Home Alone: A Neighbor's Thoughts on Pete Buttigieg

Home Alone: A Neighbor's Thoughts on Pete Buttigieg

Reading The Shortest Way Home, I found myself searching for literary models that might have influenced the author, who is also mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where I happen to live. The connections between me and the mayor of South Bend are actually closer than just living in the same city at the same time. The author grew up three houses down from where I have lived for the past 40 years and spent his entire life up to his 18th year in close proximity to me and, more importantly, to my five children. He is ten years younger than my oldest child, with whom he shares a remarkably similar educational trajectory. Both he and my son attended St. Joseph’s High School, roughly half a mile north of where we live. Both trod the same path to high school every day. Both ended up first in their respective classes, becoming valedictorians, which entitled them to speak at their respective graduations. And both then went on to attend Harvard University.  

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