My former co-worker/former friend/now bitter enemy Adam was one of the most admired/most feared people at my company because of his crushing sardonic humor. I figured I would never be on the receiving end of it because I kept him well-supplied with Bit-O-Honey candy and because we have a shared homeland: the lush, rolling hills of Ohio. So when I asked Adam to write a guest post for me–because his brilliant blog has now been dormant for a year–of course he decided to write about Ohio sucking.
I’m not entirely sure why Katie asked me to guest write this blog. Maybe she’s trying to throw me a bone because she feels sorry for me that I have 2% of the number of followers she has on Twitter. I don’t need your charity!
I like Katie’s blog, so I agreed to write a post for her. I don’t want to go into completely uncharted territory my first time, so I decided to write about one of her “favourite” topics: Ohio.
Like Katie, I am from Ohio. Unlike Katie, I am not proud of this. I am from the part of the state that is best known for–depending on your age and your politics–the transvestite from the TV show “MASH”, or Joe the Plumber, or nothing at all. And while I was raised and educated in Ohio, I wasn’t born there, which allows me to honestly answer questions about where I’m from without mentioning the state.
Why my hostility to Ohio? It’s nothing personal. But this blog is normally filled with Ohio-pride, so I feel it’s my responsibility to temper that.
The best I can say about Ohio is that it isn’t that bad. I mean, you never hear of anyone dreaming about moving to Ohio. Today, that is. Tomorrow is another matter.
Two things make up Ohio’s northern border: Michigan and Lake Erie. Michigan is notable for being shaped like a hand. Lake Erie is notable for being one of the five Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are notable for holding over 20% of the fresh water that currently exists on the entire planet.
Lake Erie is the second smallest of the Great Lakes, but it’s still a pretty big lake. At almost 10,000 square miles, it’s bigger than 6 states, including New Jersey. And at one time it was almost as polluted as New Jersey. In 1969, a river that feeds Lake Erie caught fire. That river and others like it had been catching fire sporadically for 100 years by that point. But the 1969 fire was a significant enough embarrassment to virtually every level of government that it served as a catalyst to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Global warming, climate change, tree-hugger chicken-little bullshit… whatever you prefer to call it, if it’s actually happening, access to fresh water may become a source of wealth and power, much like access to energy sources are today. So it’s actually conceivable that people will dream about moving to Ohio in the future.
God, I really hope that day never comes.
