Rat in a cage...

Rat in a cage


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E96PQuIl_cQ
Bullet With Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins



Here I am in my hometown: Harrison, Ohio population 8,917. Can't miss it. Drive southwest on I-74 about half an hour from Cincinnati and you'll get there... not far from where Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky meet. In fact, it's suburb, "West Harrison" is actually in Indiana. So, it's "great" to be home. It brings stability and continuity. Nothing has changed here in at least 20 years: well, almost nothing. The Kroger supermarket has expanded and is now a superstore... but Otherwise, the same old bowling alley, putt putt golf, Dairy Queen, McDonald's, Downtown historical area, view of the treacherous Great Miami river, the daily record newspaper and last but not least, our award winning high school.. Go wildcats! The green and the white will win over all! Oh, this is the place where the past meets the present; the place where you can raise your kids knowing they'll pick up the right All-American values.


Harrison was named for its most illustrious son, William Henry Harrison, our president of the United States of America. One of the area's tourist attractions is still visiting his tomb. You can climb all the way to the top of his grave, now in superb disrepair, and see clearly the beautiful northbend of the Ohio River where Kentucky juts up into Ohio. Poor William Henry suffered a terrible fate. Just 32 days after taking office he died of a real bad chest cold. Rumor has it he didn't dress warm enough for his Inauguration and didn't carry an umbrella despite the pouring rain. That sealed his fate, and Harrison's 32 days of fame. Yes, take that Andy Warhol, in our neck of the woods it's 32 days, not 15 minutes. Alas, Harrison has never been the same.

W.H. Harrison 1773-1841

Harrison is also unique in its great mixture of people. You've got English, Irish, German, a few Poles and a couple of Italians and maybe even a Greek too. That's about it. It's also hard to find anyone who isn't Catholic. We got a nice church, St. John the Baptist, that has a chicken dinner/gambling festival every August. The Irish brought in lots of little whiskey joints like the Mecca Cafe and the Dew Drop Inn. You can really have a good time there on Saturdy night. FYI: In our town, cafes don't serve coffee, and Inns have no beds. The Germans brought that hankering for brats, wieners, hotdogs and hamburgers all over town. The Poles, the pickles and pumpkins, and Beppo, our Italian, has an absolutely wonderful little pizzeria outside town, making a wicked extra pepperoni, extra cheese pizza. Dio christi!

As I go about town I see the same faces from those legendary dynasties of families that have always lived in town: the Stengals, the Rogers, the Dennisons, the Pruits, their offspring and their offspring's offspring. Now I understand the concept of reproduction. Literally, you reproduce yourself in all of your glory. The captain of the football team and homecoming queen's children, well you know what they are? Now they have become park ranger and PTA mom like their parents were. The bad boys who smoked dope under the bleachers beget other bad boys who knock up the daughters of the girls who were teen parents twenty years ago. I guess we could loosely divide the people into two groups: 1) the white trash, those that rhyme well with whale, pack with park, are more fans of Johnny Walker than Jesus, and do real bad things sometimes; 2) the good folks who send their children to Sunday school, have day jobs with titles, make meatloaf casserole, say Oh my gawd and who'd have thunk it all the time, and turn up their noses at the people they consider white trash... but in reality, we've all got the white so we all got the trash. A visit to that super Kroger's reveals wonders, "honey, say thank you to that nice lady". "I'm a gonna whop you but yin li'l bastard" "mommy I'm hungry" "Debra, did you hear about what happened down by the river last night" "Hey, Paul, how's it goin' bud?" My head starts spinning right round right round and I feel the urge to upchuck. Is it the discomfort of being different, of not being different, of certain uncertainty, of uncertain certainty, of returning back to point 0, the bittersweet passage of time. "Mr. T, well, I do declare, they say you went far away, they's right when they said you was most likely to get the hell out of here, you back?, gotta wife, some kids? How your parents doin'?"

Well, that's the only change. My mother shakes and spins, sleeps without wanting to wake up, cries, and spits... I guess that happens after 80 years of monotony, running around silly like a rat in a cage, having too much meatloaf, fitting in that diverse mixture of people. She comes to. Tell me what's going on in town? Well, mom. They opened the new Kroger's. Who's _____ the manager? _______ I think. Well, that boy will make something out of himself yet. I remember when he was just pushing around buggies. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry too, mom.

Dad comes in. You. I wanna go home. I know you do. I want my car. I know you do. I wanna drive with your mom down to the river. I know you do. I want my money. I know you do. I wanna get out of here. I know you do. I don't deserve to end up like this. I know you don't. I'm sorry, dad. I'm angry, going from one room to the other and looking at those four walls.

Rontay