I’ve always been your ardent defender. I buy peanut butter buckeye candy for people out of state and I have a t-shirt with a red outline of you that says “Midwest is Best.” And I really believe it. I’ve lived in other states, and worked in far more thriving metropolises than what Ohio has to offer, but it always felt like testing out furniture in the IKEA showroom—colorful, textured, wonderful—but a little too much so. These places were my Karlstad sofa—comfortable for a while—but I ultimately couldn’t settle in them. They weren’t home, good ol’ heart-aching post-industrial-job-loss Ohio, in need of folks who believed in it.
