Odon, IN - A Small Town in Rural Indiana

I spent 10 years of my pre-teen and teenage years living in a small town known as Odon, IN. At the time, there were few people living in the town. Even according to the 2010 census, there are only 1,354 people living in the small town. The town is so small that it shares a school district with two other surrounding towns - Elnora and Plainville.

People in small towns are usually known as being super friendly, but the people in Odon weren't really. People pretty much kept to themselves, which I suppose was a good thing, but I never got the friendly small town vibe there. But then again, I could have a biased opinion because my family was far below the poverty line, and we all know that poor people aren't treated too well. This was something I didn't realize back then.

Here's a little story for those bored of my ranting and need a break - I'll continue in just a bit, but I thought some of you might find this interesting.

This story is from 1941 and took place near Odon, IN and is a strange, unsolved mystery. According to reports, a man named William Hackler left the house with his family one morning and went toward his barn. On the way, he got a sniff of smoke, so he quickly went back to his house. When he went back to his house, he found a fire started up in his bedroom wall. Oddly enough, there was no electricity in the house, so how did the fire start? The fire station was alerted and put out the fire.

The truck left and everything was thought to be over, but oh no! Another fire broke out. This fire started around the mattress in the guest room. This was just the start of many other fires. Overall, a total of 28 fires were extinguished in Hackler's house that day. Many people witnessed the said fires. One of the fires was said to have started between the pages of a book!

Hackler tore down the house and built a new one. Nothing like that ever happened again in the town. Weird, huh?

Short answer: A whole lot of nothing.

Back in the day, the pre-teens and a few teens would gather at a place called "The Barn." This was a little place where kids could come and watch television, play games and just hang out. There really was no purpose to it and it was just as boring as staying at home, but whatever, it's what we did. It was ran by a Christian group, so, you know, a whole lot of nothing happened there.

There is also the Odon Pharmacy, where you can get your meds or buy overpriced crap, like candles that smell like butt. Okay, joking aside, the stuff there really is overpriced, because in a town of 1300 people, there's not a lot of competition, not even a Wal-Mart.

No, not really, but unless you just want to eat breadsticks and gas station pizza, you could stop by the Odon Essen Haus, which is an amish restaurant with some bland mid-west food. Fun fact: people in the midwest eat horrible food. I didn't know this until I moved to Texas.

This is an example of a lunch special they have:

• BBQ Chicken
• Roast Beef
• Fried Fish
• Whipped Potatoes
• Gravy
• Corn
• Green Beans
• Dressing
• Noodles
• Cooked Cabbage
• Blueberry Cobbler

Boring, but it's food.

If Papa Paul's still exists, you should go there, because they had some really good stuffed breadsticks. Granted, that was over 10 years ago, so who knows if they still serve those.