Reprint #1

I wrote this a couple years ago for Devin. I don't remember exactly why, but he needed a sample of writing for a class...or something. It's possible that no one has read this except Devin and I, in fact.

I live in Lima, Ohio. I was born here, lived here though a much of my childhood, then returned after finishing two masters degrees. Lima is a town with body image issues. It thinks it is bigger than it really is. And despite its small-town size—about 40,000 residents—Lima considers itself a city, with all the benefits and drawbacks that implies. I lived for 5 years in Van Wert, Ohio—a truly small town with no aspirations to be a city—and I lived in Toledo for about 9 years, so I know the difference between a city and a small town. Lima is neither.

Lima has all the big city problems--there were riots in Lima in the early 1970’s, infecting the south end of town, spilling over into the high school. Long ago riots, not-quite-remembered, not-quite-forgotten race riots. Those days foreshadowed the Lima I live in now, a town abandoned by the upwardly mobile white middle class. Our collective memories are unfettered from the truth—maybe a cop wasn’t killed, maybe students weren’t stabbed and beaten beyond recognition in the riots—but the fact we chose to tell those stories about our town matters more than the facts we find in the grainy, microfiche Lima News accounts of those troubled times.

As a elementary school kid, just before the riots, my concept of Lima stretched east from Collins Street, where my school district ended, to the Hog Creek bridge beside our church, about 7 blocks west of our house. The north/south axis was about a mile long, too—from High Street to Bellefontaine Ave, which was too busy to cross—it was 3 lanes, after all. I rarely left that segment of Lima; even our grocery store fits neatly at boundaries. Within those confines, I pretty much had free reign. I could hop on my bike and visit friends, or spend my babysitting money at the Dairy Mart on Pepsi, which my mother never bought. My children have never had that much freedom here.

Now, the residents of the outlying county are sure that Lima isn’t safe to drive in after dark, and they are sure the schools are both inferior and dangerous. As I read the Police Log and the obituaries in the Lima News, I shake my head—maybe the people who fled are right; In twenty years of teaching, I’ve had 3 current students die violently, and five more have died in gang-related violence after high school. I have four former students who are in prison for life.or on deth row. Teen mothers and students with probation officers abound at my school; discussions about teething babies and potty training are a regular feature at our lunch tables.

But we also have a convention center that houses the offices for the Lima Symphony Orchestra, and across the street from that is ArtSpace, a gallery and arts facility frequented by the upper-crust, educated residents. We have an accredited county historical museum, a metropark system, both an amateur theatre company and one through the local OSU campus, and several different arts and music festivals each year sponsored by the very active ArtSpace Association. There are artists whose work is shown in New York, musicians who trained at the Cincinnati conservatory, and an Julliard-grad acting teacher who came home to Lima after a bitter divorce.

Of course, my students—over 50% black, 70% free lunch, many with parents who never graduated from high school, few with parents who attended college—those kids don’t see the symphony or take classes at ArtSpace. The line dividing middle-class white and not-middle class is as firmly drawn as it was in New Orleans pre-Katrina.

So why am I here? There’s been an awkward moment at each of my class reunions, a point where someone who’s moved on to Cleveland or Chicago or New York turns to me and asks, “So, where are you these days?” Before I can answer, almost always a nearby eavesdropper turns around and answers for me: “You don’t know? She’s still in Lima—even teaching at Lima Senior. I couldn’t imagine staying….” And heads nod all around me. The best and the brightest leave, almost without exception. None of my close friends from high school settled here, opting for the bright lights and the truly big cities.

I feel the defensiveness catch at the back of my throat, threatening to strangle me, then I swallow. Hard. Sometimes several times. And I remember why I’m here—and brightly laugh back the attitude with a breezy bon mot. “Don’t you want a good education for your kids?” I’ve been scolded by upscale former classmates. “Well,” I shrug, “my son got a perfect 1600 on the SAT—I suspect he couldn’t do better anywhere else.” That usually quiets them down for a few moments so I can escape.

We have the county fair each August, and football games Friday nights all fall, complete with the marching band half-time show. When I go to the store, the cashier is usually a student of mine—and in just a moment, I can drive to the reservoir and take a midnight stroll under the stars. My kids have grown up with cousins, grandparents, and even great-grandma only a few minutes away.

My husband and I planned to settle in Toledo, or Chicago, or somewhere metropolitan, but I was offered a job in Lima—and with a high-maintenance, very fussy baby-turned-toddler who never slept, being near my Mom sounded awfully good to me. When we came, it was for five years, just until my son was in school. No way was I staying in Lima, I said, imagining the life waiting for me in Chicago or Boston. Life intervened, though, and twenty years later, I’m still in Lima.

I can retire from teaching in ten years, the year after my youngest will graduate from high school. I assume she’ll leave Lima—and I plan to, also. At least for a few years. Whether the big city will beckon me then or I’ll retire to a cottage on a lake front, I don’t know—but I see myself having a few years doing something else—being something else—before my knees give out and my hair won’t hold dye any longer. But then, much later, I suspect I’ll be one of the old ladies smiling at the toddlers at my church’s Christmas Eve program as they try to sing “Away in a Manger.” Even though I don’t plan to stay here, I may well end here—it’s home, after all.

There’s a story Limaites tell , one that maybe says more about us than any other. We have a chemical plant, an oil refinery and a tank plant—and we have had those since my dad was young. Ask anyone in Lima, and they’ll tell you this: because of those industries, we’re number 3 on the list of places to bomb if there’s a nuclear war. It used to be the Russians who wanted to get us; now it’s middle eastern terrorists. Everyone I’ve ever met from outside of Lima is baffled, truly astonished by this belief. And everyone I’ve ever met who was born and raised here takes it as an article of faith equal to anything found in the Bible or the Declaration of Independence.

“I was born in a small town”—that John Cougar Mellencamp song resonates with me. Lima doesn’t know it’s a small town though—any town that ranks as the #3 target in the US is way too important to be a small town. And even though the logical part of me knows Russia never even knew Lima existed, and the Taliban isn’t trying to infiltrate the tank plant—there’s a part of me, the forever-10-year old voice whispering at 3 am—that believes that during the depths of the cold war, little boys with names like Vladamir and Leo played war with their 3 inch high plastic red soldiers, aiming their teeny bombs at Lima, chortling, “Ya, ve vill take over the world vonce ve rid ourselves of Lima!” It wouldn’t surprise me one bit, you know. That’s the type of town Lima is.