To Ohio, With Love -
Part 3

(Source)

As I said before, I've never lived in Ohio but it's always seemed a sort of homeland to me.  My family's history is there.  Whenever I visit, I think I should be able to feel that history, feel the pull of ancestral roots, or some such thing.

I usually don't though.  Don't feel those roots like I think I should.  The Ohio homeland connection is in my mind; not in my gut.  Nevertheless, I still try to picture what it would be like if I were to live there.  Could I live there?  Could I do it?  It would be nice to be closer to family.  It would be sad to be so far from the ocean.

When I flew back to New York on Monday, my plane touched down at LaGuardia and a flight attendant announced over the intercom, "If New York is your home, let us be the first to welcome you home."

Is New York my home?  Right now it is.  But "home" has a connotation of something more permanent, less transient.  I still feel pretty transient; I still change my address every two years or so.

Virginia, though the land of my birth, my childhood, my education, is no longer home. Not really.  I still miss the Shenandoah mountains in the fall, but not enough to seriously consider returning to them.  Boston is home too, in certain ways.  But not in others.

So to sum up: 

Dear AirTran Flight Attendant,

Thanks for the warm welcome, but I don't know if New York is my home. I mean, it is, but it isn't, if you know what I mean.  Do you know what I mean?  What I mean is, what is "home" anyways?  It is a bigger concept than we could possibly unpack while waiting for that guy in Row 3 to get his stuff together and get out of the aisle so the rest of us can disembark the aircraft.  You know?

And so, AirTran Flight Attendant, I'll leave you with that epic quote from the movie "Garden State":

"You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens...You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

Thanks for the gourmet pretzels and ginger ale.

Sincerely,
Seat 21-E

To Ohio, With Love -
Part 2

My uncle wanted to know what my life looks like in New York. "Where do you get your food?  Are there grocery stores there?"

Yup.  They're small and cramped, but they exist.

"How do you get your groceries home?  You carry them six blocks?"

Yup.  I just buy less, more often.  And generally try to avoid purchasing more than 1-2 cans of anything on each trip; it's only six blocks, but canned goods make for a heavy haul.

Then my uncle told me about his first trip to The Big Apple.  He and my aunt came here on their honeymoon back in the early 1960's; he, being a jazz enthusiast, wanted to check out some of New York's famed jazz clubs.

One night, they took a cab down to Birdland on 52nd Street - it looked nothing like what he had expected, but the music was great.  He loves his jazz.  ("Honey," he said to me, "Remind me to tell you about the time your aunt and I saw Frank Sinatra, when he opened the Coliseum up at Richfield."  Knights-Of-Columbus!!, I swooned.)

My aunt and uncle stayed at Birdland for several sets; it was late when they left the club.  They had realized on the cab ride down that their hotel wasn't actually very far away, so they decided to walk back.  They got about a half a block when they heard a weird clanking sound.

It sounded like it was coming from around the corner.  The mysterious clanking was getting closer and closer, and then suddenly appeared before them -

A man, covered head to toe in a full suit of armor.  (Knights-Of-Columbus, indeed!!)

The suit of armor clanked by them without word or explanation.  My aunt and uncle, suitably startled and confused, had a good laugh and decided to take a cab home after all.  This was one strange town.

And it still is.

New York has lost a lot of it's grit in past decades.  But you still never know just what might come clanking around a corner.

To Ohio, With Love -
Part 1

(Source)

I spent the weekend visiting family in Ohio.  My family has been Ohioneers Ohiosters Ohioans for generations and generations, almost since arriving in this country.  Almost, I say, because we apparently started up in Michigan.

"How'd we get from Michigan down to Ohio?" my mom asked my uncle.

"Chased," he said.

Probably.

I've never lived in Ohio myself.  I just grew up thinking of it as the homeland, visiting family there once a year, and always making Buckeyes for Christmas.  Chocolate & peanut butter: it's my heritage.

This weekend there was a community event in the town where my uncle lives.  On Saturday night we all trooped to the downtown traffic circle, and watched as local firetrucks led a parade of floats around and around.

The highschool marching band was there, playing cadences and their fight song.  The highschool cheerleaders were there, too; they were in uniform and crammed on the back of a small flatbed truck like cattle.  There was a more spacious float, carrying the members of the town's city council.  An older gentleman, resembling Santa Claus, drove a make-shift pioneer wagon.

There were floats constructed by local businesses (a beauty salon, a plumber, the A&W).  There was a pipsqueak-sized color guard, twirling orange flags.  PNC Bank passed out tote bags, a couple of churches were there to pass out candy (definitely the highlight of the evening for my little cousins).

After the parade passed us by, we wandered around the rest of the fair and purchased kettle corn and heard a local cover band perform a (semi-decent) rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."  Then it was time for the fire works; we stood - necks craned back - watching them explode in the sky above the white townhall building.

It was sweet and lovely.

I generally think of New York as a city that has it all.  But one thing it doesn't have? 

Small town charms like I soaked up last Saturday night.