Eerie Indiana and Stranger Things

[froodle]

Okay, I’ll admit it—I have a slight obsession with Indiana. I’m pretty sure it began when I was a child, sitting in my boring English home after school or in the holidays, watching Eerie, Indiana on TV. The obsession was nurtured by other TV and movie scenes over the years, as well as my own overactive imagination and, most recently, Stranger Things. Eerie, Indiana taught me, and Stranger Things reinforced, that Indiana is the place in the world where adventures happen. It’s full of forests and lakes, beauty and wilderness that’s always right on your doorstep, no matter what town you live in. It’s ripe for exploring, and filled with supernatural phenomena, just waiting to be discovered by the local children.

Sometimes scary and sometimes dreamlike, Indiana’s forests are always exciting. As a child, the idea of investigating a place like this was enticing, especially as the kids in Eerie seemed to do so without adult supervision. The same is true of the kids in Hawkins. Admittedly, these towns exist perpetually in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, which has something to do with the freedom the kids enjoy, but this only makes them even more alluring. By the time Stranger Things came out, I had already grown to associate Indiana with every scene of beauty set in an American forest, all the magical lakeside places that I saw or dreamed up, and every cabin in the woods, whether it was the kind that led to romance or doom.

I didn’t include Eerie in my list because at this point my memories of the show are too fuzzy. What lingers is mostly just a feeling about its setting and what was possible there. Hawkins, on the other hand, took all my vague dreams about Indiana and reaffirmed them. The setting is gorgeous. Hopper’s house on the lake in the first season. His cabin in the woods, where he hides out with Eleven. The fact that the kids are constantly riding their bikes through forests to get anywhere in the town. The train tracks that Dustin and Steve walk down, bonding over hair products and laying out meat for the Demodog.

The adventures are first class. Gateways to the Upside Down, terrifying monsters, a superpowered girl who escapes from a secret government lab—Hawkins has it all. On top of all that, Hawkins actually has some pretty fun places to hang out. There’s the arcade, the outdoor pool, and the fancy new mall. Okay, the mall may be on top of a secret Russian military base, but I still want to go get a USS Butterscotch from Scoops Ahoy.