-A-Lot, IGA, and all three Dollar Generals are all functioning grocery stores within Carroll County.  If you prefer to support mass production and big business, Walmart is 25 minutes down the road, according to Google Maps.  

“The air now often smells so foul from the hog excrement that my parents have to keep their windows closed.” If you are really from Carroll County, once the biggest hog producing county in the country, you would know that that is the smell of money.  Living 200 ft from Hogg Slats, I can vouch that the smell is not that bad.  Your parents probably aren’t used to the smell because of all the time they spend in the state capital.

“Hundreds of people used to make their living here, doing solid work that provided middle-class jobs, enough for small luxuries and college tuition.” Here I can agree.  People can no longer make a living doing solid work.  Hundreds of people can’t go to college because no matter how hard you work, it’s too damn expensive.  This is not a fault of Delphi, or my generation, but your generation and your parents generation. Wages remained constant, while the price of an education skyrocketed.  

“She’d heard the elementary school had eliminated the librarian position, boxed up most of its library books and thrown some of the boxes away.” If you would go look for yourself, the library has been transformed into an area for students to wind down and relax.  There is a lego wall and other activities to excite creativity (which is more beneficial than beating your head against an encyclopedia).

“I recognized many cast members — parents of childhood friends and former teachers. But many of the younger cast members came from nearby cities.” One of my good friends Bella McGill, who interns at the Opera House and is also an editor of Parnassus, talks often about acting in plays at the Opera House and was in an original play with other students from Delphi Community Schools.

How dare you claim it was better times when you were younger.  I hear folks yearn for the good ole days.  It is easy to say, “oh.. Life was so easy back before cell phones… Kids were much more respectful years ago.. Everything breaks anymore! Why can’t they make things like they used to!” But how are we supposed to fairly compare the two times? Time is changing, yes, but what makes one culture better than the other? My town has pridefully grown with the times.  Let me come to your town for only a few days and shred it on the internet.