There's a certain column that's been making waves round these parts the last couple days. This isn't it. This is the new column I'm writing for one of our local weeklies, called "Local Boy Makes Good." It appears 2 times a month and it's the first time I've done a column since Hijinx Ensue in college. Since, for some reason, they don't put them in the online edition of the paper, I'll reprint them here. I hope the paper doesn't mind. Here's the introductory column that ran under the title "Goin' Back to Goshen":
Hi, my name is Justin and I’m from Goshen. Or, as the kids call it, “Slow-Motion Goshen.” Oh, don’t look so shocked, parents. And you, Chester, don’t look so smug – I’m sure the kids have a derisive rhyming name for your town, too. Perhaps, “Sit-and-Fester Chester.” If the kids don’t have one yet, they can feel free to use that.
The point is that, for youths, Goshen can be pretty boring. If you’re young and you can’t drive, Goshen is like some cruelly engineered trap to keep you indoors doing homework. I spent most of my childhood (which ended in 1998, or 1993 if you believe my Rabbi) plotting the day I would escape and move onto bigger and better places…maybe someplace with a thriving artistic scene…or a supermarket.
So why am I 24 years old and living in Goshen? Why do I actually own the very same house I used to dream of escaping as a boy?
No, seriously, why? If someone can answer that for me I’d really appreciate it.
Actually, at one point, I did escape. I left Goshen and went to college in the big city. Well, a big city. Okay, Boston. The important thing is that I experienced the fast-paced life I had dreamed of. Arts! Culture! More than four restaurants! An unreliable mass transit system!
And yet, somehow, on my visits home on holidays and during the summer, I came to appreciate country living. There’s peace and quiet, beautiful scenery, and it doesn’t cost $10 to go to a movie. Can you believe that—$10! And in cities, only the first show counts as a matinee on weekends. Yes, Orange County is a beautiful place where every show before 6 P.M. is a matinee. No wonder all those city people keep moving up here and driving up the price of hous—I mean…making our town more wonderful!
Did me moving back have something to do with the fact that both my wife and I grew up here and our families lived here? Perhaps. Did it have something to do with the fact that my mom was able to sell us her house in Goshen and that’s the only way we could ever, ever afford owning a home in a million years? Maybe. Stop asking questions.
The main thing is that I’m a Goshenite now. I pay taxes. I get The Chronicle mailed to my home. I buy groceries in Chester. And I know that some day, when I have little Goshenites of my own, I’ll be able to sit them down and say those magic words that I heard so often as a child: “No, I can’t drive you to the mall right now. Go play outside! What do you mean there’s nothing to do? Why don’t you go downtown and…uh…well…you’ll appreciate this place when you’re older!”
And here's the second column which ran last Friday under the title "Hot Dog! It's V-Day". Bear in mind while reading it - the subject has been ALL the letters columns of the local weeklies have been talking about for over a month.
There’s an issue that I feel needs addressing in this column. It’s something that has captured the imagination of everyone within a 10-mile radius of Middletown, including my fellow Goshenites and our sister townspeople, the Chestericans.
I can feel the public practically begging me to address this very hot topic. I’m speaking, of course, about the fact that the Home Depot hot dog guy was recently forced out of his spot in front of the store. Unfortunately, it’s also only a few days before Valentine’s Day, so I know this is my chance to write something deep and meaningful about love. Thankfully I’ve figured out a way to combine both topics in a column that could only be called:
LOVE IS LIKE A HOTDOG GUY WHO GETS KICKED OUT BY THE HOME DEPOT
Imagine you’re a big-box home improvement store. Your color scheme involves a lot of orange, and you sell hammers and pipes and what-have-you for reasonable prices. One day you meet a hotdog guy, and things just click. He can stand outside your door and peddle his wares; you get something that sets you apart from the other big-box home improvement store a few hundred yards away. In other words, you complete each other.
At first, things are great. In the honeymoon period you wonder how you ever got on without a hotdog guy outside your front door, and the hotdog guy’s business has never been better. You come to almost take the hotdog guy for granted, and he you. The two of you sit at home nights, figuring out what your sales flyer is going to be or preparing the next day’s sauerkraut, and sometimes you can go hours without talking.
And then, suddenly, you start to lose interest in the hotdog guy. You start thinking to yourself, “You know, that would be a great place to put some snow-blowers.”
Well, friends, I’m here to say to you, “Let the hotdog guy stay.” Sure, snow-blowers are new and pretty, but you and the hotdog guy have something special going on. Something unique to the two of you, and you should nurture and cherish that.
My wife Brooke and I have been married for less than two years, but we just celebrated our ten-year anniversary of “going out”, which is a term worthy of quotation marks when you’re in high school and don’t actually go out anywhere, as was the case with us. And every day, I thank my lucky stars that she loves me and continues to love me, because I know that there’s no way my life would be anywhere near as wonderful if she wasn’t in it.
So this Valentine’s Day, I would urge you to metaphorically cherish your hotdog guy. And if you’ve got a real hotdog guy, you can literally cherish him as well. Because, sure, you can have a big-box home improvement store without a hotdog guy, but can I buy my wonderful wife a knish when we have to go buy paint for the house? The answer, I’m sad to say, is “Not without going to a deli.”
Wait…what was this supposed to be about again?
What do you guys think?
Solid columns. I was sadly unaware of the hot dog man's plight, and would surely have thrown my weight around in his favor had this matter been brought to my attention earlier.
I've always liked your stuff (the occasional hijinx I read, and other random snippets), because it's basically, at the core, just about stuff that happens to people as they grow up and go through life, and it's written in what is authentically your voice. You're not really going too far out of your way to be funny or relevant to any particular cause. I give the articles scores of 42.7 and 63.9, respectively.
Posted by: jankowski on February 15, 2005 12:54 PMI give it an 8.
I would have said 9, but having not been invited to your b-day party at the Hall of Fame, I decided to subtract 1 point. I think that we are now officially even.
Posted by: dowdell on February 15, 2005 1:55 PMThank you guys. I appreciate your comments. Matt, you're right - I write as myself, trying to be entertaining, but I try not to throw my back out getting to a joke. And Dowdell - are you sure you weren't at the party? I've got a videotape I can review. I know I got some StarCom toys. Those were the shit.
Posted by: Justin on February 15, 2005 2:26 PMYou know you may be right. I'm actually not too sure myself. I do remember your Bar Mitzvah though, and that was a great time (even though it wasn't at the Historic Track).
Question: was there something that was put in the food at Bar Mitzvah's that made me want to suck down helium balloons?
I'll move you back up to a 9.
Posted by: dowdell on February 15, 2005 2:57 PMThere was an awful lot of helium sucking going on at that Bar Mitzvah. I've got a video of that, too. So if any of you ever get too big for your britches, just remember - I've got video tape of all of you at 13.
Posted by: Justin on February 15, 2005 3:45 PM
I love your topics. Your writing is not bad.
Do you want coaching or do you want a stroke? Do you have an editor over there or do they just print whatever you submit?
A stroke, please!
Actually, if you have constructive criticism I'd love to hear it. Email me at the bigwhoop! Whoop!
Posted by: Justin on February 16, 2005 9:39 AMI don't know what she's talking about. I thought they were great. Even if there is something which isn't technically perfect, I say run with it anyway. It's called "style". I liked it, I need to bump myself down another slot on my "best writers of bigwhoop" totem pole. It was easier when you posted once every 6 weeks.
I think I'm down to about 6th now. Geez.
Posted by: E1st on February 16, 2005 10:13 PMYou are absolutely right.
Posted by: Middletown real estate on August 28, 2005 1:14 PM