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Welcome To LykeMinded!

Welcome to LykeMinded, my new GazetteXtra community blog about the city I love so much, Milton. I am honored to be writing the first of what GazetteXtra hopes will be a series of blogs dedicated to communities outside of Janesville.

So of all the Miltonians (Miltonites?) that GazetteXtra could have chosen to write about our fair city, why me?

First of all, writing a column is not new for me. For the past five years, “LykeMinded” has been a regular feature in the Janesville Messenger, which is now part of the Bliss Communications family. If you are one of my regular readers, you already know that my experiences in Milton have been featured several times over the life of the column. You’ve read about everything from Milton College to Milton show choir, from United Ethanol to Smokin’ Joe, from sign ordinances to my locally famous “Sidewalk to Nowhere.” Not that I’m going to rehash myself, but you’ll probably be hearing about many of those topics at some point in this blog, in part because I expect/hope to reach an entirely new set of readers.

I have always described Milton as my hometown, even though I never physically resided within the city limits until 1992. I was born in Edgerton Hospital – which traumatized the hospital so much that they no longer have a maternity ward - and grew up on a farm with a Janesville address and phone number. But my entire school life was spent within the Milton School District and most of my social activities took place in and around the city.

This town has always appealed to me, even though I had George Bailey-like visions of going on to bigger and better things. My initial post-college years were spent in Milwaukee and suburban Chicago, but when my first child was born, I knew that this was the place where I wanted her to grow up. That opinion hasn’t changed, even though I’ll soon be able to legally slap on a holster and walk down the street packing heat (a subject for a future blog).

I truly knew I was back home the first time I went to the Community House to vote. When I walked in, the woman behind the table – a person I did not know – saw me enter and greeted me with, “Ah, Mr. Lyke. You bought Alice Friedel’s house, so that puts you in Ward Two.” After eight years of living anonymously, I was suddenly Norm at Cheers.

Ironically, many people know me not from my affiliation with Milton, but from my past employment at Forward Janesville, the de facto chamber of commerce, where I worked for nearly eight years. It struck some as odd that I continued to live here while I worked on behalf of the business community in Janesville. In fact, at least one Janesville city council member was so concerned by that perceived conflict of interest that I was even falsely accused of “luring” a business from Janesville to Milton. I was actually impressed that he thought I had that kind of pull.

The only reason I continued to live here is that I like where I live, end of story. How strong is my attraction to Milton? Had relocation been a requirement to join Forward Janesville, I’d have turned down the job.

I’m a history buff who lives next to historic college buildings. I run into old classmates regularly. And I’ve watched my kids go to the same schools and have some of the same teachers I had. To some people, that’s stagnation. To me, that’s paradise.

I welcome your suggestions on Milton topics I should write about. I am expected to update this blog once or twice a week, a huge jump from the two to three columns per month I filed with the Messenger. So bring on your ideas! You can post them here in the comments section or e-mail them to me privately by clicking the “contact” link next to my name at the top of the page.

Go Red Hawks!