INDIANA CONFIDENTIAL: ZenFo Pro Goes to (Earlham) College, Nearly Seduced by Cobra Tattoo

Richmond, Ind. (ZP) -- It blows my mind the triviality of state borders these days.

Oxford lies about seven miles east of the Indiana border, and about 30 miles north of the Kentucky border.

There have been days, hence, where I've been able to hit all three states in a little over an hour simply by driving in a circle.

I've posted Confidentials concerning Oxford, and lately, Hamilton, Ohio, but I haven't really explored other parts of the region. So this weekend, I decided to meander my way up U.S. 27 towards Richmond, Indiana, in search of adventure.

At first glance, the decaying, weathered exteriors of the city's downtown buildings give off the impression of Richmond being a dying city, a community struggling to balance itself on its last good leg. But, like Butte, Montana, Windsor, Colorado, and scores of other such small cities, rumors of the communities demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Part of the reason lies in the fact that Richmond is the home of Earlham College, the polar opposite of Miami University. A small private college run by the Society of Friends (Quakers), it boasts a student body much smaller (around 2,000 students) with more than twice the multicultural population (17 percent minority enrollment, as opposed to Miami's more than 90 percent white student body.)

My first stop was the mall – a tiny little facility, complete with a mall Santa, a Sears, and, sadly, way too many goth kids hanging out at the Hot Topic.

I met perhaps the most...um...unique...person in the mall parking lot - an off-again, on-again Earlham student who, upon learning that I was a librarian, introduced herself by saying “Call me Ishmael,” a reference to the first line of Moby Dick.

Ishmael (I'll call her Ish from this point forward) offered to give me an insider's tour of downtown Richmond, in exchange for promising that I a) wasn't a serial killer and b) agreeing to give her a lift back to the north side of town to her apartment. She also asked if I was interested in parting with my FireFox tee-shirt, saying that, if I was a “nice guy,” it'd probably end up on her floor anyway.

A five-foot-nothing 20-year-old with jet-black hair, steel-blue eyes, a Minor Threat tee, and a skateboard who gets turned on by open-source software.

Sweet. Try finding that in Oxford. I dare ya.

With an agreement struck, Ish and I hopped in the ZeFomobile and proceeded to go bar-hopping in some of her favorite hangouts.

Let's just say she had a few. Each place was, well, the kind of place I find relaxing. Blue-collar establishments. The strong stench of disinfectant in the air, cold pints, and ready-to-rumble jukeboxes. Rednecks mixing with skater kids. Preppy yuppies-in-training drinking in the same bars as portly bikers and bearded plumbers. Artists and poets discussing politics and plotting social upheaval.

Holy shit. I've got to get up to Richmond more often.

I had the opportunity to meet several of Earlham and Richmond's finest. This included one young woman who sported an awesome-looking tattoo of a cobra on her lower back and who wanted to one day “break” a male Miami student, a guy who goes by “Stoner” who has never smoked a joint in his life, and a Philosophy student who's only goal in life is to build a house out of Legos.

After an afternoon of drinking, Ish and her roommates were kind enough to allow me the opportunity to grab a shower (true to her word, Ish did indeed steal my FireFox shirt but gave me one of her roommate's in exchange) and crash on the most comfortable couch I've slept on in ages.

Before I left, I exchanged e-mails (Ish and her roomies don't have a phone nor does Ish own a cell phone) and installed OpenOffice 2.0 on two laptops while listening to Le Tigre...

What can I say? An information bounty killer's job is never done.

Richmond, Indiana, is not dead nor is it dying anytime soon.