Meet the Author: Gary Cowan was born June 27, 1950, in New Castle, Indiana. He was admitted to Ball State University with distinction and graduated from there in 1973. Gary has taught English and Latin at Rockville High School for the past 23 years. He also was a highly successful cross country, track, basketball, and academic coach at the school. In 1994 Gary received, out of a list of 300 nominees, the Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching. He has twice been named as most influential teacher by Wabash Valley Academic All Stars and three times has been named to Who's Who Among American High School Teachers. Gary's interests include spending time with his wife Marybeth, music, video games, reading, travel, exercise, and watching sports. He resides in Rockville with his wife Marybeth, dogs Tyler and Abby, and cats Charlie and Callie. This is the first of Gary's forays into creative writing, but he hopes to produce several more pieces in the following years. Gnaw Bone and the Universe As We Know It by Gary Cowan It had been long, so very long. I had taken a trip this winter to be a pallbearer at my uncle's funeral in Jeffersonville, Indiana - a trip to say farewell to a man I barely knew and to connect with family from a past that was once replete with memories of family reunions. Memories of cousins rolling down the hillsides of Turkey Run State Park. Memories of family softball games laden with as much laughter as bats crackling as they hit a ball and those oversized softballs thudding into leathery mitts. Memories of the red and white Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets that seemed like botttomless pits yielding a never-ending array of chicken thighs, breasts, and, yes, even an occasional wing or two. As I proceeded along Highway 46, I passed through the bustling, looming metropolis of Bloomington. It had been a while since I had seen how this college town had grown and evolved. Could it be possible that Ellettsville was now basically a suburb of Bloomington? Was I ever one of those fresh-cheeked youngsters winding their way to a class with a number on the way to a future with an entirely different set of numbers? As we pressed on toward Nashville and Brown County, my mind wandered back to a simpler time. Almost instantly I was in the back seat of my parents' 1949 green Chevrolet sedan. Once again we were winding along a Brown County State Park road where at any minute a panoramic vista of fall foliage would explode into view. We were fording a creek that had eroded a small wooden bridge, leaving only a narrow rocky path to be used for crossing. We were frantically shifting gears with our old four speed stick shift as our Chevrolet began to inch backwards down the slope it had once recently climbed. Once again I was staring at the floorboard of our car, trying to see the road over which we traveled, with our magnetic hula girl waving a fond farewell out the back window to a motionless cluster of curious chipmunks. Then the sign appeared - Gnaw Bone. My heart raced like a young boy's heart when he sees a strikingly beautiful girl face to face or when he sees the final destination of a roller coaster from its highest point. I remembered how my mother had been enthralled by towns with names like Gnaw Bone or Stony Lonesome. I remembered how we would stop in Gnaw Bone, laugh at the road sign proclaiming city limits, and count each of the five homes that existed. My father and I would eat our Bologna sandwiches my mother had made as we sat on the trunk of our car and watched the tired old horse at the sorghum mill pull the wheel in a never ending circle.There was time to laugh, breathe crisp autumn country air, and talk about simpler times, even while we ourselves lived in a much simpler time than today. But as I now passed through Gnaw Bone, something had changed. Convenience stores. Craft shops. Tourist attraction signs. Modular homes. Satellite dishes. Could this be the way station where my parents had deposited their cares in exchange for a blue sky, leaves of an infinite variety of autumn tintings, and a quiet so complete that nothing could interfere? Where had it all gone? Then I saw it - the sorghum wheel! No horse. No people. But it simply didn't matter. I had found my link to my past. Something that once was a fragment of my life still existed. My past had not abandoned me. My past was not merely memory, but something tangible and very, very real. Now I know. I know whenever I touch an old basketball trophy, see a family member from long ago, hear an old song that once catapulted me into a delirious frenzy, or simply breathe in the crisp air of a fall morning that the past lives. You see, our senses have memories too. And those senses are just patiently waiting to be reawakened so they can do what they are truly meant to do: give us pleasure, the pleasure of our past.

All Feature Articles, artwork and photographs ©2001 by Dervish Design. Some information on the 'County Info' pages is taken directly from brochures published by Visitors Bureaus and Chambers of Commerce.