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Well, here’s why I live here: Much like the guy in the cover story, I grew up in Indiana, which is one of the Midwest’s more Midwestern-y states (if you are in Hilton Head on vacation, there’s about an 80% chance it’s the state immediately to your west). If you’ve never been there, Indiana is a lovely place, filled with vast fields, hardy salt-of-the-earth people, frequent auto-race fumes, a pretty serious addiction to news involving Peyton Manning and almost no beaches whatsoever.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There are beaches on Lake Michigan in the northwest corner of Indiana, a region with the clever nickname of The Region, which is used to mask the fact that it’s like 100 square miles of steel mills, some of which are thriving and most of which aren’t anymore.
It’s also where much of my family hails from, my ancestors having immigrated there from Czechoslovakia (official motto: “By the time you finish spelling it, we’ve changed the name”) in the early part of the 1900s to get a little of that thriving steel mill job action and the side benefits that came with it. (The Region’s skies are usually sort of brownish-gold, except in the evenings, when they turn George Hamilton-orange, lit by giant tongues of flame that regularly erupt from the factories into the night sky. When you are 6, it’s about the coolest thing in the world.) To this day the area is filled with Vrabels; you’ll generally find us in the White Castles by day and the Knights of Columbus halls by night, at least on those rare occasions we’re not failing again at spelling our name over the phone (“NO, LISTEN – V, AS IN VICTOR …”).
Anyway, after college I found myself quite accidentally taking a great job on the island, where ocean breezes sailed in all day long, where the beach was never more than a few minutes away and where the air was warmer and clearer, even when it was jammed full of insane humidity and flying biting insects. I took to it almost immediately — one afternoon I was heading out to write Christmas cards by the pool, and my roommate shouted, “Shovel the sidewalk while you’re out there!” and we cackled for about three days. And before long I was fully acclimated to the genial, relaxed pace, to the sunshine, to the regular availability of fresh shrimp and cold beers, to the chance to visit the sea, marsh or sunrise anytime I pleased. Over time I even grew to love traffic circles, and became skilled at locating in pitch darkness buildings that had absolutely no signage on them whatsoever.
As is often the story with folks around here, I drifted away for a while. I met my wife here and we moved up to Chicago, which is without question the greatest city in America in the summertime. The problem, however, is that summer there lasts about 45 minutes and then gives way to winter, which is basically nine solid months of driving sleet, brutal traffic and the twice-daily sensation of being sprayed with brown, gravelly slush by loud and angry buses. So, after some time, one son and the development, according to that goofy mug shot, of a shocking volume of gray hair, here we are, once again.
