I feel "bitter" when I go back to Ohio.

[YOY]

I go back to Ohio to see my folks at least twice every year. It's not the same place I grew up in. I have seen it get worse. I think it would have been great to stay there and work a decent job and raise a family there but there are fewer decent jobs there because of the last 28 years' policies. Every time I go back I get new memories.

I remember industrial parks that didn't seem to have much industry going for them.

I remember a few friends of mine who had potential that are working retail or food service at 30+ years old for less money and little or no health insurance than I can imagine living on.

I remember a "Republican" acquaintance of mine bitching about "liberals" when I was unemployed. He worked for his father. I asked his father for a job back then. He said "no".

I remember the movie theater that I saw late run films in turned into a makeshift born-again church.

I remember backwoods roads that you cannot get an FM signal but you could get Right Wing radio and Jesus 24-7. I always thought that strange...now it seems conspiratorial.

I remember being dragged to a strip club where a girl I went to kindergarten with offered me a lap dance with unfocused glossy eyes.

I remember a guy I knew that collected guns in "preparation." He played with them like a child with toys. I own a gun and I will never understand just what was working his mind or how he could be so careless with a tool that can kill.

I remember guys (and a gal or two) who entered the military because there were few other opportunities abound. I wonder if they are still in it....

I remember guys who had no passport nor any travel experience to Canada, let alone elsewhere in the world, tell me how it was better here than anywhere I had traveled to at a rundown bar.

I remember guys who I did not know at the same rundown bar say loud enough overhearing our conversation that "some people ought to leave America." in angry, scared, and yes: BITTER voices.

I remember a line from an angry African American that a younger and naiver YOY would laugh about as "black victimization": "A Church on every corner and a liquor store on the other, both trying to keep us down." Throw in crystal meth and guns and it's not just "black victimization" any more. Throw in a "personal accountability" mantra of the AM radio and FOX News and you've got my hometown.

When you're gone and come back every time and feel disappointed in returning it tends to make you "bitter." I can only assume that folks in Rural Pennsylvania, Iowa, Nebraska, Mississippi, and everywhere else in the country get the same acerbic taste in their mouths as I do. Hell, I think that taste is even starting to spread to the city.

They are not stupid in those towns. They can see reality too. They know what their parents had. They don't have it. They are bitter. Those who are aware of reality are not afraid to say so. Some are willing to admit it.


I can.

[yellerpup]

1. K&R!

I dig first person reports from the home front. Good job. :kick:

[cliffordu]

2. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS.

:patriot:

[YOY]

10. If it weren't true I wouldn't have.

I thought about it on my ride home yesterday in "still doing pretty damn good" Arlington, VA. When you've got a basis of comparison (or several as in my case.) It becomes painful.

On edit: Holy Sh*t. Never made it to the "Greatest" before.

[Hepburn]

12. I wish I could rec it again.

The contrast between what my small Ohio home town was like back when I was a kid and what it is like now? Night and day.

BTW: I am originally from the Akron-Canton area. Curious as to where the rest of us Ohioans come from! Long time Calif resident now, tho ~~ 45 years.

Great post...! IMO, you speak the truth!

[YOY]

13. I left myself 11 years ago...Brunswick/Medina area

Joined the Peace Corps, Went to Grad School and came back for a nasty short unemployment period between Grad School and now...that was 5 years ago for 1/2 year.

The jobs that I found in Northern Ohio were jokes. Commission only sales, retail, no health insurance...it really broke my heart.

I had to come to DC unemployed. It was an expensive period itself...but I still come back to Ohio for THanksgiving or Christmas. I see old friends and aquiantances...some need to leave.

This song reminds me of it every time I hear it: (Not the video necessarily) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2528880106379651749&q=The+Killers&total=29094&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0&hl=en

[Hepburn]

16. I used to go back a lot....

...but my relatives and friends have either died off or have retired and moved to Florida.

Thanks for the song....! :hi:

[SoCalDem]

3. "...industrial parks..."

code for sweatshop-style strip malls set up for assembly of parts shipped in from somewhere else..

[anonymous171]

4. K&R

And Hillary has the nerve to say that OBAMA is out of touch?

[DaveJ]

5. I'm getting tired of politicians having to pander to the stupid

It's making me sick of politics in general.

I'm clearly not saying that people of a particular region are stupid, but 49% of EVERYONE is dumber than most.

And those people seem to always be the swing voters deciding every election.

I'm getting tired of it, really, it's making me lose my interest in politics.

