Or for that matter, Nancy Nall.

Why is it most writer’s seem to take glee in trashing places they’ve left behind? Edgar Allen Poe trashed his hometown of Boston, and to this day you won’t find hardly a mention of the famous writer. You won’t even find a statue.

The writer Amy Welborn lived here for 8 years. Now that she’s packed her literary bags trash and moved to Birmingham, Alabama, she thinks it’s safe to trash Fort Wayne.

But we are happy to be here for other reasons, too. I’ve no doubt that enumerating them will offend Fort Wayne loyalists, but so be it. It was, in short, one of the oddest places I’ve ever lived. I still cannot figure it out. For the life of me, I can’t.

When Fort Wayne first loomed in my future, I looked it up, and noted, “Second Largest City in Indiana.” Well, I reasoned, that’s got to be good news. Nashville, after all, is the second-largest city in Tennessee, and that’s a great town. So, it must translate. Right?

Wrong.

[…]

We lived in one of the older parts of the city, in a real neighborhood with sidewalks and a neighborhood church and school and a fantastic park one block away from my house. It was safe (at least it felt safe) – it was…a neighborhood.  (A part of the city, though, I feel moved to point out though, that we were warned against. Oh, you don’t want to live in the South Side. My Translation: Black people live there. Hispanics, too. The horror.)

I guess she never met Phil Marx or Bob G. Or maybe she didn’t know what the “south side” really was.

Most of the daily tasks (except for Michael driving to work) occurred within a 2-mile radius of the house. There were lots of things to do with children, even if those things were relatively small in scale and repeated themselves every year. Children don’t remember. They don’t care. Everything is new to them, every day. The Fort Wayne Zoo was small, but really excellent, and a fantastic place to take my boys and just let them run and race and practically pet the kangaroos.  Great library.

And I’m going to tell you people that honestly – that’s it. I’m not intending to be snobbish, but in our experience, that was the only selling point of Fort Wayne.

I guess she’s just a ignorant dolt. She never experienced the Fort Wayne Museum of Art? How about the History Museum, Botanical Gardens, the myriad of city and county parks, Three Rivers Festival, the Greek Festival, the Grabill Fair, Auburn Cord Dusenberg Museum, Science Central, Komets Hockey, Wizards Baseball, the Fort Wayne Ballet, Embassy Theatre, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Artlink Gallery, events at Memorial Coliseum, The History Center, the Allen County Fair, Arcola Tractor Pull (naw, too redneck, that’s below her), the Ribfest, Hilger’s Fall Festival, the Muddy River Run? How about driving a short distance to enjoy some of the attractions within a hour or two of Fort Wayne Amy?

I think I’ve made my point. For Welborn to insinuate we have only two selling points is nothing more than a pile of rubbish. She goes on..

In the area in which we lived, there was a school. A couple of schools with which we were acquainted, to which we were connected. Most of the adults connected to these schools had actually attended the schools as children and teens, and some of their parents had done the same.

The resultant culture was rather inbred and closed to the newcomer.

Inbred? Wait a minute, didn’t she say she just moved to Greenbow Birmingham, Alabama!?

Then the royal ass-ness Nancy Nall chimes in with her typical “Hate Fort Wayne” bullshit.

No argument from me. I think you nailed it, or part of it.

[…]

But let’s wallow in the smelly trough of stereotype for a moment, too: FW is a place with a wide ruling class of Germans, specifically German Lutherans, specifically Missouri Synod German Lutherans, and never in my life have I dealt with a more stubborn, smug, dismissive-of-outsiders group of people.  I mean, in my life. Of course there were wonderful exceptions, but to paint with a broad brush, these folks not only think they have it figured out, they have it nailed. They believe trying a different way is not only unnecessary, but wrong. And even dangerous. And they’ve defined the face of the city for generations.

Well, as a transplant from Detroit via Scottsdale, they can both kiss my pearly white ass. In spite of my rantings about HS, I’m proud to call Fort Wayne home.

Good riddance.

AWB

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