I’ve had a little post percolating for a few days but didn’t feel the need to bump on here until I saw the news that President Obama is releasing part of the national oil reserves to…what, boost his re-election prospects? Gas prices have gone down about 50 cents in the past two weeks and supplies from overseas were just loosening, Libya be damned! What are we going to do next, start scattering Fort Knox gold across the country from biplanes manned by twenty-person, unionized teams bearing the Obama seal?

Ahem. Excuse me. On to the real topic of today’s post, which was the superiority of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Washington, D.C.

The worst thing about living in Fort Wayne is that Nathaniel now follows me around all day, kissing me. The very best thing is the shocking friendliness of the people. We’ve been actually here for about two weeks, and I’ve been invited to a book club and (a separate) salad party by one very enthusiastic young pastor’s wife, the pastor of a church we visited came to our house to visit us, our neighbors have introduced themselves and offered tools for our garden and moving in, and people at church actually introduced themselves to us (I have only had that happen once or twice before—never several people during one visit). Also, a washer repairman offered advice over the phone for free about why our washer was flooding the basement, and it worked. Heck, not even the people we know in D.C. have been so all-at-once ready to hang out.

Granted, Nathaniel and I worked a combo 90 hours a week in D.C. and lived in the suburbs, a very annoying traffic-filled ride far from a good deal of people we knew. Again, though, those structural barriers were functions of city living—needing two incomes to get along, ridiculous traffic and driving times, the fact that everyone else (man, woman, family) is also working.

Also: We have a garden. And a rabbit is already happily eating the bean plants.

To be sure, we’ve seen plenty of People of Walmart. Half the populace smokes. And there are, curiously, a lot of strip clubs (recurring topic of conversation: What economic and social conditions lead to having lots of strip clubs in an otherwise nice and normal Midwestern town?). But when we visited the town’s rose garden yesterday, we saw more children in the park than D.C. has in the entire city limits.