scmrak's Full Review: Jerome Pohlen - Oddball Indiana: A Guide to Some R...
We'll get the "joke" out of the way up front: sure, there are some people who think everything about Indiana can be classified as oddball. To those people we native Hoosiers say, "Go back to Kentucky."
That being said, it's not at all surprising that Jerome Pohlen was able to find about 170 things, people, and places within the boundaries of the Hoosier State that rated high enough on his personal wackiness scale to include in Oddball Indiana. Some of them actually are pretty oddball - strange stuff like the RV-totin' statue of Big Jack on the cover ("glaring out over I-69" from his home near Yorktown), the Big Jack-sized basketball shoe near Steve Alford's All-American Inn at New Castle, or the Big Jack-sized peach near Bruceville. These are definitely odd, after all. So, too, are places like the Philo T. Farnsworth Museum (with its canonic collection of TV Guides) at Fort Wayne, or the statue of Joe Palooka at Oolitic.
Pohlen, who's also responsible for Oddball books about Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Texas (now there's "oddball" for you); has arranged his book geographically, with the state divided into three east-west strips and special sections for Indianapolis and the "John Dillinger Diapers-to-Death Tour." Each section has an index map, and the book's indexed both by city and "attraction" name. The layout's pretty straightforward, with a brief description and back-story of the site, directions, cost, hours, and phone number - many of the sites (such as Big Jack) are free and visible at all times since they stand alongside the road. About half the entries are illustrated with black-and-white photos, most of which are fairly muddy. He doesn't have a picture of Oscar the giant snappin' turtle (aka the Beast of 'Busco) or any of the UFOs spotted over the state, though.
Besides physical sites and semi-mythical critters, Pohlen is also apparently fascinated by historical sites and pop culture. For Seymour, he mentions that John Mellencamp used to work for the local phone company and also that the town lays claim to the first-ever train robbery. In Indianapolis, David Letterman used to bag groceries and play practical jokes at Atlas Supermarket (54th & College). You get directions to the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, the birthplace of AlkaSeltzer in Evansville, the world's first pay toilets in Terre Haute, and the town of Milan, the real 1954 State Basketball Champs (cf. "Hoosiers," with Gene Hackman). Oh, and ever wonder what happened to the world's first Ferris Wheel? Well part of it was reincarnated as a bridge - in northwestern Indiana near North Judson.
Pohlen also seems fascinated - obsessed, in fact - with Dan Quayle, including a dozen separate references (none of them complimentary) to the former VP in the text. He also seems to dislike Bobby Knight... as do most people, I guess. Given that the topic is the oddball, it's understandable that Pohlen's approach to many of the entries is humorous, though for my money a reduction in sarcasm would be an improvement. For instance, I don't think it's necessary to refer to a model of Apollo I at the Gus Grissom Memorial as "the world's largest condom test model."
For native Hoosiers and visitors alike, a copy Oddball Indiana can open your eyes to some of the unnatural wonders to be found around the Crossroads of America. As long as you're not a big fan of Dan Quayle, that is...
At 570 words, this qualifies as an entry in the Lean-n-Mean VI entry.
Square Donuts. The World s Largest Stump. Oscar the Monster Turtle. Johnny Appleseed s grave. The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Re...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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