One of the biggest changes I’ve come across in my new job and residence is, surprisingly, not the people or size of the city comparitively to Ashland, Ohio. Though there is a certain amount of culture shock involved in moving to a big place like the DC Metro Area, it subsides quickly. What I can’t get used to is the rat race that is the daily commute to and from the city.
Each morning, I venture out in my automobile on a 29-mile journey that takes anywhere between 45 and 90 minutes, depending on what crashes have occurred during the rush hour and what idiots are having trouble merging. Massive amounts of traffic. Everywhere. All the time. The drive is more exhausting than working, and it takes every bit of concentration I’ve got. It becomes sort of an instinctual thing; you learn exactly where the traffic patterns change, what types of drivers will cut you off and who is a fresh enrollee in the Beltway academy of driving.
The Beltway, as many of you know, is the collection of I-*95 (*insert 2,3, or 4 here) roads that makes up the highway circling Washington. Though many Washington “outsiders” (as Sarah Palin likes to say), the Beltway is the de facto boundary between the real America and the “fake” one inside. For those who use the roadways everyday, the Beltway is more like a driving Ring of Fire where the weak are quickly relegated to the right by those with the highly prized person in the passenger side who are eligible for the coveted HOV lane. I’m still not sure what “HOV” stands for, but I’m sure it’s something sweet, since I’m never allowed in it.
When I get stuck in traffic like I did this morning (due to a truck being crashed off the side of the road. No lane blockage, but it caused traffic to creep at 0-5 mph for miles), I like to glance over at the other souls marooned in their small cars that double as human cages. What are they doing? Some are talking on phones, some smoking cigarettes, some are clenching the wheels with white knuckles. On occasion, I see someone I recognize from a previous drive. Alas, stuck in my car, we’ll never meet. It’s a very odd world.
To the guy who broke the toilet seat on my already delayed flight to Alexandria:
I wasn’t particularly angry about the fact that there was a broken toilet seat in the plane. Rather, I was upset that your dumb ass decided not to inform anyone as you deplaned. Your decision left me in some backward town with no car and I made me late for my first appointment of the following morning.
The airline officials say that you made off with half the seat. What? Was that a souvineir of your trip? Did your personal commuter jet not come with the seat? Or at least was missing half?
by request, here’s the last column i wrote for the Times-Gazette.
Waldman: Ashland’s progress impeded by looking back
George Willard is finally escaping Winesburg.
If you’ve read Sherwood Anderson’s famous novel, “Winesburg, Ohio,” you know what I’m talking about. In the last chapter, Willard, the local boy who works at his hometown newspaper, realizes he has to skip town to find a better life.
In a similar fashion, I, Andrew Waldman, longtime Ashland resident, am jumping on a train to better things.
But I hope this isn’t my final chapter with this place. Over my still short life and career working in Ashland, I’ve been dizzied by the amount of things I’ve learned about Ashland as a reporter that I didn’t know as a young, dumb kid.
And much like the heartbreaking stories told by the characters that populate Anderson’s “Winesburg” (actually based upon the city of Clyde, which isn’t far from here), Ashland has its share of disheartening stories to share, many of which still trouble me. During my time at the T-G, I found many secret catacombs in the community I never imagined existed. A few examples:
n There is a homeless problem in Ashland, and it’s neatly tucked away in shadows while we consistently proclaim Ashland is “Someplace Special.”
n More than a thousand jobs had left town over the last decade and local leaders have done little more than shrug or create opportunities for out-of-town retailers to come in and make a quick buck.
n The Ashland City School District has substandard, old, dingy, dark school buildings (reference: Ashland Middle School, which was old 30 years ago), but laypeople in the community advocate saving them even while educational experts stress they be heavily renovated or replaced.
But it’s not all bad, and this isn’t meant to be the most depressing goodbye column ever. I saw a lot of things that give me hope for the future.
I remember labor leader Barb Phillips’ never-ending passion to be a voice for those who work hard but didn’t get the health care or pay they need to survive.
There was Career Center Superintendent Mike McDaniel’s dream of a bioscience tech program that came to fruition after years of work.
And I won’t forget Ashland City Schools board member Bob Hill, who, for whatever reason, decided one day that he’d like to help in schools and ended up devoting most of his retirement to helping students learn to read and be more confident about themselves.
The only problem with these glimmers of hope is the fact that they aren’t going to be around forever, and the young generation is quickly leaving town or falling into apathy as conditions worsen.
We’re losing George Willards by the score each year. That needs to stop.
The solution: We need to teach more of our youngsters entrepreneurial skills and remind them about the importance of listening and learning about the community around them. We need to take action, not talk about “quality initiatives” and “data-driven decision making.” It’s too late to waste time on things like that.
People like to remember what Ashland used to be like: a vibrant downtown, plenty of good paying jobs and things to do. Let’s keep those memories in our mind like postcards, and not reference points of how we want this place to be. Let’s look to the future and imagine a brand-new place, not something we used to know.
That’s the way to make Ashland really special.
