Growing up in Maine, I struggled to memorize all the names and capitals of the 50 states.  I used to get especially confused by the Midwest that started west of Pennsylvania.  I called them the “O – I states out in the middle”.  When I moved to Ohio, people regularly thought I was from Canada, even after I told them I was from Maine, so I guess the misunderstandings go both ways!

Well, there are lots of wonderful things I like to tell folks about now that I call Ohio home.  I have found over the past 20 years as an Ohioan many special places out here in the ” middle” of the United States.  If you think of the United States from a medical person’s perspective (ie, when we look at someone their left is on our right)…….then that makes Ohio on the “left side of the middle”.   Do you suppose that is why they call it the Heartland?  But I digress…………

Here are some of my favorite places to take someone when they come here to visit:

• Old Man’s Cave in the Hocking Hills
• Black Hand Gorge
• Flint Ridge
• Amish Country
• Dawes Arboretum
• Kokosing River
• Lake Erie Shores
• Little Miami River
• Cincinnati Reds game
• Put in Bay

Which reminds me of a story.  I was visiting Put in Bay about 16 years ago with a group of folks.  They all decided we should watch the Ohio State Buckeyes football game at a crowded pizza parlor on the main street.  We walked in and one person in my group shouted at the top of his lungs, “O – H!!!!”  The whole place, in unison, responded loudly, “I – O!!!” Turns out that response can be elicited in almost any state in the nation when the Buckeyes are playing, but that was my first exposure – and I will never ever forget how incredibly cool I thought it was.

So you see, Ohio is lovely, and I am really happy living here.  I am headed back to Maine  soon – taking my sweet husband on his fledgling trip to the Maritime Provinces while we are there.   I can’t wait to go back, but I know I am going ‘back to where I came from’.  I no longer say I am ‘going back home’.  It’s all good.

Here is a great example of what Ohioans do to the old tune, “Hang On Sloopy”.  I don’t know much about this particular vision office, but if I ever need Lasik surgery, I think I will go there.  🙂

https://www.stahlvision.com/ohio-state-hang-on-sloopy-remix.htm