Big Mike: A Small Town With A Big Fish

There’s a fish on top of the county courthouse that dominates the square in beautiful downtown Bloomington, Indiana. Don’t ask me why. I’ve asked dozens of people myself and the best answer I ever got was that Bloomington is known far and wide as a fishing city — which was the first and only time I’ve ever heard such a thing.

The fish is impaled upon a spire topping the courthouse dome. It serves as a wind vane. I look at it every morning when I hit the square, the way I used to look at the flags atop the Wrigley Field scoreboard. You’d think I was a flying ace, the way I take daily sight readings of wind speed and direction but it’s really only a way to fool myself that I’ll know what the weather’s going to be like.

Except for a parking garage or two and a couple of neo-classical towers on the Indiana University campus a couple of blocks to the east, the fish is the tallest point in the town. As such, the fish is analogous to the broadcasting towers on top of the John Hancock Center, a focal point of the skyline. The only difference is the Hancock’s twin towers are a tad taller — by some 1300 feet or so, that’s all.

Yesterday was a glorious day in beautiful downtown Bloomington. The sun was brilliant, the temperatures in the mid-50s, and people ambled around the square, hoping to squeeze in the last aimless stroll before the cold hits tonight. Actually, people around here already consider the weather cold, the dopes. December and January aren’t the existential ordeals in south central Indiana they are in Chi. When people talk about how frigid it is, even though it’s May-mild out to me, I remind my new burgh-mates that I come from up north. They quickly grin and say, semi-apologetically, “Yeah, you’re right. This is nothing.”

I ambled aimlessly around the courthouse myself during my half-hour lunchbreak from the bookstore. I didn’t want to sit inside some cafe or even the Trojan Horse (the place serves the best falafel sandwich outside Chicago) across the street from the Book Case on such a pretty day.

The first time I passed the main entrance, a young rural couple exited their pickup and asked me where they go for the county treasurer’s office. “Got t’pay our property taxes,” the man said. The woman nodded, adding, “Gotta give’ em what they want or they’ll take it all away.” We three laughed as I pointed at the front door and they thanked me profusely.

I continued my slow circumnavigation of the courthouse. By the time I got around to the front entrance again, the couple was bounding down the stairs toward their pickup. “Didn’t you find the treasurer’s office?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. All we had to do was pay our taxes,” the man said. The woman nodded again. “Had to take care of The Man,” she said. They waved and thanked me again as if I were the county government’s official host. They climbed into their pickup and rumbled away. I noticed its tire treads were caked with red, sandy soil. Then it hit me — they’d parked right in front of the county building, found the treasurer’s office and paid their property taxes all in the span of five minutes.

Man, this is some small town. Of course, according to at least one person I’ve talked to, it’s known far and wide.

• share:
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz up
• Tweet this
• Tell a friend