CAN YOU GO HOME AGAIN ?

    Thomas Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again" was the story of author George Weber, who penned a story about returning to his home town of Libya Hill.

    That novel was on my mind as I made my way up State Road Three in Central Indiana returning to my home town of Muncie.

    Like Thomas Wolfe, I am also writing a novel about my home town, and was returning to Indiana to continue my research and perhaps gain some much needed motivation.

    As I drove north, I got to thinking, 'Can you go home again?' 'Is it possible?'

    The first thing I noticed was the absence of the six radio towers south of Muncie. They were a fixture in that part of town. So much great rock and roll came from those towers. Now they were gone. The studio building is empty and overgrown. I tuned the car radio to 990 and the only thing I could hear was a low hiss. No music.

     WERK Radio still graces the airwaves, only now on the FM dial. I realized it wasn't the same. Something was missing.

    I drove into the south side of Muncie, and went past Southside High School. But, it wont be a High School much longer. Beginning this fall, it will become a middle school. No longer the 'Rebels', they have voted to change the mascot to a 'Panther'

   As I went through Muncie, memories flooded my mind. Junior High, High School, and College. All of the people I met along the way. Some I have found via face book, others never to be heard from again. I thought of a few who went off to fight a war and never returned. I remembered one whose life was taken from him in a violent manner.

    The roads are in terrible condition. Many buildings are vacant and boarded up. It is not the city I remember.

   As I went past the famed North Walnut Street Field house, I recalled the great High School basketball games I had attended. I thought about the 8 State Championship Trophies won by Muncie Central. More than any other school in the state. And the terrible loss in 1954 that became the basis for the movie "Hoosiers."    

    Soon I was in my old neighborhood. It looks the same, but it isn't. I can't stop to visit. I don't know any of the people here. All the people that lived here in the sixties are gone. The place looks the same, but it isn't.

    I drive over to my old Junior High. No longer a junior high, it is now an Elementary School. It looks the same, but it isn't.

    Downtown is a shell of it's former self. Many of the buildings I remember are gone now. Only a few remain. It looks the same, but it isn't.

     I take a walk through the campus of Ball State. It has grown into a beautiful University. It is the only thing left in my home town. The factories and business that built this city have closed or moved on.

     I spent a few days at the local library reviewing the archives of the Muncie Star and Press. Gathering information for my manuscript. But soon it was time to move on to Charleston WV, the other location I am researching.

    It was a long week, full of great memories. I felt honored that I was able to grow up in such a great place.

    I came to Muncie in December of 1963. As a seventh grader, I felt as if I was starting life all over again. My father was one of many who were transferred to the Westinghouse plant in Muncie from Sharon, Pennsylvania. But I survived.

    I had a great childhood. It was a great place to grow up and get an education.

    But I learned that nothing stays the same.

    It was a long eights days. traveling some 2200 miles through ten states.   

    As I finally pulled into my Florida home, I could hear the water cascading down the waterfall into our backyard Koi pond.

    I heard my dog bark, signaling everyone with-in ear shot that Dad had returned from his long journey.

    It was then that I realized that Thomas Wolfe was some what less than correct. You 'CAN' go home again. I just got here.