Missing Ashland

Life isn’t fair. When we first moved to Ashland in 2006, I heard a litany of complaint. “There’s nothing to do.” “It’s boring here.” “If we want to eat out, we have to go to Mansfield or Wooster.” “I wish there was a Dunkin’ Doughnuts, Tim Horton’s, Chipotle, etc.”  

It’s a small town (city), for crying out loud. What do you expect? Don’t forget, the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, for as Erma Bombeck used to remind us, it could be growing over the septic system. I was glad for what I saw as the real benefits of Ashland life, such as getting to know our neighbors and eating Hawkins donuts. As I explored our new community, I encountered solid opportunities for enlightenment and entertainment, just not as flashy in appearance as the glitz of the big cities. You just had to look a little harder.

Almost twelve years later, as we began to contemplate a move closer to our kids and grandkids, it seemed as though Ashland was teasing me with its potential for the future. “Please stay. Look at what you’ll be missing.” The long-awaited Uniontown Brewery has finally opened, and some nights, on-street parking in downtown is at a premium. Plans are in the works for Vines Bakery – the scent of fresh scones is tickling my nose from sixty miles away. The new storefronts on Main Street are looking great, and there is music downtown year round, inside and outside – and not from a tinny P.A. system. The Olivesburg General Store received a makeover, with music of its own at its re-opening celebration. The Tin Can Chandelier is doing all kinds of fun projects. And opening soon - Whit’s Frozen Custard. What more could a girl want?

Park Street Brethren Church is hosting a winter seminar series that sounds so interesting – marriage, foster care, spiritual resilience, and how to design your vegetable beds – there might even be hope for my hot mess of a garden this year. The annual Ashland Center for Nonviolence John D. Stratton conference is coming soon (February 24), and an opportunity to have deliberative discussion about the opioid crisis is at the library the same day. I hope that goes better than the deliberative discussions I attempt to have with my favorite two-year-old, the delightful, determined Elizabeth Holiday.

And the symphony – seeing my young friend Jacob Slade on the front page of the T-G, touting the Harry Potter night at Archer Auditorium – what a magical evening. With Phantom on the horizon at Ashland High School, I’ve picked a terrible time to move away from Ashland.

I can’t forget about a different kind of magic happening in Kates Gymnasium. I’m reading about our AU women’s basketball team in the New York Times! I’m glad we can livestream the games, thanks to the terrific job the JDM students do, but there’s nothing like being up close and personal with a thousand of our dearest friends as we rock Kates.

Am I missing you, dear Ashland? You bet. Just like I missed Tonawanda, NY, Dover, NJ, Philadelphia, PA and Cleveland and Canton, OH. Considering it’s taken the Philadelphia Eagles twenty-three more years to win the Super Bowl, I may need to carry the torch for Bills and the Browns a bit longer.

Life as an itinerant Salvation Army officer presented a challenge to us from day one, knowing our family could be uprooted at any time and moved to another location based on the needs of the ministry. But we determined early on that no matter how long (twelve years) or short (fifteen months) our stay would be, we would sink our roots deeply into our community, eating the food, wearing the jerseys, walking the streets and loving the people.

If home is truly where your heart is, I’m privileged to call many places home, because I’ve left a piece of my heart in each one. Ari Berk says it best for me: “We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world.”