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Bruce Hetrick

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NOTIONS: Drinking not from the cup of bitterness and hatred

In August, a group of ministers, whose common bond is their race, their faith, their concern for this city and their desire to help, wrote an open letter to our mayor. It was published in The Indianapolis Star. In their letter, the ministers decried the rise of violent crimes in our community. They commended the mayor for his “rapid response.” And they asked him to raise a lot of money to advance crime prevention through improved social programs. The letter…

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NOTIONS: A call for cooperation in a deep purple nation

It’s election night. The hour is late. Political junkie that I am, however, I’m propped up in bed, the television blaring before me, the laptop perched on my legs. Remote in hand, I flip TV channels between CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, C- SPAN and Comedy Central. With the flick of an index finger on my computer, I bounce between Web sites of The Indianapolis Star, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Marion County Election Board,…

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NOTIONS: A memo to winning pols from the middling masses

One of my sons will vote for the first time this week. His twin got so busy with schoolwork and extracurriculars that he missed the registration deadline. With only a fraction of eligible American voters casting ballots on the Tuesday after the first Monday this November, “majority rules” once again will be a misnomer. In fact, with only the most partisan and deep-pocketed among us ruling the day and candidates pandering primarily to such activists’ priorities, “fringe rules” would more…

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NOTIONS: Of errors, apologies and redemption

Last week, a friend and I stopped by Nordstrom so she could purchase some cosmetics. She found one needed product on the shelf, then asked the clerk if the item she’d asked to be sent from another store had arrived. The clerk said it had, but that they’d sold it to another customer because my friend hadn’t called for it. My friend said she’d never been notified the product was in. The clerk repeated that it’s store policy to sell…

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NOTIONS: Dear philanthropist: Make me a daydream believer

Last month, I picked up my boys in Fort Wayne, drove north on Interstate 69, hooked a left at Interstate 94, and got off at the Portage, Mich., exit. There, we whiled away the weekend at a family reunion. The grownups ate too much, caught up on gossip and puttered around the lake in the speedboat. The teenagers, whom we rarely saw, did X-Box battle in the basement. On Sunday, after the kids had surfaced for lunch and the grandparents…

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NOTIONS: Five years after 9/11, will we let freedom ring?

On the first anniversary of 9/11, I knew just how Americans should mark the occasion. “Hang ten. Hang it up. Hang out. Paint a portrait. Paint the town. Watch your weight. Let it be. Say hey. Strike back. Roll a strike. Spare a dime. Rock the boat. Do time. Take a shot. Do your best. Give back. Give a damn. Turn a cheek. Heal the sick. Feed the poor. Hold hands. Make love. Love life. Hug kids. Wave flags. Play…

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NOTIONS: A travel dispatch from somewhere over the rainbow

The sun is setting, the pavement damp, and dark clouds dance across the San Juan Mountains as we turn onto U.S. Highway 550 and drive north toward Durango. As if there weren’t enough beauty in this peak-filled paradise, Nature’s earlyevening sideshow features a fully arced double rainbow, quite the welcome sign to a late-summer vacation. I suppose you could write off a double rainbow as a mere meteorological phenomenon. I suppose I could, too. But it’s more fun to wonder…

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NOTIONS: Has our love for labor been lost?

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on Sept. 1, 2003, is being reprinted. The Labor Days of my memory are happy-sad affairs. The weather is muggy. The family’s gathered at some park or pond, river or lake. Burgers sizzle on the grill. Frisbees fly through the air. And after supper, there’s touch football with dads and brothers, kids and cousins, until dusk drops her shadowy curtain on yet another summer. In my…

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NOTIONS: Mailbox of plenty could yield empty pockets

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on Aug.19, 2002, is being reprinted. Dear Reader: In our nation’s capital, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol Street, the Smithsonian Institution has converted a former post office into the National Postal Museum. Carved into the white granite wall is an inscription called “The Letter.” Written by former Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot and edited by former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, it…

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NOTIONS: Preventing the pain that triggers bombs and bullets

A few weeks ago, my 18-year-old son, Austin, said he was in the mood for a movie. His friend, Jon, had been to see “Miami Vice.” Jon said it was “cool.” I said that the old TV version-which began airing before Austin was born-had been “cool,” too. So based on that trans-generational cool factor, we grabbed dinner at Chili’s and went to see America’s most celebrated vice cops, Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, do their undercover thing. On the big…

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NOTIONS: A taste of political cynicism served at minimum wage

