Every quarter mile or so, up would come a trailer flanked by a sagging above ground pool and varying shacks and piles of toys. A power wheels jeep about to bound over a hill of mud. Dollar store bulldozers and monster trucks on their sides in rivulets cut by driveway runoff. This is back-of-beyond Ohio, just a few miles from I77. The part of the state lonely and hilly, emblematic of the bore the state lives up to. I only judge those houses flying Stars and Bars confederate flags since irs traitorous and defeated. A purely incendiary symbol in a union state like Ohio. Fuck me so fuck you. Small towns like Duncan Falls or Cumberland boil up this settler feeling in me. Well, I could work at this little convenience store and eat at the Rusty Rooster. During the summers I would go every night to Zanesville or even Canton for a movie. A League basketball game. I would have a po box at the two room post office and would read and scribble by the Muskingum River. I can dig it. But the Stars and Bars? Paint that on the side of your truck and roll it right into the river. You are not a Duke boy.
This is all tucked in and around and the Jesse Owens State Park and the irony is indeed lost. The whole place has spindly trees and sense shrubs reclaimed from coal mining just 40 years ago. They made this place better. As recent as the 90s it was a bigger shit hole.
When I live in Central New York they called this Hollow Country. Every road was soemthing Hollow...Possum Hollow. Quail Hollow. White Hollow, etc. And each was this butt puckering Mr Toad Wild ride down a hill and then back up it twice just to swoop into a zip zag curve lousy with hidden drives. Rusted mailboxes on beat pipe piles that indicated some lonely cabin 100 yards behind the honeysuckle and sycamore.
Save...those were paved. These in Blue Rock OH were not.
Or not completely. They were a weapons grade half ass patch of pavement and gravel that disintegrated into gravel the further you got from the junction with the actual state roads. Thanos snapped his fingers and all he got was Bethlehem Road in God, people live here, Ohio.
These are the places you come to for love. Or never leave. Or, like us, to recreate.
The wife rented a posh cabin in the woods for New Years. Just one night but deep down a self made gully to a honey blonde wood cabin with a hunter green metal roof. A tall A frame with sleek stainless steel appliances. A hot tub and Private pond and hiking trails all out of an Ikea Christmas spread. Everyone loves it and the kids nest for beds. Should we sleep in the loft? Or in the basement bunk beds.
It is the only light for a three mile radius. And it is bright so you are very clear through the floor to ceiling glass window. I find myself constantly side eyeing the glass to see someone walk by. An errant local hired to be a cleaner or person trying to quickly ATV across the private property. Or someone stanf menacingly tapping on the glass. They should be in a mask because that is appropriate. Ghostface. Michael Meyers. Jason. The Strangers. But, why hide your face in rugged isolation? This guy would be brazen and flitting.
It is difficult to enjoy one self perpetually looking to the dark edges of your AirBnB. I am already anxious and juggle a sense of self doubt with a desire to control. But the family had a good time.
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