Here’s What Ohio Looks Like These Days

More scenes of the carnage here, courtesy of Erin O’Brien.

A couple of years ago, I did a bike tour through Ohio with my sister and brother. It was called GOBA, the Great Ohio Bike Adventure, and it’s a great ride. We rode through a lot of small towns in the southwestern part of the state — Xenia, Hillsboro, Circleville — and in every town there was the same sense of eerie stillness, as though the entire downtown had simply picked up and bolted. Down the length of Main, boarded up shops lined both sides of the street, and the only businesses left downtown were a pizza shop or two, a couple of bars, a VFW, maybe a hair stylist or a second hand store. Meanwhile, the drug store stood empty, the hardware store was empty, the shoe store and the grocery were long gone, along with the ghost of whatever independent department store had once supplied the townspeople with appliances and winter coats. It was like the setting for a horror movie. Then you’d ride out of town and just outside the town limits you’d come upon the strip mall with its inevitable Wal-Mart, its Best Buy, its CVS, its wretched chain restaurants (Bob Evans, Applebees), all surrounded by endless black parking lots.

When the hell did this entire country turn into Pottersville?