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When does a city become a hometown? You tell me
By Laura Ofobike
Beacon Journal chief editorial writer
Published on Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
When people move around too often, they can have a hard time with some of the simplest questions. Take ''What's your hometown?'' for example.
Natives don't have to stop a split second to give that any thought. Do you notice during election campaigns how many candidates take pains in their fliers to establish their hometown-ness? They tell us where they went to high school and their local university and how they bought a house in the city, neighborhood, street where their parents grew up. Home-grown. And proud of it!
But when does a city become a ''hometown'' if you are not that pedigreed?
I'd say it's a hometown when it matters to you how others see it. It's a hometown when you want others to see it through your eyes. The moment it begins to feel like a personal affront when someone mangles the name of the place where you live, you've gone native. A certain possessiveness kicks in, and you feel honor-bound to correct misconceptions, mispronunciations, misjudgments and so on.
Oh sure, you feel free to find fault all you want with the place, but loyalty wouldn't permit that you let an outsider get away with any mistaken notions.
I can't figure when Akron became ''hometown.'' It took a conversation recently with a chatty college student for me to realize how much this city has grown on me in 20 years.
The chirpy voice at the other end of the phone said she was calling to say how much an alma mater appreciates my contribution and would I be so kind as to renew my pledge to the university for another year.
And oh, by the way, have you been back on campus since you graduated? (No, I haven't, I said). Well, you'll be happy to know . . . .
She hit the high spots: how much enrollment has grown, the new dorms and structures that have replaced the drafty buildings I remembered, the tons of national awards and grants flowing from all the brainwork coming out of my old college.
Your donation is helping to make all that possible, she told me. Would you say your degree has been helpful in your career? she asked. (Can't deny that it has, I said.) She pressed on: Can I put you down for the same amount for next year? (Not yet, let me think that over, I said.)
The young lady was doing a bang-up job softening me up. She was polite. And smooth. She was earning every dime of her work-study grant.
So you live in Akron (rhyming with ''acorn'')? Oh, dear. I've cringed when I've heard national sportscasters, who ought to know better, say that. (Ah-kron, I said.) Oh, she said, and repeated Akron, just like a native. So what is it like? What do you do in Akron?
Those are innocent enough questions, the kind a person would brush past with a one-liner about the day's weather and a brief job description. Just making conversation.
But innocent questions do reverberate long after the moment has passed.
What is it like in Akron? What do we do in Akron?
I confess I have fumbled over the response quite a few times, a hesitance that doesn't inspire credibility on the hometown-hood measure. You would know what you'd say, wouldn't you, if one fine day Michael Feldman, say, threw a dart on the map and called you up to ask about your hometown?
A harmless query has become a stumper: How does one define — characterize — Akron to those for whom the city is only a name on a map? What is distinctively Akron?
It isn't as if one major industry defines the city anymore. We can't go around forever saying we used to be the Rubber Capital of the World. People ask what happened. Or Quaker Oats central, either, though you could still sleep in the silo if you are a University of Akron student.
Yes, we still have LeBron James. But then you'll have to explain that he doesn't actually live here anymore (I suspect Bath Township natives will take exception to any suggestion their city is the same as Akron).
Many cities cultivate a distinctive image with festivals of some sort. It may be running the bulls or pelting one another with tomatoes. Twinsburg has done very well celebrating twins. On that point, I would say Akron has the Soap Box Derby (if it can hang on to it), when boys and girls from across the world gather to race cars they built from kits to discover the fastest and most skillful drivers.
Defining this hometown remains a work in progress. Its identity is not quite forged in my mind. But this I can tell you: I can't let it pass for an ''acron.'' That gets personal.
Ofobike is the Beacon Journal chief editorial writer. She can be reached at 330-996-3513 or by e-mail at lofobike@thebeaconjournal.com
When people move around too often, they can have a hard time with some of the simplest questions. Take ''What's your hometown?'' for example.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Tepplin, DC
Posted 11:50 AM, 11/11/2009
To an outsider, Summit County's Bath Township IS Akron. Only a local resdient would pay undue respect to parochial fiefdoms real or imagined that exist here, which oddly enough is a very subtle aspect of Akron (and NE Ohio) culture. But even more paradoxically, the conceptual and cultural "Akron" does not immediately end at the "City" of Akron's borders.
So, what's the bottom line: LeBron James lives in Akron. And Cleveland. And Northeast Ohio. And Bath Township. But for simplicity's sake, he lives in Akron.
Even Twinsburg is merely a subdivision of the larger, "cultural" Akron and Cleveland. Same goes for Ellet, Cuyahoga Falls, Highland Square, Parma, Cleveland Heights, etc. But they're all Akron and Cleveland.
