Eventually, this newsletter will consist of more form and function, but, as I get this project off the ground, my first five posts will highlight my first five days in South Bend from my own perspective.
This is day one of five.
I woke up at 6:56am on my first full day in South Bend.
I bring that up, not to say that it was by some divine miracle that I woke up that early, but because I had a purpose for what felt like the first time in forever.
I made it to the WEST.SB office at Vested Interest by 8:10. Jacob was there waiting for me. I walked in on a scene of him performing surgery on the DSLR camera that he needed for work later that day. By the time I settled in, the surgery was deemed unsuccessful; his SD card still failed to read. Jacob was the person who originally brought me to South Bend, the person who planted the seed that grew into this project about a month and a half ago, and the person who is hosting me for the first stop on my why [here] journey.
We met through Instagram of all places.
I don’t know when it began, but for the longest time I had followed his adventures as a young creative entrepreneur trying to make his mark on the city of South Bend. That was until one day last August when I saw him begin to post about a day-long conference he was hosting in town. It was called Sampled and coined as a gathering of people who get shit done in the Rust Belt. That was about all I needed to know.
I had just finished a 9,000 mile cross-country road trip from LA to Chicago with my cousin after living abroad for fourteen months, so I was ready to reconnect with meaningful work that was being done in the part of the world where I was raised and educated. This opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time. I signed up to attend and, as our generation is apt to do, slid into Jacob’s DMs letting him know that I was excited to attend. The following image captures what ensued...
On a Friday in September, I drove down to South Bend and arrived to a bonfire in Jacob’s backyard as a local pseudo-celebrity affectionately known as the guy from Wisconsin.
Upon my arrival, I had a PBR thrust into my hand and a whirlwind 24 hours of introductions and immersion began. Sampled carried on late into the night the next day, but my friend - who had come down from Detroit - and I were due in Kalamazoo. As the clock neared eleven, we reluctantly said our goodbyes to a merry band of conference attendees, presenters and planners drinking beer and sharing cigars in the cargo bed of Jacob’s old Dodge.
A few months later, I returned to the Chicagoland area to see my dad’s side of the family for Christmas. Upon reflecting during the time since, I realized that weekend in South Bend had reconnected me with my underlying inspiration and purpose to support people trying to make a difference in communities that existed on the margins. So, I reached out to Jacob, and we made plans for me to drive the extra two hours past Chicago to meet up in South Bend.
It was the evening of Sunday the 23rd. We met at his office and then rode in that same beat-up Dodge on over to Zen Cafe. We ordered a couple of chai lattes, sat down at the chairs shown above and fell into conversation as old friends. At some point in the conversation we reached the what are we doing here part in our meeting arc and Jacob asked, “have you ever thought about writing a newsletter?”
I was caught off-guard. I couldn’t honestly respond either way, but my gut took the lead and said, “I think we have too much noise as is; I don’t really want to contribute to it.”
After a few moments of silence, my rational mind took over and I reflected upon the desire I had to explore and connect with parts of the country that are often overlooked and disregarded. I verbally processed how 2018 had brought us a deteriorating trust, reliability and relationship with information that we received from both social media platforms and mainstream media organizations. That thought was followed closely by the observed phenomena of increased print book readership, increase podcast production and subscription and the advent of cult-like docu-series consumption.
A void started to emerge and I wanted to position myself firmly within it. I wanted to travel to the less visible parts of the US and do something with existing communities there. I wanted to share everything that I had experienced while traveling with anyone who could benefit from being exposed to it. I wanted to so something that matters.
Fast-forward through a month-and-a-half of visioning in the jungles of Belize and planning logistics from my grandma’s basement in Wisconsin, here I am now - calling South Bend home for a month as I begin to pilot my multimedia storytelling project, why [here].
And, boy oh boy, let me get back to telling you about my first day!
Jacob and I had planned to meet at 8:00am to plot out my time in South Bend and our time collaborating together for the next four weeks. That was until he received a call late on that Sunday night letting him know that he needed to show up to a former used car lot at 9:30 on Monday morning to record one of America’s most exciting mayors and a prospective presidential candidate, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg, endorse the man he wanted to succeed him in the role, James Mueller. I was invited to join Jacob and his team.
We arrived as Mueller’s campaign staff were carrying a beat-up and bedraggled particleboard podium into the small lobby of the newly-formed campaign office whose walls had been scrubbed clean early into the morning the night before. Over the next twenty minutes, campaign posters were hung, supporters were ushered in and a charcoal drawing of Martin Luther King Jr even arrived to be hung on an adjacent wall. Clearly in its infancy, it quickly became apparent that this campaign was being run by gritty, enthusiastic people-power - one of my first and most fundamental insights into how things get done in South Bend.
Pete arrived a few minutes after ten, shook hands with the room and took his position next to James and the podium. As I stood front row straddling the threshold between a promising young politician and an array of over-sized local news media cameras with their War-of-the-Worlds-esque tripods jostling for position, I began to process the moment. I was literally and figuratively positioned between what happens locally and how we are made to perceive it. It was the beginning of a three month journey to better understand this country and try to communicate that with the rest of the world.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Kenny