Five days till we hit the road, and I've been crisscrossing Akron, frantically trying to Get Things Done. Yesterday, as I was heading back from the UPS Store, I noticed something: I'm not going to miss this place a whole hell of a lot.
Sure, I'm going to miss a few people. And I'll miss the hell out of my back yard. I'll miss the occasional Monday night bitch session at Dano's with my pal Bob. But those things, I'd miss anywhere. They're non Akron-specific. And I'm not so sure there's anything specific to this place that I'll yearn for in the weeks, months and years ahead.
It's weird. I've spent 13 years defending this place. I always thought Akron was cooler than advertised, underrated as a city. And now, as I zip around, I realize that there isn't a single place or landmark that really strikes a chord. The only independent music store is on its way out, and while I love the Buckeye Bookshop, there's a hell of a decent used book store in Minneapolis. The new University of Akron campus is amazing, but I never got to use it, so how can I miss that?
So that's it. My Akron experience consists of a dying record store, a shitty bar that you can find on every street in every village in the country and a sweet college campus that I helped pay for but was never really mine. How can you spend your entire adult life in one place and not miss that place when you go? Is that a sad commentary on the city or my life in it?
Maybe this will all change on Monday. Maybe Akron will look better rolling backwards through a rear-view mirror. Or maybe this place really is nothing more than a series of interlocking strip malls paving the way towards Cleveland.
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Your last impressions of Akron are pretty much correct. I think you will enjoy your new home, however. And I'm glad you fucking finally wrote a new blog.
Cheesy sentiment: It's not so much the place as the people. I sometimes miss Toledo, but it's not the actual place as the people who were there.
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