I can never drive to or through Indiana without thinking of Mike Royko and the feud he had with the fine citizens here. For reasons not at all serious, Mike frequently ripped into the state. He called it “the most miserable state in the union.” He called its capital, Indianapolis, “The dullest large city in the U.S.”
Hoosiers hit back: printing and wearing t-shirts that said Royko who? And writing and sending thousands of letters, some of which mike printed in his column, while noting and further fueling the feud, “I was amazed how many people from Indiana can write. Though most of the letters were done in crayon.”
I am in Indiana now, in downtown Crown Point, roughly 45 miles from Chicago. And 50 miles from here is at least one thing Mike liked about Indiana: It is a tavern where the phone is answered with “nowhere” and that is because it is the Nowhere Car & Grill.
On the wall is an old menu from 1958, when the place was called the Saugany Lake Tavern & Restaurant and a T-bone went for $2.50.
