Picture yourself as a kid, not yet 5 years old, growing up in a small house in Terre Haute.
You’re not unusual. About 3,373 youngsters that age live in this city. That’s what the Census Bureau and its American Community Survey says. The faces you know, though, are Mom, your kid brother, the kids in the apartment next to yours, the daycare ladies and the kids there, and Grandma and Grandpa. You remember Daddy’s face. He brought you a Happy Meal and a toy truck on your birthday last summer. Your mom says you’ll see him more soon.
That’s not unusual. About 2,575 families have a single mom or single dad raising their kids at home, alone. That’s what the Census people say.
Your favorite time of the day is breakfast, when your mom lets you pour the Toasted Oats cereal, and then the milk. You’re brother is too little to do that; he’ll spill everything, she says. Some mornings, she eats with you and your brother.
Sometimes she doesn’t, and says she’s on a diet. When the clock numbers say 7:45, your mom zips up your Jimmie Johnson jacket — that’s your daddy’s favorite NASCAR driver — and walks you and your brother down the sidewalks to the daycare. Then she walks to work at the drive-thru restaurant.
That’s not unusual. About 3,782 people walk to work in Terre Haute, and about 2,883 have those kinds of jobs. That’s what the Census people say.
After Grandma picks up you and your brother, she waits in the drive-thru parking lot till your mom gets done working and drives you all home. Sometimes you leave your Jimmie Johnson jacket on, especially when your mom can’t push the button on the wall to make the house warmer, because “we can’t afford it this week.” But she starts the heater on the floor that glows (and smells a little funny), and that helps.
That’s not unusual. About 275 homes in the city heat with kerosene. The Census people figured that out.
Sometimes, your mom laughs when you or your brother talk about Christmas, and she tells the story about Grandma finding a bird’s nest in the Christmas tree after Grandpa brought it home from the tree farm and put it up in their house. Your tree doesn’t need water, like that one did. It’s pretty, though. It has ornaments with pictures of your mom when she was little, and some with you and your brother. One has her and your daddy on it. Sometimes, she cries about Christmas because “things are really tight,” though you don’t know what that means. She wants to get “a GED” and then go to college and be an accountant, because she loved her math classes in high school.
That’s not unusual. About 5,917 adults in Terre Haute don’t have a high school degree. Census people know that.
When Christmas finally gets really close — “Just a few days to go,” your mom says — she smiles a lot more. People from a church and some “club” helped “make sure we could have a good Christmas,” you hear her tell her friend on the phone.
A few days later, on the morning of Christmas Eve, three people carrying a big box of groceries ring the doorbell and hand your mom the food — ham, stuffing, pumpkin pies, bread, milk, potatoes, butter, rolls, noodles, macaroni and cheese, cans of vegetables and sweet potatoes, and even some Little Debbie snack cakes. They brought fun books, too, like one your mom remembers by a “Doctor Soos.” The people who carry the basket are all smiling, even though it’s still dark outside. They say, “Merry Christmas,” walk to their pickup truck and drive off.
Now your mom is doing both — smiling and crying. That’s not good, she says, because her “mascara runs” and she looks funny, and has to be at work in 30 minutes. She makes a crazy scary face, and you and your brother laugh. She puts the groceries in the fridge — it looks so full — and wipes her face with a tissue. Then she zips up your Jimmie Johnson jacket, bundles up your little brother, and all three of you walk down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Next Christmas will be better,” she says.
You don’t understand. You’re happy right now. Tomorrow is Christmas.
Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
Opinion Columns
MARK BENNETT: For some people in the Wabash Valley, happy holidays require a little help
- Opinion Columns
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RONN MOTT: Ernie Pyle
I stepped back in time last week when I visited the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana.
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RONN MOTT: Pyle museum in Dana good way to study WWII
I stepped back in time last week when I visited the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana.
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RONN MOTT: Frustration
For those who know me well, they can say without contradiction I am not a patient man. But in this hustle and bustle world I’ve been a part of all my adult life, I’ve had to learn a little patience. On occasion, however, I find some experiences extremely frustrating.
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RONN MOTT: Rabid Republicans
The so-called news people at Fox News can hardly sit still long enough to report on the latest gossip or untruth about our sitting President. They can hardly contain themselves.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Smell of fresh air gave way to dryers
Remember when clean clothes smelled like fresh air and sunshine rather than fabric softener and dryer sheets?
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Is it regulation that doesn’t make sense or evening the playing field?
I’m not much of a drinker, so I haven’t spent much time thinking about how Indiana’s alcohol laws personally impact me, but that changed last fall when my daughter got married.
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Mark Bennett: High-profile mural connects historical dots from city to river
At 96 feet wide and 2 stories tall, the power, impact and value of the Wabash will be evident.
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RONN MOTT: Mushrooms = Hoosier happiness
Someone wrote or said a few years ago a statement that would define the word “Hoosier.” According to this urban legend, a Hoosier is somebody dribbling a basketball around the Indy 500 while eating a fried, morel mushroom. It did not define me, at the time.
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RONN MOTT: Israel’s Air Force
Recently the Israeli Air Force bombed and rocketed a convoy leaving Syria going to Lebanon with rockets that were going to be used to attack Israel. It did not get there. It was destroyed.
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RONN MOTT: Media merry-go-round
Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. That isn’t a unique phrase to this writer or to this era in time. But, when it comes to the musical chairs of broadcasting, it certainly applies.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Courts see a different appearance than cops
Have you ever noticed the transformation between the arrest of an accused lawbreaker and the first appearance in court?