[DebbieCDC]

6. That is the truth.

I had to quit going back to my Ohio hometown. I couldn't bear to see what the place has become and just how angry and bitter and afraid the people there have become. The once-nice middle class houses like the ones I grew up in now in disrepair because there are no more good middle class jobs. No music or art classes in the schools anymore because the budget can't afford them. I wonder what happened to my childhood friends who stayed, even when those good jobs left them behind. They're probably all working at the area's mega-mall for minimum wage and no benefits.

[blm]

7. This Buckeye born and raised hears you loud and clear.

.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

9. same here. - nt

[HughBeaumont]

8. When you live here, you watch it all deteriorate in front of your eyes.

Local businesses? GONE. Ford plants and all of the secondary businesses that thrived off of it's workers? GONE.

Other than the tawny suburbs of Cleveland, the majority of small-town Ohio looks like a giant dirt mall now. Homes eternally on the market that cannot move. Entire streets with half of the businesses boarded up or abandoned entirely. Buildings that are on their fifth and sixth tennant, each one staying less than the last. Roads in disrepair. Hulking brick factories and old department stores undemolished and surrounded by empty weeded parking lots.

It's just depressing, and the main element to blame is, plain and simple, greed. Nothing is ever enough for the wealthy. They didn't make ENOUGH money, so all of the production and the jobs moved elsewhere, and nothing sustainable or paying a living wage replaced them.

[YOY]

14. Of my 3 siblings and myself only one remains there

He may leave when he comes to his senses that there are greener pastures out there...he may not.

[Hepburn]

11. Native Ohioan...from the Rust Belt.

And, yes, I have seen it, too. When my family relocated to the West Coast in the early 1960s, the little Ohio town I am from was a pretty nice place. Not anymore. It is run down and hurting. The plants are closed, rusted out shells. Men are sitting on porches in the afternoon sipping from "brown bags." The streets are full of pot holes and there are stories regularly in the local paper about the ceiling falling down in some classroom of the HS.

Thank gawd my mother and father decided to move out of there back when it was possible ~~ in the early 1960s. The little town where I grew up as a small child...the white houses with the dark green shutters and the cute white picket fences? All shades of gray now...and a 10 year old car is sitting in the driveway with unmatched tires and rusted our fenders from road salt.

They know the truth...

[jasmine621]

15. And nothing makes one more bitter than to remind one to be bitter.

What happened to "hope."

[livetohike]

18. "remind one to be bitter" ??

You have to return home and visit family.....you can't avoid "bitter".

[YOY]

19. Someone thinks they are being clever with fortune cookie pseudo-logical quips.

Ignore them.

[Hepburn]

20. "Hope" got fucked over by the Clinton's and NAFTA.

Any other questions?

[livetohike]

17. Recommended

Another "from the region" excellent post. Native Pennsylvanian here - have returned now in my retirement, but lived in SC,NY,CA (twice), MN and TX. Every time I came home on vacation it would make me cry to see all the deteriorated neighborhoods while the places I was living in was prospering. I can't even drive through the steel towns my grandparents lived in without crying.

Not much has changed since I first left back in 1978 either.....

[suffragette]

21. Great post and now I have the Pretender's

song, "My City is Gone" running through my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb9dFs0KaXA

[YOY]

22. Rush hijacked that song...disgustingly so.

"Read My Mind" by the Killers is what reminds me of my hometown. Every line draws a mental image for me:

On the corner of main street
Just tryin' to keep it in line
You say you wanna move on and
You say I'm falling behind

Can you read my mind?
Can you read my mind?

I never really gave up on
Breakin' out of this two-star town
I got the green light
I got a little fight
I'm gonna turn this thing around

Can you read my mind?
Can you read my mind?

The good old days, the honest man;
The restless heart, the Promised Land
A subtle kiss that no one sees;
A broken wrist and a big trapeze

Oh well I don't mind, if you don't mind
'Cause I don't shine if you don't shine
Before you go, can you read my mind?

It’s funny how you just break down
Waitin' on some sign
I pull up to the front of your driveway
With magic soakin' my spine

Can you read my mind?
Can you read my mind?

The teenage queen, the loaded gun;
The drop dead dream, the Chosen One
A southern drawl, a world unseen;
A city wall and a trampoline

Oh well I don't mind, if you don't mind
'Cause I don't shine if you don't shine
Before you jump
Tell me what you find when you read my mind

Slippin’ in my faith until I fall
You never returned that call
Woman, open the door, don't let it sting
I wanna breathe that fire again

She said I don't mind, if you don't mind
'Cause I don't shine if you don't shine

Put your back on me
Put your back on me
Put your back on me

The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun
When you read my mind

[suffragette]

35. Rush! Ack!

Still love Chrissie Hynde, though.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. I caught the lie.

"I remember being dragged to a strip club..."

[YOY]

24. When you're not in the mood for it you're not in the mood for it.

I wasn't in the mood for it.

