Historic Mecca

Graffiti on Mecca Covered Bridge

I drove my interns to Mecca, Indiana on Thursday. It was about fifty miles one way, with a crazy detour through Amish country. The nice farmers (who all looked like the actors in "The Witness") waved at us as we passed, and I couldn't help feeling overall warmth toward the countryside. The drive there was less of the flat, monotonous corn fields, and more of the rolling hills, scattered forests, and fields of cone flowers that made the idea of 'rural life' an appealing alternative to the hours of gridlock I happily left behind in California.

Mecca is a town of about 350 citizens, founded in the mid-nineteenth century. It apparently had a boom and decline associated with the opening and closing of a tile factory. All of my information on the town is related to me by the kind woman, Judy, who showed us around. (Mecca seems to be too small for this information to have found its way to the Internet.) Judy showed us the old 1-12 school house that is now used as the sole store and restaurant for the town. Many of the class rooms are used for meetings, historical displays, veteran displays, or are preserved as they were used fifty years ago. Judy also took us to a 19th-century, one room school house by the covered bridge leading into town. This school house was replaced in 1901 by the large brick school we visited (which closed in 1987-- I don't know what has replaced it).

This field trip into educational history was an effort to find the perfect setting for one of my video scenes. It seemed perfect, so they only missing criteria were miniature actors. I asked Judy about passing out fliers to get volunteer children to act in the school house. She was happy to oblige.

The next day, I got a phone call from a Mecca citizen, asking what would I like the children to wear. I repeated the description I had on the flier. She said, "Well, the school house is from the mid-1800s. Would you like the children to dress for that time period? Most of the kids in town have those outfits, as they perform in a reenactment there every year."

Of all the art that is made all over the world throughout the year, I love imagining this group of children in this tiny town coming together to act out school days for the entertainment of its 300 citizens.