Chip Shots: This Must Be The Place

You’ve heard “this must be the place” in movie scenes, and a 1983 talking Heads album has a very upbeat tune on it named, This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody), as well.

The song has a tone that goes back and forth among settling, content, and the feeling of finally finding your spot in life, love, and daily comfort.

The song came to mind Friday morning while my wife and I shared a commute because I was working in Bristol, 15 minutes from her middle school.

I fly my Ohio flags high (in spirit) on numerous Saturdays and in face-to-face encounters. I’m an Ohio State football fan, a Cleveland sports fan (except for the fake Browns who are cursed), and quick to correct you if you call me a Midwesterner because Northeast Ohio was not and still IS not the Midwest.

I mentioned to Shawna - who roots for Ohio State, Nebraska, and the Indiana Hoosiers (where she earned some grad-school sheepskins) – that I set the recoding on our cable TV options for all Indiana University football games hereafter during our commute.

I said, “My Uncle Hal is rattling his urn in the mausoleum.”

She was quick to reply, “Break down the years you served in the Air Force, and the years you’ve lived here, and I bet you’ve lived in Indiana longer than you lived in Ohio.”

She was correct. I’m 61 years old, and after I enlisted in the Air Force at age 20, I only lived in Ohio for five additional years.

Things have changed a lot in Ohio, and although I romanticize about daily life there, I would never go back unless my annual household income exceeded $350,000. This is how much “combat pay” I would need to live, even in a city like Cleveland with abundant sports, theatre, and great high school football/basketball because the state has become wacky in recent years.

My household income is quite a bit less than the aforementioned figure, but my dollar stretches farther here, and although I like to lean on my Cleveland/Chippewa Lake/Northeast Ohio disposition now and then when the circumstances warrant so, I guess I’m more of a Hoosier just from 29 years and three months in residency here.

I recently saw a snip of this week’s Ohio high school football playoff pairings by region, something I kept close tabs on until I had children, and aside from looking for familiar powerhouse programs, I was pretty indifferent in absorbing all the surviving combatants.

Next thing you know, I’m looking up John Harrell’s web page and its postseason gridiron pairings, and basketball schedules and scores, too.

I like the late sunsets here.

I maintain interest in football, soccer, basketball, wrestling, and volleyball tournament runs.

I have two adult children each born in Goshen Hospital.

My sister, whom I met for dinner last night with her husband in tow (whom I’ve known since 1974 – he’s another transplanted Buckeye), thrives here.

I enjoy watching the Pacers, the Fever, an occasional Colts game, and the NAIA teams whose games and matches I enjoy announcing.

I really enjoy watching Indiana’s top receivers, along with my favorite Buckeyes receiving tandem, eviscerate the league this season.

I even have a handful of IU logo shirts and pullovers handy for wearing while announcing.

I want to retire here. The only place that would lure me away from here would be Palm Springs, but I won’t have that kind of money when I retire.

I can watch any Big Ten team I want on the B1G Network, and if I were ever offered tickets to watch Notre Dame, I’d gladly accept them for the experience. I still recall 1996 when the Buckeyes visited the Irish here, and recalling how polite but energetic the Notre Dame fans were around me while I was donned in scarlet and gray apparel.

For some, because I was not born here, did not graduate from the local schools, and do not work in the Lake City in my vocational capacity - like I do in avocations like this column, and announcing – I’ll never be a true local to them.

It’s alright with me. I’m grateful to be in a small town that some could call the Carmel in the Cornfield.

There aren’t many small Midwestern towns like Warsaw and Winona Lake with dining and some entertainment that has city quality, but the ease and relaxed pace of a small Midwest town that loves its sports. In fact, Warsaw has some doggone good teams among its varied sports programs.

I started my stay here in Goshen for two years beginning August 1996, on my 32^nd birthday, in fact. I lived in Milford for almost six years before setting roots in the Lake City just about the time my oldest child reached school age.

These days, I’m probably more Midwestern than I usually admit, but it’s for the better for me and for anyone putting up with me on a regular basis.

I’ve enjoyed 21 years living in the Lake City even though I’ve only worked in town 7 ½ of those years.

I have no Powerball windfall strategies, nor an inclination to live anywhere else except for a pricy desert town I won’t be able to afford in retirement.

I’m here in Warsaw for a long while. This must be the place.