LETTERS FROM HOME: WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, PART ONE

June 27, 1996

Waiting for the end of the world, part one

Dear Patty,

Here on the downslide to the millennium, the skies are searched for signs, and apocrypha are everywhere. The weather is wacky, aliens are invading the movie houses and nobody cares who wins the pennant any more.

DC blames the hole in the ozone layer for most every misfortune, and some people avoid the life-giving sun as if it were a cancer itself.

We humans have conjured up a fearful world indeed.

Last weekend, driving two of our nieces back to their home to Cincinnati, we stopped in New Harmony, Ind. Back in the early 1800s, a German religious leader named George Rapp moved his flock there from Pennsylvania to await the end of the world.

While waiting, they were very industrious. Built a lovely little town called Harmonie on the banks of the Wabash. The goods they made were shipped all over the country.

Since the end was nigh, they adopted a creed of celibacy, although I understand some lapses occurred. But most men and women lived together like brothers and sisters.

After 10 years, the end long overdue, the Harmonists moved back to Pennsylvania, the better to ship their products to Eastern markets. Their town in Pennsylvania was named Economy.

Harmonie was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy social reformer from Scotland intent on basing a utopian society on the ideals of community ownership and equal work. He renamed the town New Harmony.

The scientists and scholars who came to live there made New Harmony famous for awhile but the utopian community failed within two years. Problem was, most of the Owenites were unclear on the concept.

Back in Economy, biology being what it is, the Harmonists died off by the end of the 19th century. Like New Harmony, only the preserved village has survived.

The nieces peeked inside a few of the old houses, figured out that the number of inhabitants was always equal to the number of beds, then wondered where the Taco Bell was.

They spent the rest of the drive talking about Benny, who, when we finally asked, turned out to be their new pet fly.

On the way home from Cincinnati, DC and I stopped at Santa Claus, Ind. She had some childhood memories of the town she wanted to relive, but most of whatever quaintness was there was gone.

Oh, there's a Santa Claus statue in Santa Claus, a Santa Claus Post Office and a Santa Claus American Legion Hall. There is also Holiday World, which is something like Disney World without the imagination.

Holiday World has a roller coaster and a water park and a gift shop that sells Christmas ornaments year-round. "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" blares from cheap speakers as families coat themselves with sunscreen, the better to guard against the cancers all this fun might bring.

You want signs of the end of the world? Forget misguidedness like Harmonie or earnest failures like New Harmony. Look no further than the Holiday Worlds.

Meaninglessness is our No. 1 killer.

If an end is indeed coming, let it be the end of the suicidal tendencies to trivialize and ultimately kill what's best in us and to fear our own natural realm.

As we were driving over the Wabash River one hot day, DC kidded the nieces that perhaps we should all jump in.

"That would be suicide," said 7-year-old Carly.

"What's suicide?" 6-year-old Kim asked.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.