An Indian'A'ngeles Boyhood with Jesse Bob Harper

Although I am not so enamored of my own personal, emotional baggage, I do love the baggage of others. Someone's baggage tells you so much about that person, especially when they don't realize just how many pieces of emotional baggage they've been lugging around for most of their lives.

Our baggage comes in all shapes and sizes and from sources known and unknown. Some of my baggage is "husky."

Tab and Jack is a terrible combination, but it worked for dad.

Nothing but alcoholism could drive a man to drink a regular regimen of Tab diet soda and Jack Daniels.

There is no law that says you must love and care for someone only cause they are family. Related. Blood. That is a myth propagated by bad films and television. Usually crime dramas.

The same is true of the place of which you are from. The place from whence you came. The place you were born and raised. Being from a place doesn't always make it "home," but sometimes it leaves a mark.

I was born and raised in Indiana, but I grew up in Los Angeles. As a kid I couldn't wait to leave and didn't know where I belonged until I got there. The moment I arrived, Los Angeles felt like home. The mountains, the sea, the anonymity, hell I even dug the traffic for the first few years.

After twenty two years I returned to my place of origin. Came home. It was then I realized the mark that having been raised a Hoosier had made, but I no longer resented that mark. I even learned to embrace it. Being a part of the great Midwest is something, something to hang your hat on.

Indiana now feels like home, like L.A. felt like home.

This is a podcast of stories. Some mine. Some others. Stories of the way in which these two places left their mark, on me, and on others.