Cole Porter Birthplace and Peru, IN

Yep, Cole Porter was a Hoosier!  He was born in this house on June 9, 1891.  According to the plaque next to the door, “He learned to play the piano and violin in this house, and at age 10 he wrote one of his earliest compositions, ‘Song of the Birds’ for his mother, Kate.  Porter went on to write hundreds of classics for the stage, movies, and TV, including ‘Begin the Beguine’ and ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.'”

Today part of this huge house is used as the Cole Porter Inn.  I spoke to some people who were checking out, and they said it was terrific.

This town must have been something else in it’s heyday.  Get a load of these street names embedded in the sidewalk on the corner where the Cole Porter house sits.

Yes, that’s my hand on the same doorknob that Cole Porter used when he was called in for supper.

One of my favorite traveling companions ever.  So easy to stop where we want and skip what we don’t want.

Crumbling old commercial building near the railroad tracks in Peru, IN.  This place may be beyond repair.  A guy who was sitting in his back yard near here watched me take these and pictures of an old brick house that’s behind this place in a large otherwise empty lot, and then he came over to tell me that a person who owns several houses right there just bought this place and the abandoned house.  He also said that Dillinger stayed in one of the houses, presumably before he and his gang robbed the Peru Police Department of its guns.

Kitty knew I’d like this discarded ticket she found in the alley behind the old commercial building.

Classic Midwestern small town alley.  Reminds me of the one behind my cousins’ house in Huntington.  Love these secret passages and how they give access to garages behind houses, rather than making the garage the main thing you see when you pull up to a home, like they misguidedly started doing in the 1980s.

My foot on a brick sidewalk.  There are even streets made of brick that still exist in some small towns around here.  My mom and sister helped repair Chauncey Street in Columbia City, IN some years ago.

Another amazing house, visible from the Porter place.

Number Eleven Huntington street, next door to the Cole Porter place.  Sadly abandoned.  These great old houses in disrepair just break my heart.  “Honey, it followed me home.  Can we keep it?”