Stories from the Road: Sleepy little town
I live in Richmond, Indiana. I've been here for about a year and a half now. I'm originally from Dayton, Ohio, about 40 miles to the east of here. Last I heard, Richmond has a population of about 38,000. Dayton is about six times that size. I never pictured myself living here until I met my wife. She's from here.
Richmond averages two homicides a year. So far this year we've had six and that's big news. Very few wealthy people live here. It's mostly working class and middle class folks and we have our poor. It takes about ten minutes to drive from the east side to the west side and south to north. We probably have more Dairy Queens per capita than any place on the east or west coasts. There's not much diversity going on here. I'd say that at least 90% of the population is white. There does seem to be tolerance, though, for those who are different. Jen and I were married by an openly gay priest. We know a lot of gay people. I once jokingly told Jen that this has to be the gayest town in Indiana. Maybe, maybe not, she said. Her logic is that if you are gay friendly you will have gay friends. I'm cool with that.
I was standing out on the porch tonight, smoking and drinking and thinking about what I might tell you guys. I was trying to come up with some compelling story from my time as a long haul trucker. But I am here now and the peacefulness of this place really struck me tonight. It's Friday night and it's quiet here.
But I guess I will talk a little about trucking. I work for a local scrap yard here hauling in scrap metal from their customers. If you happen to know the area, I'd appreciate it if you kept the name of my employer to yourself. I'm not all that paranoid about it, but I probably don't need it broadcasted over the internet. I make $12.75 an hour there and it's supposed to be one of the best places in town to work for. I do get ten to fifteen hours of overtime a week and that really helps. The health insurance is decent and cheap, too.
I have a dedicated route now days. That means that I go to the same customers every day. I put in about 300 miles a day and do three loads. I have six customers. None of my trips are longer than fifty miles away from Richmond and it's all rural driving. Two lane the whole way to towns with names like Dunkirk, Ridgeville, and Portland. No, not that Portland. Portland, Indiana. I don't how they got that name. There are no ports there.
But I'm hoping that my job situation is flexible. I'm a part time student at Indiana University East studying to be a business man. It's an outpost of the Big Ten Indiana University in Bloomington. Oddly though, there is an elite school located here if elite is measured by tuition rate. Earlham University is located in the heart of Richmond and it costs about 40k a year to go there. For a short time I was hauling trash for my current employer and Earlham is one of our customers. On freshman move-in week there was a shitload of trash coming out of there. So much so that we had to alter our service with them from three days a week to the entire week that those kids moved in. There were lots of cardboard boxes that once contained high end electronic devices including big screen LCD TVs. How do you put a 42" TV in a dorm room?
If you stayed with me for this long, thanks for hanging out with me tonight and reading my sleepy little post from a sleepy little town. Peace.
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What a lovely little post you've written here...
Just reading it made me relax. I've had a bit of a less than perfect day, but your post just got rid of all that.
I wish you abundant success as you travel down your new road!
And thank you for all these great posts!
Hugs to Jen too.
Sorry your day was shitty. Happens to the best of us.
I'm glad my post had a positive effect on you. Jen says hi.
I'll be a lot better tomorrow.
Your posts always have a positive effect on me, and on all your readers, I think.
But I just looked it up and I've been around that area quite a bit. Population 935! Now THAT'S a sleepy little town. 
"Boy was I wrong." HAHAHA! Yeah, I've been to Richmond, VA and things are a little different here.
I don't recall Richmond, probably went through it while at Miami (U., Oxford, OH,) but I THINK I visited Earlham my Freshman year, to join an excursion to the Kentucky Derby,
And here they go!
This is the best look I've had of the race since then, as we all were in the whatever they called it, CENTER, INFIELD! middle of the whole thing. TRIED a mint julep, but as I wasn't and still am not a drinker, didn't make an impression. DID keep the glass for some years, no idea where it is now.
Let's try another, and see if you can see me!