The vibe I got there was not "Daytona Beach: looking at all the horny girls." It was "Sarah needs to pay the rent and the kid she had at 17 needs formula."

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. You don't have to explain yourself to me.

:)

[rucky]

27. Maybe he was in drag?

don't act like you've never tried it.

[YOY]

28. It IS hard to hide a hard-on when you're dressed like Minnie Pearl

[rucky]

26. Sorry, no more strip clubs around here.

They Jeezused 'em all away. You can find the glassy-eyed women at the JFS office.

[YOY]

29. Oh they're still there...

Unless you're talking Southern Ohio...more Jesus there per square cubit.

[bpeale]

30. i was born & raised in Akron, Ohio & i know EXACTLY what you're talking about

bitter? you bet i'm bitter. i don't live there anymore. i live in an even poorer state (new mexico) and i'm still bitter. you bet i'm bitter & i don't mind saying so either.

[Hepburn]

31. Reading this thread...

....it becomes clear to me that those of us how have lived in the small towns in that area are unfortunately all to aware of the truth of what Barack Obama said.

The small town I am from has LOST population and I think that if they were able to do so, there are a hell of a lot more who would leave.

[bpeale]

39. i joined the military to get the hell out of there in 1976

i travelled to far away places with great sounding names (you know the tune), and chose the station i wanted to come back to ... Arlington, VA. i loved it there, but times changed. i got married. i had a kid who was constantly getting into trouble & running away. our answer to that was to move lock stock & 2 smoking barrels to Las Cruces, NM. i mean, where the hell was my kid going to run to from there? there was nowhere to go. that got her attention real quick. we lost 60% of our income by moving, but we gained 100% quality of life. we bought a house that we otherwise would never have been able to afford back in virginia. cost of living there was outstripping our ability to buy a home.

i would NEVER consider moving back to Ohio, but i hate that i feel that way about it. i still have family there (mostly cousins & aunts/uncles). funny thing is, all my siblings left Ohio never to return. 1 in Georgia, 1 in Florida, 1 in New York, 1 in Utah. my youngest sister moved here last year & that's what makes a family. we have fun together. we go out to eat. we went to pick out a dog for her. she will be moving into my house in June sometime. i no longer consider myself an Ohioan ... i'm a NEW MEXICAN. i've been here 17 years. this is my home. the hot, unforgiving desert. and i love it. but i haven't forgotten ohio & how sad and delapidated it looked the last time i saw it.

[FedoraLV]

32. Book recommendation

read _Deer Hunting with Jesus_, a book about the background of the OP's post.

-FedoraLV

[YOY]

33. That's Virginia...but yes it is the same kind of situation

n/t

[kennetha]

34. I don't think you really understood what Barack actually said.

It isn't the claim that folks are bitter that's at all the problem. It isn't the claim that jobs have fled small towns in the midwest that's the problem.

The problem is basically that he accused midwesterners of having "false consciousness." They are unaware of the true sources of they anxiety. Out of a false consciousness they blame "secular humanists" (i.e. they cling to their churches", they turn into proto terrorist "cling to their guns" and they become xenophobic and racists all as a way of "explaining their frustration."

The frustration everybody can recognize as real. But the claim that their attitudes toward others, toward religion, etc. are products of a false consciousness that sort of disguises its true nature from itself. That's what's demeaning and elitist.

It's as if Obama regards the small town working class america in the way a cultural anthropologist in the field regards an "alien" culture.

[YOY]

36. I understood it perfectly.

You apparently do not. Glad you pointed out your Hillaryesque interpretation. Much like her it is 'fail'.

[Hepburn]

37. I guess until you have seen it with your own eyes...

...you just do not understand it.

What got me was seeing people out of work, sitting in the afternoons on the porches of what used to be lovely, well-kept homes...and they are sipping out of bottles covered with brown paper bags. The car in the driveway is rusted and probably not running.

This used to be a place that looked like a picture postcard of small town America. That is what is now alien....not Obama's view on this...but how these small towns have been passed by and left to literally rot.

JMHO

[Berry Cool]

38. Born and raised in rural northeast Ohio, and I can relate.

I'm living in the Cleveland area now, after having been away many years, and things are better for me, but so much has changed that it's sad in many ways. I can relate to the Pretenders' "My City Was Gone."

My old hometown is rural and nothing was ever there for people like me. For the past 20 years, it's staked its future on a nuclear power plant. It had a boom when the plant went operational, but I expect it to go utterly bust from the loss of tax revenues when the plant shuts down, and go back to exactly what it was when I was growing up there...a place with no future, only now worse. At least back in those days you had a future if you wanted to be a farmer or make things in a factory. Now you won't even be able to do that anymore.