Surprising Ohio!

Country road through rolling hills near Wooster, Ohio

Okay, I admit to long-held stereotypical ideas about the Midwest in general, mostly out of ignorance, as I've spent very little time there during my life... and had never before set foot in Ohio itself.   My preconceived notion was that of a relatively flat state with "smokestacks" everywhere, not very "sexy" as far as states go.

I was wrong on most counts.  Well, the smokestacks were still there if you got right into the larger cities/towns, like Canton, for instance, near where we stayed for a week in late October. But the surrounding countryside, in Eastern Ohio at least, was a pleasing mix of rolling hills with farm fields and hardwood forests, quite scenic.

And, no surprise, if you know anything about our shared genealogy hobby, one of the main reasons we decided to spend some time in Ohio was to search for elusive family ancestors.  Elaine uncovered several new names in her family tree; I confirmed final resting places of several of my ancestors... hey that's what we do sometimes, that is tromp through graveyards. Here's an ancient cemetery we found containing some of Elaine's ancestors.

 
Quite by accident, I also discovered that the Pro Football Hall of Fame was "conveniently" located right there in Canton, Ohio near where we were staying.  I'm not a huge Pro Football fan these days, unless you're talking that other "football"; think Portland Timbers, AC Milan (had to throw this in there for my buddy, Frank, who grew up with AC Milan football), FC Barcelona and, on a World Cup level, Cristiano Ronaldo and Team Portugal.  But I am a fan of the past HISTORY of American Pro Football, and, since I had already visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in NY earlier, why not visit this second Pro Shrine? It was very impressive, with touch screen interactive displays in which you could both locate a particular player on the wall of bronze busts and hear history and view game action for most every player.  I glommed on to the University of Oregon guys first thing, most particularly San Diego Charger quarterback great, Dan Fouts, who was in the same UO Class as me. I spent many Saturdays in Autzen, back when it wasn't ALWAYS packed to the gills, AND the Ducks actually wore Green and Yellow colors, thrilling to Danny's exploits. Hey, the Ducks didn't always win back in THAT day, but they were fun to watch nevertheless. 

 Also of interest was Norm Van Brocklin,  the "Dutchman", quarterback with the Rams and later the Eagles (way) back in the day.  When my 86 year old mother-in-law attended the UO as a young coed in the post WWII years, VanBrocklin was star quarterback for our Ducks. There were also three other UO players in the Hall, Mel Renfro, Dave Wilcox, and Gary Zimmerman.

Dan Fouts, UO & SD QB great

The "Dutchman", Norm Van Brocklin

Also quite be accident, we discovered we were quite close to the town of Kent and Kent State University.  I was a freshman on campus at the Univ. of Oregon in the spring of 1970 when news broke of the shootings by Ohio National Guardsman of four Kent State students in May of 1970. Visiting the campus and the Memorial set up there in remembrance of that tragic day was quite a moving experience for me.  And ever since that visit a few weeks ago, I've had the song by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young ("four dead in Ohio") playing in my head occasionally.  And then, somewhat eerily, I actually heard the song being played (and I hadn't heard it in years!) one day in the lobby of the Nashville hotel our daughter was staying in during this past week.  Still hearing that song in my head, as a matter of fact.

 

One fact about Ohio that somewhat surprised me was that it contains the largest population of Amish in the Country, and here I thought Lancaster, Pennsylvania was THE PLACE to find Amish folks, buggies, and farms.  Fact also is, as we motored through the rolling country SW of Canton, we saw more Amish buggies moving along there than we had in Lancaster earlier.  Here's one waiting at a stop light, with a school bus behind it,  very near downtown Wooster.

 

After a week in Canton we moved on to SW Ohio, staying  3 nights in another beautiful and quiet campground called Frontier Family Campground, in Waynesville, Ohio, on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio.

Our home for 3 days in Waynesville

 Near there I had some family history, finding several ancestors buried in nearby cemeteries (like I said earlier, that's what folks do with a genealogy hobby) and generally enjoying our final few days in Ohio.

We set off finally, on my birthday in early November, heading South toward Knoxville, TN.  We'd planned to skirt Cincinnati, but missed the cutoff for the beltline freeway and were soon headed right into the heart of downtown Cincy; which we found not all that bad after all, even hauling a 10,000 lb. monster on our tail.  The Cincy skyline was quite attractive, and the capper for me was passing two sparkling sports stadiums, one for the baseball Reds, the 2nd for football's Bengals, placed within manageable walking distance of each other along the Ohio River; quite a sight, and quite a nice way to end our very nice stay in the great(er than expected) state of Ohio.  And now it was on to Tennessee via Kentucky.