The most common piece of well wishing that I get from people when walking is to “be safe.” On one hand, that’s an easy platitude to fall back on; when you’re walking on roads, with cars whipping past, safety is a sensible concern. On the other, more often than not, there’s a thornier issue embedded in that comment, alluding to the widespread perception that life is dangerous, people can’t be trusted, and the abuse of meth and other drugs has led to a lot of unhinged, unstable folks. It comes up everywhere, sometimes quite explicitly.
One of the biggest concerns that we have is the ongoing breakdown of community–of the ties that hold us together. In that regard, the loss of trust is both symptom and accelerant, causing more Americans to bunker down, assume the worst, and become more removed from one another. As proximity is lost, faulty assumptions prevail.
So the striking thing about today’s walk was the vibrancy of the communities I passed through. From Marion, the Cardinal Greenway carried me out of town, before yielding to a neighboring rail trail, the Sweetser-Switch. The CG was good, easy walking, with lots of quality rest stops. The SS is even more polished and manicured, almost immaculate. In Sweetser center, there was a diner–the Sweetser Café–just off the route, so I popped in to grab a coffee. The small café was packed with folks, so I took a stool at the bar. “This place is happening!” I exclaimed to the waitress. She smiled and said, “Monday through Saturday, 6am to 2pm.” She was busy and I was alone at the bar, so I just sipped the coffee and took in the families packed together on this Friday morning.
The rail trail carried me onward to Converse, which is a little bigger, but had a similarly well-tended town center and a café down the road. Already over-caffeinated, and not yet hungry, I decided to carry on. The rail trail concluded here, so the ADT followed roads from Converse. After studying the maps, though, I decided to hop on the railroad and follow the tracks to the next town, Amboy. No trains were around and it was much more direct. It’s not a move I make often–I’ve had some unnerving experiences on trestles, so I’m especially cautious about avoiding those–but it worked great in this case.
Amboy carried on the pattern–a tidy town center and a café, Stepler’s. I immediately struck up a conversation with an older gentleman, Larry Waddelow, of Larry’s Apiary & Honey. For the most part, he fell into storytelling mode, going from his dwindling eyesight to his previous use of the cane as a pig-control tool when he worked as a swineherd, to his volunteering to run the book at little league games. When the conversation turned to honey, I got a lesson on its uses as a first aid supply, and also a warning to read the label before buying, since pesticides are apparently showing up in some honey harvested in China. At that point, my food arrived, delivered by a waitress singing “Rambling Man,” as she then whisked through the crowd, attending to other orders.
After I finished inhaling my lunch, a man from a neighboring table–he introduced himself as Ken Dickman–came over and literally picked up the tab. We talked a bit about his own travels around the Pacific Northwest before he said, “this place is really important to us. When it burned down in 1985, we built it back. We come here for lunch every week, and just take turns paying for each other’s lunch.”
The goodwill of Amboy carried me through the second half of the walk, which admittedly was a bit of a grind. The ADT sometimes absorbs extra miles in order to integrate other scenic elements. In this case, it swung far to the west in order to join another rail trail. I wonder if the rural highway, direct from Amboy to Peru, might be a better option!
In any case, I was delighted to arrive in Peru. Part of that was due to my accommodation at the Cole Porter Inn, which happens to be the birthplace of the composer. I don’t even know what to do with all the space available to me here–two bedrooms, a living room, a compact dining room, a kitchenette, bathroom, and even a laundry room!
But Peru is also a handsome town with a fascinating tradition. Peru boasts a claim of being the Circus Capital of the World. Its circus center downtown can be visited by appointment only, so I had to look for an explanation for this claim online. Time Magazine wrote a short piece on it eight years ago. The roots of the claim go back more than a century, as a number of traveling circus shows picked Peru as the place to winter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to it being known as “Circus City.” In time, though, those troupes realized that Florida was a more appealing place to spend the winter.
Here’s the more interesting part of the story, to me: As Peru declined in prominence as a circus hotbed, the town responded. Peru established Circus City Days in the 1950s, leading to the most important development: the creation of a training program for high school students that culminated in the launching of Peru’s Amateur Circus. That carries on today–all children between the ages of 7 and 21 are welcome to participate in the amateur circus, which leads to summer community performances. The Time article is unflinching about the larger challenges that Peru has faced, quoting a local photographer, Tina Leto, saying that outside of circus week, the truth of Peru is that “It’s not vibrant. It’s suffering.”
The community circus isn’t a panacea. But it is a tie that binds, it’s a source of shared identity, and for one week each summer, it’s a source of joy and entertainment.
