Coming home offers old friends, old joys and the return of the untethered appetite Often during my trips home, people ask me what I miss about Indiana and specifically my hometown of Shelbyville. On these visits, there are a few things that I always need to do. Of course, visiting family and friends is high on the list of "must do's," but there are a variety of things that I can't return without doing.

 

Second to my family and childhood friends, I probably miss certain foods the most. I nearly always eat a fresh-baked sugar cream pie. Many people take this Indiana delicacy for granted, not realizing that a Wick's Sugar Cream Pie is truly an Indiana original. Indiana natives who move away realize this once they visit the frozen food section of their grocery stores, only to find every kind of pie except for a Wick's Sugar Cream Pie. Of course, this type of pie would not go over so well in Japan, because it would be much too sweet for the typical Japanese person's palate. So one of my first purchases when I hit the Indiana border is to buy a pie.

 

Several haunts I like to visit while in Shelbyville are places that remind me of my childhood and life in Indiana. I always visit Cagney's to sample some of my favorite dishes I grew up with. Also, I like to make a stop at The Cow Palace to have an authentic Indiana tenderloin sandwich ... and, of course, some ice cream.

 

Giving in

 

It is interesting that when I am in Japan, I miss many foods from Indiana, and when I am in the U.S., I miss many things I enjoy in Japan. I suppose that is a part of human nature - wanting what you don't have. Fortunately for me, with several visits to the U.S. each year, I can satiate my cravings rather easily. When I am in the U.S., it is always only a matter of a few weeks before I am back in Japan, enjoying the things I love there.

 

As I write this, I am stateside. I have a routine I tend to follow on each visit - in Japan I diet, exercise and try to lose weight in anticipation of my visits home, where I usually overindulge in all the things I love and miss - inevitably packing on several pounds in the process.

 

This summer has been no exception. I came much trimmer than I will be leaving, but no fear, I will get back on my regimen once I am back in Japan and will prepare for the next visit, where I will indulge in all the things I love about home. For instance, there is nothing more delicious than fresh Indiana sweet corn and tomatoes. If I ate only these two things, I wouldn't have to worry about counting calories. Unfortunately, it is the juicy steaks, baked potatoes and succulent desserts that rack the calories up rather quickly.

 

Always changing

 

On each visit home to Shelbyville, I am amazed at how some things seem to stay exactly the same and how other things have changed beyond recognition. One example: street addresses. I am so unfamiliar with all the new housing additions that have popped up all over the outskirts of town. When I meet people I know from when I lived in Shelbyville, nearly always the street names they live on are unfamiliar to me. This is all a part of modern progress, I suppose. Shelbyville has been growing steadily each year since I moved away to college. This is a good thing, overall, but bad when you're trying to find someone's home, and you have no idea where to begin to look.

 

I always like to take a spin around town on my visits home to check out places I used to frequent as a child and young adult. I drive past my childhood home, for instance, realizing that the vast majority of the neighbors I knew when I lived there are no longer there. I enjoy driving by my elementary and junior high schools - both of which have been replaced with bigger, more modern structures in another part of town.

 

Shelbyville High School was always a constant for me on trips home, but now that, too, has changed, keeping up with the times and the ever-expanding growth of people in the city. It's been a long time.

 

I especially take great pleasure in running into familiar folks from my childhood in local stores and shops. I nearly always can recognize people easily, no matter how many years have passed since we last saw one another. Just today, as I write this, I visited Cagney's on a short trip to Shelbyville to get my much anticipated pepperoni pizza (with extra cheese and onion) I always enjoyed as a teenager there on Friday nights with friends, and as a bonus ran into some people I hadn't seen in nearly 20 years.

 

In two weeks, I will be returning to Japan, and the treadmill calls my name. I will get back on my more austere diet, hopefully shedding the weight I gained while home and then some. No matter. I wouldn't trade any of the pleasures I enjoy on these trips home for anything. Every morsel and calorie are well worth the inevitable struggle to take it off.

 

Ah, the simple pleasures of home!

 

 

By TODD JAY LEONARD

Columnist