In 2014, I had to travel to and from Chicago quite a bit, for work, and on those occasions I tried to squeeze some extra drive time so I could, for the Ohio portion of the trip, go on some back roads and take a few photographs. These photographs, from May 2014, were taken on one trip to Chicago. I did not have much extra time, so once I threw away the discards, there are only a few photographs here from this trip. But if you like western Ohio, these might be worthwhile for you.
Unearthed Ohio is active again, after some time off for questionable behavior. Unlike most blogs, where inactivity for an extended time portends doom, the extended hibernation here was deliberate. Much of my free time this past year was spent working with a designer and a developer to create a new version of my other website, then I had to import and convert the old content, then catch up, and, well, it was a monumental undertaking. I had to put Unearthed Ohio to the side—though I never stopped the actual photography. Now I can catch up a bit. With this blog entry, I present photographs from a trip I took in mid-February 2014, deep in the heart of the Polar Vortex. As I write this intro, however, I seem to be deep in the heart of Polar Vortex 2: Electric Boogaloo. Two very nasty winters in a row. The one advantage that a winter offers is winter landscapes and last year I took the opportunity of a recent snowfall to do some experimentation with snowy photography, which I present to you herewith.
In which our intrepid hero encounters an unusual eyrie…
I saw a UFO once. I use this term in its literal sense—an unidentified flying object—rather than as a synonym for “flying saucer” or “alien spacecraft.” I was probably about 13 or 14 years old at the time. It was very early in the morning—I was outside putting stuff in the car, as my family was getting ready to go on some trip (one of our rare vacation trips, I suppose). The sky was perfectly clear and I just happened to notice an odd little circle hovering high up in the sky. It was extremely tiny and I was kind of surprised I even managed to see it in the first place. I couldn’t figure out what it was, and neither could my family. My father suggested getting his spotting scope, so we brought it outside and looked at the object through it. Even through the spotting scope, we couldn’t really make out any details. We eventually decided it was most likely a weather balloon, which I still think is the most likely explanation.
In which our intrepid hero encounters some bad noose…
This year I “celebrate” my 20th year of studying extremists in the United States, something that began as a completely unplanned and odd little outgrowth of my dissertation (which had nothing to do with extremism or, for that matter, the 20th century). By January 1995, I was spending a lot of time looking at domestic extremists and the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing essentially changed my life forever, causing me to focus on extremism and terrorism, first voluntarily and soon professionally. I’ve done that ever since. But my very first encounter with extremism occurred decades earlier, when I was a child.
In which our intrepid hero encounters various signs of religious inclinations…
It goes without saying that religion is a touchy subject, as many deeply held beliefs can be. My own perspective on religion is slightly unusual. I was raised Catholic in a city with a significant Catholic population. However, I still remember from my childhood being passed anti-Catholic comic books published by Jack Chick and being told by one Baptist that I was going to go to Hell for being a Catholic. I became aware of religious prejudice at an early age. However, religion did not “take” with me. By the time I was an adult I had become an atheist. Yet I always had a great many friends and relatives from a variety of religions whose opinions and perspectives I greatly respected. Later, as I began professionally to get into the arena of studying (and combating) extremism, I became even more familiar both with religious prejudices as well as prejudices against people because of their religion. And for more than a dozen years I have been working for a civil rights organization dedicated to fighting against such prejudices.
In which our intrepid hero is reminded that the world is always changing…
It’s amazing how very different we can feel depending on whether or not we are going somewhere or returning from somewhere. The leaving is filled with expectation—hopefully a happy, excited sort of expectation, but we all know we sometimes leave towards destinations we dread. The return, though, is usually completely different. Sometimes we are simply anxious to get home and it doesn’t even matter what is around us—we have only that one thought in mind: GET HOME. Sometimes we are more relaxed about it and can enjoy the journey, understanding that at its end is the comfort and familiarity of home. I remember once, when I was in high school, returning home in the darkness from some interminable bus ride from somewhere in west Texas. I had a Walkman with me and was playing Simon & Garfunkel’s Concert in Central Park. When the song “Homeward Bound” played, it hit me like a ton of bricks. As I’ve grown older (and am now pretty close to the half century mark), the song has only become more powerful to me and if I ever hear it while I am coming back from a long trip I get quite melancholic.
In which our intrepid hero feels a sense of deja moo…
One of the sad things about driving around and taking photographs is that, even if the photographs turn out well, even if one of the photographs actually (purely by luck) turned out to be quite high quality, the person who sees that picture will still not have experienced the scene the way my eyes did. There are times when I wish I could just invite people into my eyeballs so that they can see a scene in just the way my own eyes perceived it.
Unearthed Ohio 