Columbus, Indiana is one of the architectural wonders of the United States. It is sixth on the list after Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Fransisco, and Boston (those five being in no particular order). Roughly forty thousand people live in Columbus. I've been here for sixteen years, and neither I nor anyone I know has ever been on the architectural bus tour that draws tourists to our little city every year. I can, however, identify the buildings that would be on the tour: our library was designed by the man who created pyramids in front of the Louvre. Our court house comes from the same mastermind as the Petronas twin towers, and Eero Saarinen, the architect of the St. Louis arch, designed us a church the shape of an oil can. GQ magazin named Columbus one of the "62 Reasons to Love Your Country."

Columbus is a safe place to raise a family and a prized place to live for anyone who can overcome boredom. Because Columbus is rather small and uneventful, a few colorful characters are known on sight throughout town. First is crazey Larry. Crazy Larry coasts the streets and announces his presence with an obnoxious car horn that sounds like a calvary trumpet. His advice to the youth of Columbus, as printed in our high school newspaper, was to "never get so drunk and end up killing someone or else it'll change your life." Thanks for that crazy Larry. I'm sure he saved many a would-be murderer that day. We also have the Crazy Lady, not to be mistaken with crazy Larry. As the story goes, the crazy lady barged into the courthouse with a bag she claimed was full of explosives. On inspection, she was discovered to be carrying a bag full of shirts. If you're on the people trail, and you see the crazy lady heading your way (she frequents the poeple trail), you quickly change direction. The last colorful character has no name. He's a man that runs the long distance home from work every day in jeans with an unlit cigar in his mouth. Unlike the other two characters, this one is admired.

Learn more about this author, Shae Bay.
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