AS if I needed another reminder of just how quickly time passes, today my first grandchild, Brooke, turns 18. How is that possible?

It seems like only 18 months ago she was an infant, wrapped in a blanket and sleeping against my chest. I barely knew her, yet I adored her instantly.

It wasn’t long before she was toddling around the kitchen, just short enough she could walk under the table without hitting her head.

The first time she called me Papaw ranks right up there with the first time her mother called me Da Da.

Before I knew it she was the adorable 4-year-old flower girl at my wedding. Then she was in kindergarten. Before I could wrap my head around that she was already in middle school, and soon she’ll be graduating from high school and starting college.

No longer do I have to worry about her bumping her head on the dining room table. These days I have to stand on my toes to wrap my arms around her neck for a hug. I must be getting shorter.

Like her mother, Brooke has never given me any reason to be anything other than proud. Not just proud, bust-your-buttons proud. She’s incredibly kind, smart and responsible. She excels in school, is a terrific big sister and is, in my completely unbiased opinion, an amazingly beautiful young woman.

I only wish she lived closer so we could spend more time together and I could get to know her better.

When it comes to grandchildren, there’s no such thing as a favorite. I love all five of them just the same. But Brooke was the first, and that’s special in its own way. It was through Brooke that I learned what it means and how it feels to be a papaw.

And thanks to Brooke I learned yet again that the human heart always has room to love one more person unconditionally. That’s an amazing gift and not to be taken for granted.

As the years go by I find that nothing in this life should be taken for granted. I know how lucky I am to be around to see and know my five incredible grandchildren. Five distinct personalities with at least one thing in common. They all call me Papaw.

It’s a title I cherish and one I take seriously. I hope that when they are my age their memories of me are as special as the memories I have of my own grandparents.

I know I can’t shield them from life’s inevitable ups and downs. But I can be there to celebrate their good times and encourage them through the rough times.

I hope I can impact my grandchildren’s lives in a positive way.

I know they have impacted mine. Brooke, Erin, Elise, Kaylee and Justin have changed the way I look at the world. Instead of worrying so much about myself and my future, I worry about their futures.

In that aspect, being a grandparent is no different from being a parent. We want the best for our children and our grandchildren. We want them to be healthy and happy and to be able to live the life they want to live.

The world has changed a lot since I was Brooke’s age. Not all of these changes have been for the better. And the world will continue to change.

Assuming we don’t destroy it before then, what will the world be like when Justin, now 4, turns 18? And am I, as his papaw, doing all I can to influence the answer to that question?

It’s too late for me to have any impact on the world my beautiful Brooke is about to face. But I’m not too worried. I have a feeling Brooke will take care of that.

Doug Showalter can be reached at 379-5625 or dshowalter@therepublic.com.

In the late 1960s, just as the word “Rust Belt” entered modern vocabulary to describe the Industrial Midwest, Indianapolis devised a bold new strategy for its economic future.

Unigov — short for unified government — was a plan to increase governmental efficiency and halt the erosion of the tax base by merging the city of Indianapolis with the surrounding Marion County.

Conceived by Mayor Richard G. Lugar and other Republican leaders and authorized by the Indiana General Assembly in 1969, Unigov became a national model for dealing with urban blight. In the eyes of many, it saved Indianapolis from the fate of Detroit, Gary and Toledo, among other struggling cities.

It “laid the foundations for the emergence of the modern Indianapolis,” former Mayor William H. Hudnut said in a 2005 interview with the Indiana Magazine of History. “Unigov represented a dramatic and successful initiative to reform governance structures in Indianapolis.”

The factors setting the stage for Unigov were varied and complex.

Prior to Unigov, Marion County was a confusing patchwork of 60 different governing bodies: the county, 23 cities and towns, nine townships, 11 school districts and 16 special purpose units such as the Indianapolis Airport Authority. With so many competing entities, it was a challenge to collaborate on issues facing the entire metropolitan area.

The issues covered the spectrum from poverty to a declining industrial base. Linda B. Weintraut, writing in the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, blamed increased mobility after World War II for the decline of central cities. The development of residential subdivisions, shopping malls and suburban office buildings had all sucked commerce and residents from Downtown Indianapolis, which in turn hurt tax collections.

The passage of Unigov stabilized the city budget, restored its AAA bond rating and led to an outpouring of funds — federal and private — for community and commercial development projects. Some of the most visible were Market Square Arena, home of the Indiana Pacers; a $4.7-million renovation of the City Market; a $46-million Merchants Plaza hotel-office complex and the new American United Life Insurance building.

Attorney Eugene Lausch, who headed the Division of Code Enforcement of the new consolidated government, said efficiency in planning and zoning was an immediate benefit, but there were “soft” advantages, too. “It created a sense on the part of people in suburban areas that we were all in this together,” he recalls.

Unigov was not a complete consolidation nor a perfect remedy. For example, it did not combine fire or police departments (the Marion County Sheriff and Indianapolis Police Departments merged in 2005), and it left intact the cities of Lawrence, Beech Grove, Speedway and Southport. By far the most notable omission was the schools.

The Indianapolis Public Schools Board had preferred a unified school district, but political reality of the time would not allow it. The IPS schools were predominantly black, the township schools mostly white. “To have included schools in Unigov would have raised the specter of racial integration … and would have meant instant death for the plan,” the Rev. Landrum Shields, IPS school board president, acknowledged at the time.

A year after Unigov took effect, U.S. District Judge S. Hugh Dillin ruled that Indianapolis schools were unlawfully segregated; in 1975 he ordered busing of IPS students to the townships, an action that would have been unnecessary in a consolidated school corporation.

The question is often posed: What would Indianapolis look like today had Unigov not been approved?

A 2014 report, “Forty Years after Unigov” by Jeff Wachter, suggests a very different landscape, both figuratively and literally. Most certainly Indianapolis would be a smaller city with a smaller budget and fewer of the amenities that characterize vibrant city life.

Andrea Neal is an adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review. Contact her at aneal@inpolicy.org.