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MARK BENNETT: Life at face value: Mom’s simple advice still presents a valuable daily challenge
Most moms don’t base their advice on scientific research.
(Unless, of course, your mother is a scientific researcher. If so, carry a No. 2 pencil and take good notes.) -
SUSAN DUNCAN: Advice to the kids on Mother’s Day
Just so you know, now settled firmly into middle age, I think of “kids” as anyone in their 30s and younger. I also accept that many of my elders view me as an upstart whippersnapper, though snapping even my fingers nowadays can be a chore.
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FLASHPOINT: Again in 2013 General Assembly, middle class generally ignored
Last year, the people of Indiana entrusted the Republican Party with some of their most precious possessions.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Raccoons II’
In the Algonquin Indian language, raccoon means “working with hands.” They are really cute little fellows until they injure a child, or a pet, or leave feces around where you certainly do not want it.
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RONN MOTT: ‘NRA Convention’
At the recent NRA Convention in Houston, Texas, where the right-wing political hot air almost lifted the convention's building off its foundation, the NRA trotted out the forever yours political dame of the right wing, Sarah Palin. Sarah did not disappoint.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Heritage gone’
The last high school I attended was being torn down just a few days ago. I didn't learn about it until I saw classmate Dick Mills on television and a display he had put together about State football championships in the middle 1930's. I began elementary school with Dick Mills. That was Matthew South Elementary School on South Sixth Street in Clinton, Indiana. After seeing Dick on TV, it dawned on me that all schools I had attended in Clinton have been torn down.
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LIZ CIANCONE: We always want more than we need
Washington seems more preoccupied with the unemployment rate than they are about the constant stalemate. Still with thousands out of work and the unemployment rate hovering somewhere between 7 percent and 9 percent, it does deserve more than a passing nod.
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MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?
Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.
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College Class of '13 gets a little extra advice
Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.
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RONN MOTT: Things that go bump in the night
I live in a very old house. There are all kinds of noises that occur, especially at night, or so it seems. Aside from the various creaks and pops from old wooden floors and walls when the furnace heats up and sends warm air into the rooms, we, my wife and I, have heard other noises.
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RONN MOTT: Around the dial
At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
Julie has returned to the radio microphone doing a weekend gig on Mix FM. For fans of Julie’s show on WTWO-TV, don’t worry, she’s not leaving … just multi-tasking. Welcome back to the radio airwaves, Julie! -
ANDREA NEAL: Newspaper journalists still make a difference
A recent survey ranked newspaper reporter as the worst career of 2013, just below meter reader and lumberjack, but you wouldn’t guess it from the stories told by journalists who gathered in Bloomington to see six of their own inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
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RONN MOTT: George Jones
I got to Nashville in the early ’70s, hired by John Patton, who had been a DJ for WBOW earlier in his career. Then, he was managing WMAK in Nashville and I was promised a top sales list and received the yellow pages (many a promise like this has happened to people in this business). I also did sports commentary for the morning man and would ultimately do a season of play-by-play and a short TV schedule for Tennessee State.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Old age is in email of the beholder
My Best Friend isn’t much for writing letters, so email has opened a new world for him. He can dash off a few words to a high school friend or his college roommate — now living in Florida and Washington State,
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MARK BENNETT: Spirited response to a rising river
The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.
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FLASHPOINT: Time has arrived for overhaul of TV news
Former FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes gave an address in 1992 in which he claimed television news was too superficial and too focused on visuals.
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Pat Summerall, but the first time I heard him was on a New York radio station (WCBS, I think). He was doing the sports for the morning man and exchanging some opinions about sports and such with him.
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RONN MOTT: What I don’t know
I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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RONN MOTT: You, me, and the Muslim world
I don’t know how to do this. I’m a fairly intelligent human being, but the events of the past week in Boston have turned me emotionally inside out. It’s more than the people who died, it’s more than the people who were injured … some permanently,
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RONN MOTT: Ernie Pyle
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Suspect in Killing of Officer Found Dead in Cell
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Raw: Jersey Shore Reopens for Summer
Today in History May 25
High Wire Spectacle Thrills Crowd in Austria
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Mayor: Person Killed in San Antonio Flooding
UK-bound Pakistan Plane Diverted, 2 Men Arrested
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Raw Video: Washington State Bridge Collapse
Bus Fire Kills 16 Children, Teacher in Pakistan
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New Wheelchair Lift Promises More Access
A Slice of Apple History Up for Grabs
Raw: Gay Rights Activists March in Ukraine
Britain Braces for Possible Copycat Attacks
Bridge Collapse Survivor: 'Rough Day'
Massive Flooding in San Antonio Area; Rescue Efforts Underway
Hope For The Boy Who Can't Smile
Young protestor goes viral on Youtube
Toronto Mayor says he's not a crack head
Maine island offers lighthouse getaway
Should We Prepare for Quakes?
Lynn Kindergarten Class Rescues Ducklings
Congressional gold medal awarded to civil rights heroes
Charles Ramsey visits Kentucky
Unique Display Greets Guests At Revel Casino
Cape Cod Train Service Worries Residents
BASE jumper rides snowmobile off cliff to honor dead friend
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Star Wars X-Wing Star Fighter Made of Legos
Actress Amanda Bynes Arrested in New York
Singer Psy Has An Imposter
