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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 5 Originally published in the February 1964 edition of the Lions International newsletter. By MARTHA DUNCAN I live in the contrariest town in America, and love it. So do most of the other 4,365 citizens of Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the offbeat is ordinary, the customary is always challenged, and controversy is the principal amusement. In Yellow Springs, you never know what is going to cause the next civic explosion, but you can be sure you won’t have to wait long to find out, and that the ensuing fracas will be absurdly satisfying to all concerned. Ours is a town where concern is felt about every public issue, where all shades of opinion thrive and where an incredible 90 per- cent of the citizens vote. Our townspeople are vigor- ously opinionated on every subject from garbage collec- tion schedules to ban-the- bomb negotiations, and they never hesitate to let every- body, including the President of the United States and Premier Khrushchev, have the benefit of their advice. Throw out a provocative idea along Main Street and somebody will likely form a picket line to denounce you as a menace; somebody else will call a mass meeting to praise your wisdom, and a third party will write a letter to our weekly newspaper stoutly defend- ing your right to express your ideas, no matter how nutty. Yellow Springs looks about like any other overgrown rural crossroads among the corn- fields. pastures and woodlands of Ohio. Our village fathers never offered a penny’s worth of tax relief or a foot of land to attract new business. One freight train a day passes the empty railroad station, and a bus schedule can be found only by inquiring at the village bakery. But our citizens have originated and developed a profusion of small industries and other businesses turn- ing out almost 20 million dollars worth of products a year. They make synthetic rubber compounds, stained glass windows, ingenious thermostats for TV satellites, bicycle radios, electronic stop- watches, designs for better space suits. Our village manager and five-man council pinch every tax penny and pursue rigidly conservative fiscal policies that give rise to fearful struggles over balancing the budget. Yet, in a manner that would be shockingly socialistic if it were not so profitable to ‘Yellow Springs… where the offbeat is ordinary, the customary is always challenged, and controversy is the principal amusement.’ An unidentified person meditated atop the storied spring that gives the village its name and fame. | PHOTO BY AUDREY HACKETT YS, I LOVE YOU! Continued on page 6