The World According to Oatney

What have they done to the old home place?

It is amazing to observe changes in the old familiar places that we know over time. My home town of Newark, Ohio is one of those places in small-town America that never quite seems to change completely. Neighbors know each other and people are friendly. There is little crime in Newark, even compared to other towns of similar size. You know you are in a pretty dull town by elitist urbanite standards when the Monday headline in The Advocate, the town newspaper, reads "Burrr...Morning low hits minus four," and that was above the fold! That simplicity is one of the charms of the place.

There are some things that have changed about Newark, though, and I continually notice these disturbances to the local landscape when I make my annual holiday pilgrimage here, as I didn't fail to notice this time. Newark's beautiful downtown, with its courthouse designed by the great American architect Louis Sullivan, and many buildings designed by his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright has a new appendage, although it has now been there several years. The Golden Arches can now be seen attached to a retirement apartment complex. The Longaberger Company has their massive basket headquarters here, including their basket-shaped offices on the eastern outskirts of town. Newark is beginning to spread out so much, though, that it is kind of becoming a sort of Columbus-light..and it is crowding out the small towns and the farms of Licking County. It is slowly becoming more than just the small industrial and agricultural town I grew up in. I hope that as the town changes, it doesn't lose its small-town nature, and become just another city, like so many icy cold urban places in blue America.

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 11:44 PM