My home in Hancock County is where I’ve lived for more than half of my life. I will let you do the math. We came here to raise our young family where it is not too far to reach a large city when needed. This main reason for us was primarily work. The one-way drive of 20 miles seemed to be a fair trade-off for knowing our neighbors and enjoying both the small town and country life.
When I drove home in the summer, I could feel the relief from the heat and noticed that the temperature on my car thermometer dropped at least a couple of degrees as I left all the buildings and concrete of downtown Indy heading east on I-70. If it was dark already, I marveled at the tiny lights of the millions of lightning bugs aka fireflies hovering above the endless sea of soybean fields.
Over the years though, I watched with dismay as the woods and fields near the big lake northwest of our county shrank with huge houses, mansions, coffee shops and whatever kind of shop you wanted. Then the same thing started to happen to all the donut counties surrounding Indianapolis, except for us.
At first, I wondered what was wrong with us? But over the years that thought was replaced with, “Lucky us. We are the best kept secret, close to everything! Plus, we have fewer people and can truly enjoy our open green country space.”
But if you have not noticed, we have been discovered. Our secret is out and in a big way. I will not pretend that there have not been approaching signs of what many might label as progress. When we first moved here, it was fairly safe to go for a bike ride on a county road. But it has been many years since that was safely possible. While our roads have remained the same country roads, traffic has increased and with larger vehicles. It used to be that you only passed really big trucks during harvest time. But now, it is common to see semis on the back roads. It also does not look like they have anything to do with farming. They are simply bypassing the center of Greenfield. This started even before the recent closures on State Road 9.
While there are many who would like to stop this wave of humanity coming, it has already been said by at least one county leader, “We are not country anymore.” This cannot be more evident than with a drive up Mount Comfort Road or past the many new Planned Unit Developments (PUD), Smart Home additions sprouting up quickly approved one by one.
But with this new growth comes new neighbors to meet, more services, some needed now rather than later. There should be more employment opportunities, more leisure options such as walking-biking trails, dog parks, and well … just more. I am hoping that we will get a big indoor swimming pool that is affordable to most people. Maybe our county will get its own YMCA with a pool that can be enjoyed year-round. We might even get another large full-size grocery store with an olive bar. Yeah… I can dream, can’t I?
I just hope that our new neighbors will not get upset by the occasional coyote they see way across the field out their back door. I hope they enjoy the country views of growing corn, an occasional glimpse of a red fox or a bald eagle. Most of all, I hope they slow down and move over for our farmers and their machinery that are still left. Though it is going fast, we still have some country left.
