Julie Crim Reports on

Hello, I’m Julie, the new kid on the block. I hope to be with you for a while so here’s a thumbnail sketch of myself and current lifestyle.

I’ve always been told I’m a little different and maybe that’s true.On January 10, Marvin and I changed lifestyles. We’re full-time RVers now, having burned our bridges and live aboard a motor home. I tell people we don’t travel all the time but the scene from our windows change more than theirs.

At the moment I’m writing to you on an e-mailer called a Pocketmail as we travel west on I-10 about to leave Florida, where my husband Marvin and I have for an Elwood, Ind., reunion. After high school, people scatter all over the states. Hometown reunions are fun for hometown folks, but I had an idea three years ago while living in Yuma, Arizona: how about Elwood reunions in different locations across the country? The next scheduled one is March 6, 2004 in Glendale, Arizona. The unique feature of these reunions is that they’re for anyone who lived in or went to school in Elwood. They’ve been very successful, right from the start! In the future we expect to branch out to other parts of the states with Elwood get-togethers.

I was born and raised in Elwood. As I look back on memories of the growing up years, I realize "Camelot" best describes my hometown of the ‘40s and ‘50s. However, wanting to see more of our world, I soon left. Surprisingly, four and a half decades later, after traveling and living around the world as an Air Force wife and mother, raising three children along the way, I returned home. My new husband and I have been married a little over a year. We soon found we wanted the same things out of life so here we are, two Hoosiers, out to discover the "Land of Oz" and have some fun along the way, bringing you with us for company. Later we’ll talk about where we are and what we’ve seen, with some of my past adventures thrown in for seasoning.

A preview of my adventures include living on three continents and traveling to many countries, flying in a commercial plane that splashed into the South Pacific on our way to Guam, surviving the worst typhoon in recorded history and the worst earthquake in Oregon, and skydiving after the age of 60. These are but a few I’ll share with you later.

I open my atlas, looking at the road map of our country. Indiana doesn’t seem to be so very important. It isn’t the biggest or the smallest of our states. The richest and the poorest don’t live here. There are no mountains, no oceans, so what is it about this state that draws people? That’s easy. It’s the sincerity, the honesty, and the genuine nature of its people. We Hoosiers are the heartland of America and that heart is healthy and beating to the rhythms of humankind. We’re proud to call the Hoosier state home. No matter our location, we’re always close to Elwood and central Indiana. See you next issue!