Tag Archives: writing

Who ARE these people?

Coming out of mountainous West Virginia into the rolling hills of Ohio I started feeling that something was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

So I shrugged it off and kept driving but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling I was missing something. When I got to Paint Creek State Park where I was planning to camp for the night, I was talking to the woman in the camp store about the weather and she told me a cold front was coming through and that night’s temperature was forecast to be about 40 degrees which is waaaaay too cold for me, so she gave me some possible motel locations to try instead.

Which is a shame because I really wanted to camp and Paint Creek is a beautiful campground. I mean, absolutely pristine looking. And as I drove away that nagging feeling that had been tugging at me came back stronger than ever.

Anyway.

I ended up at the Bluebird Inn which was a very adequate motel room for the night. Everything was clean, everything smelled good, and everything worked. Yeah, it was a little dated, and yeah some of the furniture was a little scarred, but it had everything I needed, leaving nothing I wanted.

The next morning I stopped for gas and coffee in Hillsboro, which is one of those old little towns that have held onto their charm. It was while I was watching our life savings being poured into my tank that I realized what that nagging little something was.

There was no trash anywhere in sight. Nada. Zip. Zero. Point. Zero. I looked around me. Nothing. You could probably eat lunch on the ground of the gas station. And so, after that I became a man obsessed. As I drove, I looked for trash along the side of the road, certain I would find some.

And it was then that I realized the other part of my nagging something. All of the lawns, all of the grass, everything single little bit of it is perfectly mowed. I mean golf course perfect. All of it. Everywhere I looked.

It was a little unervering.

As I came into Cincinnati, because it’s a city, I was sure I’d find roadside trash and uncut something or other and I think I might have. About two miles out, up on an embankment, I think I saw something small and white.

But that was it. I drove through Cincinnati, which by the way, I think gets a bad rap. I liked the look, the feel, of Cincinnati. I only wish I’d been driving through late enough in the day to get some Skyline Chili.

West of the city I continued by vigil and continued to come up empty and as I crossed over into Indiana I thought-

Who ARE these people?