"Some Cynical Guy" No. 56: December 16, 2001

Why We Live Where We Live

As I was thumbing through the pages of my World Almanac and Book of Facts a few moments ago, I came across an astonishing statistic: more people live in the town of Columbus, Ohio, than in the entire state of Vermont. I hope you'll think about this alarming situation for a minute or two. It seems inconceivable to me that, given a choice between settling down in the bucolic Green Mountain State or the flat and relatively featureless capital of Ohio, more Americans would willingly choose the latter. 

It's not that I have anything against Columbus, mind you; the town has done an admirable job of sheltering the state legislature and spawning powerhouse Ohio State football teams. It also gave birth to James Thurber, who was just possibly the finest American humorist AND cartoonist of the twentieth century. Of course, Thurber escaped from Columbus as soon as he was able to earn a ticket to Paris. My point is not that Columbus is a worse place to live than any other flat, regionally important American city. I'm sure it's at least the equal of other flat cities like Fort Worth and Des Moines. 

My point is that Vermont is a veritable paradise, a harmonious medley of antique white-clapboard towns and rolling mountains, a place where old-time Yankee horse-sense coexists, somewhat miraculously and inexplicably, with a slightly flaky, spiritually effervescent brand of Baby Boomerism. Burlington, a metropolis of 40,000, is one of the most vibrant small cities in America. The Vermont winter brings with it the best skiing to be had in our republic east of the Rocky Mountains. The local cows have made Ben and Jerry famous, and the resident maples produce not only delectable syrup but eye-popping fall foliage. What more can you ask of a state that occupies just 9,000 square miles in a remote moose-infested corner of New England? Yet more of us still choose to live in Columbus.

I speak so highly of Vermont because my wife Anne and I just spent a week there. We had expected to go cross-country skiing, swooshing through icy-white trails in the hills behind the Trapp Family Lodge. But a freakish end-of-the-world warming spell had foiled our plans. Were we frustrated and resentful that we had just used up a valuable week of vacation while Mother Nature left us in limbo between fall and winter? Did we fret and pace the floors of our cabin, cursing our misfortunes? I regret to inform you that we still loved the place. We had seen Vermont at its most barren, with neither foliage nor snow to conceal the nakedness of the land. And all week long we wondered what we could do to live in such an enchanted realm. It's not that we were dissatisfied with our own shady corner of Philadelphia; it's just that we couldn't get over the beauty and appeal of Vermont.

I've always been prone to acute episodes of vacationer's envy. Maybe you've suffered from it, too. In my bachelor days I'd explore the historic streets and scenic vistas of great old towns like Marblehead, Massachusetts or Charleston, South Carolina, and wonder why I was living in Queens or Allentown. When I visited Nova Scotia in 1975 and drove around the spectacular northern landscapes of Cape Breton Island, I wanted to find an excuse to get stranded there. Same with London, Rome, Switzerland, California, Greece, St. Thomas, Maine, Boston, Seattle, Costa Rica, and (so help me!) even Pittsburgh. 

We search all our lives for a dwelling-place that calls to our thwarted souls, that promises beauty and serenity and infinite amusement like some dreamed-about lover... we find such a place during a brief encounter... then we inevitably return to the mundane habitat that thwarted our souls in the first place. Why is it? Why do we continue to choose Columbus over Vermont, Fresno over France, Trenton over Tahiti? It's unfortunate enough that most of us have to choose just one place out of countless beguiling options. Why do so many of us end up with such charmless choices? After all, our dream destinations aren't necessarily more expensive than home. We're no more likely to contract an exotic fatal disease in Tuscany than we are in Tucson. Wherever we relocate, we can always find a McDonald's, can't we? So why do we stay put?

Family and work give us two convenient (and reasonably convincing) excuses. We don't want to stretch the familial rubber band until it snaps. Most of us like to be near individuals who share our genetic quirks and defects, and there's nothing wrong with that. Moving to Bora Bora would almost guarantee that we won't be seeing Aunt Marge and Uncle Harry every Fourth of July. We probably wouldn't be able to cajole our parents or siblings or kids to ditch the hometown and set out for the Seychelle Islands. If WE have a hard time uprooting ourselves for a move to our favorite place in the world, what are the odds that we'll be able to persuade the entire clan to escape with us? Then we have our indispensable jobs to consider. The advantage of places like Cleveland and Kansas City is that they generally provide more opportunities for sustaining a favorable cash flow than places like, say, Barbados. This is one of the unfortunate facts of life; if Barbados offered as many job opportunities as Cleveland, it would probably LOOK like Cleveland.

But aside from our families and jobs, I think another, more elemental force is keeping us marooned in bland locales. It's the fact that most of us feel most comfortable at home, or in a place that reminds us of home. In the old days before Henry Ford, most of us apples didn't fall far from our respective trees; entire multi-generational family sagas could be read on the tombstones of the old town cemetery. But now that we're free to move anywhere, it seems we still prefer to live in a place that recalls the haunts of our youth. You can take a kid out of the suburbs, but he'll generally find his way back to an asphalt driveway. We might fantasize about the wild-eyed lovers of our waking dreams, but those aren't the ones we marry. We marry the ones who make us feel at home. And we choose homes that make us feel married. 

I hope that explains why more of us live in Columbus, Ohio, than in the entire state of Vermont. Because I can't think of any other reasons that a sane person would consider.

Cynic's Pick of the Week
Let the donor beware! In Sweden, a sperm donor fathered three children for a lesbian couple. When the couple broke up after a ten-year relationship, the man found himself slapped with -- can you believe it? -- CHILD SUPPORT payments! But it gets even better: the court that forced him to pay up won't even let him visit his costly offspring.

© 2001 by Bridget Petrella Media Relations. "Some Cynical Guy" appears here by permission of the publisher. If you'd like this column to appear regularly in  your own site or publication, write to UPBEATmag@aol.com.

Profile of a Cynic...

Bayan, who claims to be a "kinder, gentler cynic," lives with his wife in a 100-year-old former livery stable in Philadelphia. His weekly column, "Some Cynical Guy," is published and syndicated by Upbeat Online.