Greencastle? Boring? Turns out it could be worse.

I didn't know how well off I am.

I've always thought that Greencastle, aside from everything that goes on at DePauw, must be about the most boring place in the world. In recent years, it's seemed that more and more of DePauw's faculty have been choosing to live in Indianapolis or Bloomington. (I tried it for a while myself, but with children in Greencastle, it just didn't work.) With gas prices rising, perhaps that will change, and maybe property values in Greencastle will go up. Somehow the cheap-mortgage housing price bubble never hit us, but on the other hand, we had no bubble to burst.

But there's exciting news about Greencastle! As the Terre-Haute Star points out, we are only the 14th-dullest college town among those in which the 368 "top universities" listed in the latest Princeton Review are located. Wow---there are 13 other towns with good colleges where non-academic life might be even duller.

The Star's headline-writer and the author of the article seem to be of different minds on whether Greencastle or Terre Haute is duller. "The Haute may be a boring college town, but we’re slightly less dull than Greencastle," the headline proudly states, but the article says, "Also, we’re only slightly more dull than Greencastle, the 14th-ranked home of DePauw University." From the body of the article, it seems that the headline writer engaged in a bit of wishful thinking, but hey, that's hometown pride for you. (Thanks to University Diaries, one of the few blogs I read daily, for the Star link; for some reason DePauw didn't post the good news that we're only the 14th dullest college town on it's home page.)

The truth is, though, that as small towns go, Greencastle is a terrific place. During the academic year, there are more events at DePauw than any person could ever attend. And in the summer, there's a concert in the park every Tuesday evening, a classical concert in a church every Wednesday evening, and very enjoyable productions at the Putnam County Playhouse. And if you like to walk, there is nowhere better than DePauw's Nature Park, which is open to the public from sunrise to sunset every day.