In Search of Auburn, Indiana

The nearest big city to my parents' home town is Auburn, Indiana, population 13,000 (doubled since I was a kid), known for its own now-defunct automobile manufacturer (1900-1937), a bank robbery by John Dillinger (1933), and humorist Will Cuppy (1884-1949), who published The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody.  He never married; maybe he was gay.

Auburn was also home to my Aunt Lynn and Uncle Gus, whose two kids were considerably younger than me, so I was often saddled with the job of "entertaining them"while the grown-ups gossipped. They lived one block from a park and six blocks from another park, but nowhere near anything fun; the nearest bookstore was in Fort Wayne, and the only museum in town was a museum of cars.



But the park six blocks away had one advantage: the Brown House, which had been there since my parents were kids and is still there today.  A frozen custard with a maraschino cherry on top!  Why hasn't that idea caught on?

Looking for Auburn beefcake, I searched under "Auburn High School." There are 14 in the U.S., plus a university.






This wrestler is from a Facebook page devoted to "Auburn High School Wrestlers."  It doesn't state which one.





















This photo is of Boylan Catholic Boy School Swimming Vs. Auburn  High School, Rockford, 2016, copyright Paul Johansen.  Prints available on his website.

Why so many Auburns?  It just means "reddish brown." Auburn, Indiana is named after the Auburn in the poem "The Deserted Village" (1770) by Oliver Goldsmith, which is depopulated as residents move to the nearest big city, or to America:

Far different there from all that charmed before
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day

Hey, geniuses, Goldsmith thinks America is horrid.

Surprise -- the high school in Auburn, Indiana is actually named Dekalb, after the County.

But there are a dozen Delkalb High Schools in the U.S., including two in Indiana.













These Speedo-wearing guys are from the Sports DeKalb and Dynamo Water Polo Club, which partnered for the 2018 Power Bar Cup in Atlanta.










This guy broke the York Athletic Pool Record for the backstroke "previously held by Daniel H__ of Dekalb."

I don't know which Dekalb, or which Auburn.

But I know that there is only one Brown House in the world, and it's still serving frozen custard with a maraschino cherry on top.