Logansport Lessons

Last week, I headed home to Logansport for an extended Thanksgiving break. Ol' L-town is always full of surprises, but I learned quite a few lessons on this latest six-day sojourn. From the bars of Erie Avenue to the drive-up window of La Casita de Pupusas, each corner of the 46947 had wisdom to impart this holiday - and, in my generosity, I am here to pass it on to you.

My first Logansport Lesson is that gambling is fun, but, like, so is an advent calendar. 

You'll be shocked, I'm sure, to hear that I have never participated in any gambling or lottery-related activities. I, after all, keep a tight budget I have to stick to by running my pantry down to half a bag of orzo so I can spend $130 on loafers. 

But, while out at the so-called Logan bars on the Thanksgiving-eve holiday known as Blackout Wednesday, a stack of pull-tab lotto tickets ended up at my table. If you don't know, these odd little vice devices are small cards with five tabs you snap back to reveal images - exactly like you do with a cardboard advent calendar. As with a slot machine, if your images match, you win a small amount of money. A classmate of mine bought a few cards from a vending machine, and a few of us set to work pulling off the tabs. 

OH MY GOD THAT'S FUN. 

Pulling apart bits of perforated cardboard is the perfect activity for a nail-biting, trash-folding sentient ball of nervous tics like me. For a brief moment, I understood why people enjoy gambling.

Somewhere around my hundredth tab, though, I realized I was getting no thrill at all from the increasingly slim chance of winning $5; I just liked the cat toy. My classmate dropped $60 on these things without winning a cent, and I reverted to my usual state of smugness, safe in the knowledge that I could have just at much fun at home with a leftover Pop-Tart box and some masking tape. Suck on that, lottery industrial complex!

Logansport Lesson number two is that, sometimes, when you leave your small, rural hometown for a while, it attempts to become a miniature foodie paradise in your absence. We'd already added token Thai place Dhing's to our existing restaurant selections (Applebee's and a local joint the kids call El Mexican), and now we've added a brand new bakery, a downtown fudge shop, and a pupusa stand. PUPUSAS, PEOPLE! I am a card-carrying pupusa obsessive, and now I can buy face-sized ones for $2 apiece from a drive-thru every time I visit my parents. God is real.

Finally, the third Logansport Lesson of this trip came from the recently resurrected Light Up Logansport parade. That lesson is that small-town parades are the best thing ever. We had the Children's Choir (led by my permanently hypothermic mother, who had the bright idea to avoid the cold by driving my dad's sedan as a pace car). We had two grown women in footie pajamas walking a horse they'd covered in glitter. We had the Shriners.

I don't know if Shriners do this in all small-town parades or just ours, but, in Logansport parades, the Shrine Club is known for traveling the route on motorized rickshaws that they spin around in little formations. While wearing fez hats. Don't ask me to explain.

This year, though, the Shriner entry in the parade was better than ever. One of the Shriners had somehow gotten his rickshaw stuck in reverse. While his club mates ran through their figure eights, this man rode backwards all the way down the East Broadway bike lane apologetically explaining to people that he couldn't get his vehicle turned around. I thought this was the best thing I'd ever seen. 

Then I saw the llamas.

Yes, folks, this parade had llamas. I saw the sign for the Cass County 4-H Llama and Alpaca Club coming from a block or so away, and, in a moment pulled straight from a sitcom, I said out loud, "Yesssss, the alpaca club! Wouldn't it be great if they had their--"

My jaw basically fell off my face when I saw that the alpaca club had indeed brought their alpacas. This group of teens was literally parading two Kuzcos, covered in Christmas lights, through downtown.

Keep your seven wonders, my friends. The best things on earth are happening in Logansport.