|
|
BACK HOME IN INDIANA
by John Gutowski
How did I spend my summer? I sold books in Churubusco
Indiana. That's my adopted home-town. It's about fifteen
miles northwest of Fort Wayne, has a population of 2,000
that resists post-modern, post-real experiments in cosmic
emptiness. Churubusco keeps its identity of a small, rural,
Middle American, Main Street, U.S.A. I wrote a scholarly
monograph about that identity and its connection to
folklore. That's the book I was selling on Main Street this
summer. Its title is The Beast of `Busco: An American
Tradition. Its focus is the story of the community
festival, Turtle Days.
So there I was on June 18 and 19 at Turtle Days 1999
selling my wares first in the town library, then in the
Merchant's tent at the festival. I had been invited to do
this by the Churubusco News, which carried the
monograph's first ever review on June 9. I was also invited
to be a judge at the Turtle Day Parade. And I made an
appearance as "guest color commentator" at the Turtle Days'
Turtle Races. In between I managed to start a few arguments
in some of the local taverns about my favorite subject:
Oscar the turtle, the Beast of `Busco, was he or wasn't
he?
The first Turtle Day occurred throughout1949 when a local
farmer and his neighborly friends captured the nation's
attention through their persistent though futile quest for
the biggest snapping turtle ever believed to be seen by
human eyesAmerica's Loch Ness Monster, the Beast of `Busco.
The ensuing publicity and pandemonium resemble what we are
seeing today in Burkittsville, Maryland following thr relese
of "The Blair Witch Project." In 1949 Churubusco seized the
initiative and captured a lasting turtle-community metaphor.
From 1950 to the present, Churubusco has commemorated its
distinction as "Turtletown U.S.A." through an annual "Turtle
Days" festival. In other smaller scaled but ubiquitous ways
the turtle has become a metaphor for community in speech,
story, song, poetry, drama, pageant, legend, ballad, joke,
art, craft, costume, cookery, contest, and other forms of
expressive traditional communication.
All you ever wanted to know about this turtle based
folklore complex can be found in The Beast of `Busco: An
American Tradition. Chapter 1 "Community and Tradition"
is about demographics and imagination. It introduces the
community through a survey of its symbolic folklore and
shows why traditions that Churubuscoans both share and
contest with other communities could not become the theme of
their festival. What did were the events of 1949, "The Great
Turtle Hunt" and the protofestive "Town Folklore" chronicled
in detail in the second and third chapters. The next two
chapters deal with folklore developments from a wide range
of emergent folklore in Chapter 4 to a detailed history of
the Turtle Days festival in Chapter 5. Much of the preceding
information was based on my own field research in Churubusco
in 1970 and 1971. In 1992 I returned to town to see what had
changed and what had remained constant. This is the theme of
Chapter 6. The following conclusion argues that the communal
life history told through the Churubusco folklore complex is
an American story in a distinct folk idiom, expressing a
vitalizing local knowledge. It is the story of the
integrity, creativity, richness, and vibrancy of a town's
folk tradition. The beast of `Busco is much more than a
giant turtle.
|
|
|