In 1996, I arrived in Fort Wayne from “the east coast” (western Massachusetts, truth be told, which is about 160 miles from the ocean) knowing very little about the city, the state or the Midwest.

In the late 1980s, I did live for a while just north of Indiana with an ex-girlfriend (she wasn’t an ex-girlfriend when I lived with her, of course) while she attended grad school at Michigan State.

Despite my proximity to the Hoosier state, I don’t think I had a single thought about Indiana the entire time I resided in Okemos.

During the weekend of my interview for the art and entertainment job at the morning paper about eight years later, I accidentally referred to Indiana as Illinois at least twice. I still cringe when I think about this the way other people cringe about the time they were flirting with someone in Middle School and something flew out of their nose.

Actually, that happened to me too.

Despite confusing a nearby blue state with the red state I was hoping to move to, I got the job anyway.

Flash forward to June 1998. This was less than two years after I had arrived.

Money Magazine came out with its annual “Best Places To Live in America” ranking, and on its art and culture index, Fort Wayne earned only 36 points out of a 100, while Gary scored 72 out of 100.

Gary scored significantly higher than Fort Wayne in almost every category despite having few arts organizations, sports teams, decent restaurants or reasons for anyone to want to live there voluntarily.

I was furious.

I tracked down a couple of editors at the magazine and discovered the truth: Gary got a ludicrous amount of credit, in thumb-on-the-scale fashion, for being so close to Chicago.

This was like William Hung getting credit for having a good singing voice because he is standing next to Elton John.

I took these editors to task for their methodology. I am sure they rolled their eyes at me.

“Let them roll their eyes!” I said aloud, which probably wasn’t even the strangest thing I’d said aloud in the newsroom that week.

I sure was steamed. That article bothered me for a long time afterward.

It bothered me because I had become fiercely protective of Fort Wayne’s arts and culture scene.

For a while there, a lot of potshots were taken at Fort Wayne in national surveys of that type.

In one respect, it was not exactly heartwarming to see evidence of the disrespect with which Fort Wayne was viewed on the east coast (I was referring to “the east coast” as “them” rather than “us” by that point).

On the other, it did seem as if we were stuck in the east coast’s craw, as good a place to be stuck as any.

So why was I angry at Money Magazine? Because Fort Wayne has long had a stupendous arts and entertainment scene, far better than in any city its size across the country (a claim I don’t need to research because I feel it in my bones, bones that are far more reliable than any bones their size across the country).

I was and am regularly blown away by the talent here: Singers as good as singers anywhere, actors as good as actors anywhere, musicians as good as musicians anywhere, visual artists as good as visual artists anywhere, etc.

“If they’re so good, why are they still here?” is a question I used to get a lot back then and what a strange question it is. It’s the sort of question that makes you pity the asker.

All I will say about that is there do seem to be people living in Fort Wayne who would rather hear bad news about Fort Wayne than good news about Fort Wayne. It seems they’d rather be told they live in a failed city than a thriving one. But that can’t be right, can it?

The creatives I have interviewed over the past three decades are not among their number.

Fort Wayne seems to be a great place to pursue your art and not worry as much about how you are going to cover household expenses as artists do in most other places. It may not always be thus, but it is a big reason why many area artists stick around.

And I think it has become easier for creatives in Fort Wayne over the decades to quit their day jobs and pursue their art full-time without having to move away. I seem to meet more visual artists and musicians every year who have been able to do so.

Of course, it’s hard to get rich as a creative in Fort Wayne. But if you are in it to get rich, you might as well just go to law school or see if you can get adopted by a mogul despite being 42.

Most of the Fort Wayne artists I know make art to make art. Doing their best work, making incremental improvements in their technique and following their muse or muses IS the end game. They aren’t waiting to experience joy until one of their vases is purchased by the propmaster for “The White Lotus.”

They are self-actualized (or nearly so), to borrow a term that I may not fully understand from psychologist Abraham Maslow. They know who they are, they know what makes them feel fulfilled and none of their yearnings are estranged from the first two understandings.

They are good people to know.

They are good people to buy art from!

Folks, the prices charged to enjoy local plays, musical performances, dance performances and museums are still absurdly low given the high quality of the product.

As I said previously, it may not always be thus.

You’d be crazy not to get out there and make the most of your great good fortune while it lasts.