A lot of my worldview was inherited from my father. He grew up deep in the Wisconsin backwoods, graduated high school with honors, and moved to Lafayette to work his way through Purdue by tending bar at Devon Plaza.

He described the stark contrast between spending the days at the university, surrounded by privileged children, born with a silver spoon, having life handed to them on a platter; and spending the nights serving grizzled men who earned their beer with blisters and sweat, and told stories of combat and perseverance.

He developed a disdain for the pampered and a reverence for the calloused, and passed that perspective along to me. That prejudice has softened as I’ve aged by encountering highly educated people with stalwart character. It’s no nobler for a commoner to resent someone merely because they were born advantaged, than it is for a rich snob to harbor contempt for those born low.

Yet there’s a subtle air of superiority that lingers west of the Wabash that the lowly to the east perceive unmistakably. That’s why there’s a quiet sense of satisfaction to me that when Purdue decided to erect a monument that embodied the spirit of greatness, it was a bronze man at the anvil, sleeves rolled-up, sweat rolling down, hammer in hand.

Mike VanOuse
Lafayette