John Krieger: Heart And Soul Of Indiana Town

CHURUBUSCO, Ind. - Some days, John Krieger is a police officer, arresting bad guys. Some days, he is a fireman or a medic, saving lives.

Some days, he is an insurance agent. Some days, he helps out at the hardware store, or at the barber's, at a restaurant, at the local paper. Some days, he preaches in church.

Always - as his business cards proclaim - he is "Churubusco's All-Round Nice Guy," appreciated not for what he does, but for what he is - a 63-year-old man with Down syndrome, hobbled by weak eyes and aging legs, his words mumbled and hard to understand.

In other places, people might shy away from him, embarrassed by his tics and antics. But this is Churubusco, where Krieger has spent his whole life. In this town of 1,800, he is respected and cherished.

"What's not to like about him? I say when I grow up, I'll be just like him," says barber Norm Decker as he gives Wayne Haire a trim. "No chance of me growing up anytime soon, of course."

"John's all right. He tends to his own business," Haire says.

"But look at how many businesses he's got," Decker replies.

Every day, Krieger reports to work at Norm's, or Diffendarfer's Body Shop, or Shroyer's Variety & Hardware, or any one of a half-dozen other businesses along Churubusco's main street. He helps out, tidies up, and they pay him $5 or $10 each week or just take him out for a soda.

But when you hire Krieger, you give him more than a dust pan and a broom. You provide another platform for his fantasies.

On a recent Tuesday, Krieger is helping with the stock at the hardware store when he bolts for the door. He races next door, into the office of the Churubusco News, and back to the garage.

He speaks excitedly into an imaginary police radio in his hand and then begins, with elaborate pantomime, to make an arrest.

"Take him to jail," Krieger says.

Back in the newspaper office, Managing Editor Viv Rosswurm asks Krieger what's going on. He explains that someone had been shot twice in the heart with a shotgun.

Folks in Churubusco are used to Krieger's police work; for many years, he would ride his bicycle up to the elementary school every day during recess and make an arrest.

In those days, the townspeople used to get together every so often to buy Krieger a new bike and doll it up with lights. This was his squad car, and when he encountered a perpetrator - perhaps someone who made an illegal turn - he would uncork an uncanny imitation of a siren and pull them over.

"We had a lot of startled strangers," Rosswurm says.

Then "traffic got a bit heavier, and his eyes got bad," says Doug Arnold, who works with Krieger at the hardware store. Krieger was knocked off his bike a few times, and an ambulance picked him up. "He wasn't hurt. He liked the excitement, the lights," says insurance agent Chuck Jones.

So a few years ago, they took his bike away. Now, he must do his police work on foot.

When John was born, doctors told his parents to send him to an institution. He might live to see his 14th birthday, but not much more, they said. He would be a burden. They would be better off without him.

Never, his parents said.

"They weren't going to give him up," says his sister, Beverly Davis. "One of your own, you don't send him away."

If he had been born today, Davis says, he might have received more training, and he might have learned how to be self-sufficient. Instead, he came into a world where little was expected of people like him.

When Krieger was 20, he began to walk into town each day. Clarence Raypole, who owned the Standard gas station, took a liking to him and put him to work. Then the owner of the Ford garage, behind the gas station, asked Krieger to help out.

Raypole died some time ago, but over the years, other merchants would take his place. "They just looked after him," Davis says.

Krieger lived with his mother, Hazel, until she died in 1989, and then with his sister Phyllis. When she died two years ago, his nephew, Don Ferguson, took him in.

"If John was put in a home, if he was put to where he couldn't get out to do things, he wouldn't last long," says Phyllis Ferguson, Don's wife.

He has his own room, and it is extraordinarily neat. He makes his own breakfast, and then each weekday morning he walks to John Diffendarfer's body shop, arriving promptly at 9 a.m. He sweeps the floor, puts the tools in their places and takes out the trash.

At 11:15 a.m., when Krieger departs for home, the Rotary Club prepares for its weekly gathering in the St. John Bosco Church basement.

They sit down to ham, macaroni and cheese and Jell-O, and then they open the meeting with songs - "It's a Small World" and "Smile" - and a prayer. Visitors are asked to say a few words, and plans are made for the big auction, to raise money for scholarships.

This is truly small-town America. And Joe Dickson, the club's president, says "the smallness of the community, the town, everybody knowing each other," partly explains why John Krieger is embraced.

But there's more to it than that. Chuck Jones, a former Rotary president, says, "Johnny reaches out to you. There's many times when I've had a bad day, and Johnny comes in at quarter of five and lifts me up."

"He's kind of the town's soul, the town's heart," he says.