I eat out a lot. Heck, I eat out more than I eat in. So I’m something of a restaurant whiz. From locals to chains, fast food to fancy fare, I can tell you who serves what, how well and for how much. But until my friend Cheri read a book called “Nickel and Dimed,” in which author Barbara Ehrenreich recounts a first-person social experiment working low-wage jobs, I never asked a waiter or waitress about the going rate for…

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NOTIONS: A suburban pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later story

Longer ago than I’d like to admit, my parents were expecting their first child (me). And they wanted their little guy to grow up in a nice, safe neighborhood. Mom and Dad weren’t earning much. But they borrowed a down payment from Grandpa, took out a whopping $80-per-month mortgage, and purchased a tiny, newly constructed house on the outskirts of Lafayette. My parents had grown up in the established parts of Lafayette. They knew well the old homes, old streets…

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NOTIONS: Forward this to everyone on your list

I hate e-mail. I love the speed. I hate the carelessness speed often breeds. I love the informality. I hate the sloppiness. I love brevity. I hate it when brevity is seen as brusque. I love brevity. So I hate it when brevity is blown off For e-mails that go on, And on, And on, Asking me to address five major points, And 17 sub-points And 53 sub-sub points By “simply” hitting REPLY. I love brevity. So I hate having…

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NOTIONS: How fear and loathing make the world go ’round

In her social work class, my friend Cheri was assigned a paper on hate groups. The professor sent her master’s degree students to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Web site. There, they were to find the map of active hate groups in America, read about those operating in Indiana and discuss their reactions to what they learned. Cheri was left wondering why so many people are so afraid of those they perceive as “different,” and why “different” so often equates…

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NOTIONS: Hailing the hare in the land of the tepid tortoise

I was going to play smart aleck this week. I was going to write in hick dialect. I was going to lambaste us Hoosiers over our stubborn adherence to the status quo, our penchant to take things slow, our preference for partisanship, our pooh-poohing of progress and our bull-headed gumption to go it alone in a global economy. Then news broke that Indiana has the highest high school dropout rate in America. So I figured that for two reasons, I’d…

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NOTIONS: Of sexual predators, pit bulls and oddly lesser evils

God, she’s cute: Your little Paula or Patti or Pammy. Sitting there on the swing set, rocking back and forth, back and forth, her brunette locks blowing in the breeze. You watch her on the merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster. Watch her on the jungle gym, climbing higher and higher. Watch her and her little friend Annie or Jenny or Missy walking toward the trail into the woods. And you know you aren’t the only one watching. You know he’s…

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NOTIONS: Gore’s film has lessons we should heed

Last Friday night, my friend Cheri and I decided to go out to dinner and a movie. The film we chose wasn’t playing near our downtown home. So we had to get in the car and drive 14 miles northwest to Traders Point. As we sat outside at Abuelo’s eating and talking, we watched hundreds of cars, trucks and SUVs pass by on 86th Street. This led to a conversation about the environment and the need for mass transit in…

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NOTIONS: In search of happiness? You’ve got to make a friend

My brother Bryan called the other day. He asked if I’d like to join him at the Music Mill to see an up-ancoming singer-songwriter he’d heard about. He said the critics have compared her rock-funksoul sound to the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Tina Turner and Janis Joplin. Pretty high praise. So last Tuesday we 40-something guys and a few hundred other people went to hear 22-year-old Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Before Grace took the stage, we sat in the…

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NOTIONS: A tale of two kings and one fortunate kingdom

For the fifth year, some colleagues and I have penned comedy for a cause. The Indiana Repertory Theatre, which usually chooses its playwrights more carefully, erred again by soliciting our scriptwriting “talent” for its faux-radioshow fund-raiser. So on June 3, a cast of Indianapolis celebrities-from the media, not-for-profits, government and business-donned makeshift 17th-century garb, mounted the Indiana Roof Ballroom stage, and hammed up “Shakespeared: A Midsummer Night’s Scheme.” Our tall tale featured two kings-Mitchard and Bartholomie-trying to outdo each other…

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NOTIONS: Fighting mountains, oceans with human connections

During the 1992 presidential campaign, H. Ross Perot used the phrase “that giant sucking sound” to describe what he feared would be a rush of American jobs into Mexico should the U.S. approve the North American Free Trade Agreement. In Indiana’s 2006 economy, “that giant sucking sound” describes the rush of Indiana talent across the state line to anywhere but here. In a phenomenon known as the “brain drain,” Indiana exports more young talent than it imports. But suppose we…

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