Villenke
15 April 2007
  Columbus redux
Some asked what makes Ohio different from Michigan or what is the appeal.

I think that in many ways northern Ohio and the lower part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan are the same. The same values, the same interests, the same economy, the same weather and the same landscapes. The only real division is a little collage football rivalry.

I think that for me it is what makes a place home. Sure my time away has allowed me to see the faults in Ohio but home will always be home. There will always be something that makes me think of what my life was and, in some ways, could/would have been had I stayed.

Columbus is not Cleveland, but it is similar enough in size, people, and culture to feel like home. I am not sure if I would feel the same about Cincinnati. It is further south and has, from the couple of brief time I was there, a different feel.

Imagine growing up in North Muskegon and then moving to Florida. Then for work you have to spend a couple of weeks in Lansing. Sure, not exactly the same, but you get the taste of home. I think that is what it is for me.

It really has nothing to do with Ohio/Michigan. It is all about feeling home.

I know that GR is my home now. It is where I work, where a lot of my friends are, where my family is. But there should be more than one definition of home. This is my adult home. Ohio (Cleveland) is my childhood home. It will always feel that way.
 
Comments:
I grok it, buddy.
 
I know there are times we'd all like to flee to the Cleve.
 
Thanks Bobby G.
 
Yeah, I totally get the almost home thing. Having recently driven up to Michigan from Florida, I could feel it as the landscape slowly changed to be "home." Kind of like an Amberite's journey through shadow, it was a gradual thing that slowly came to be exactly what I was looking for. But it'd be hard for me to say exactly where it seemed like "home." But there were certainly degrees (Ohio was like "midwest home", Michigan was "state home", mid to west Michigan was very "familiar and nature home" and it wasn't until I drove down the Moses J. Jones parkway and past the Veterans park on the causeway that I was really "home." Of course, pulling in my parents' driveway was the capper. I bet certain nomadic tribes have all kinds of names for different homes. By the way, I am very brain-fried and semi-insane right now, as I sit in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my redeye flight home. So I hope the above makes sense.
 
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