What's Up Ohio! Ohio Songs

Good grief, we are coming up on the middle of October!  I feel like I’m moving through molasses in trying to get my book together – I’m scattered and its time to rework the list and focus.  Ohio is done (the state history page) except for a few more Ohio videos I’d like to upload to the Aquila’s Orchard blog.  I found some great things for children at the Ohio Statehouse, they have a wonderful website.

Ohioans love their sports teams and like to sing or rap about them. There are a lot of rap or hip hop numbers out there that I can’t or won’t post due to questionable language or content.  However, there is a photo of some coeds mooning the camera that appears in several videos.  Ohioans seem quite taken with it and I’ve given up trying to keep it out altogether. So, if it offends please blink as it goes by. 

My goal was to find the best Ohio videos on YouTube, and one member has gathered several of the best songs making my job easier.  If you are trying to get a feel for Ohio and Ohio fans I’d recommend the first – “What’s Up Ohio” with its tribute to Ohio fans of all kinds, even mooning coeds. The video, as it ends, rolls right into the second which is a parody called “We Live in Ohio” – also worth watching, although there are some inside jokes or comments that may mean little to non-natives.

Party Like a Buckeye, is repetitive rap for diehard OSU football fans and the next two videos are about their rivalry with Michigan. If you keep going down the list you will find Bruce Springsteen’s “Youngstown.”  One of my favorites on the list is “The Low Anthem – To Ohio,” (click on this link!!).  Also on the list is “Banks of the Ohio” a rather depressing folk song that has been done by every artist you can think of from Johnny Cash to Olivia Newton John. Why it is so popular escapes me.

“What’s Up Ohio” was posted by Wellpplrstupid.  The list of Ohio Songs was compiled by Chet Ridenour.  Thanks Chet!  Anyway, I hope you enjoy getting into the Ohio groove.

To pick up the sidebar with the list of songs click here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJoyXn0nwrE&list=PL860191F40F56FC7D

 

Credits:  Chet Ridenour on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/Rooster2318
What's Up Ohio by Wellpplrstupid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJoyXn0nwrE&list=PL860191F40F56FC7D
Snoopy: http://www.centerstagestudio.org/newsletter/snoopy-woodstock-autumn-leaves/

Franklin County, Ohio

It was another perfect 75° day in SoCal.  Checking the weather for Columbus, Ohio I see it was only a little warmer. They have thunder storms and 90 °predicted for the upcoming week – something we definitely do not have; but right now there is only 2° difference in our temp.

Franklin County Government Center

I was looking at Franklin County today. There seems to be something warm and inviting in a place named for Benjamin Franklin. One of my best friends, a friend from high school (long ago), has lived there most of her life and comfortably calls it home. My Dad enjoyed his business trips to Columbus – flying in for meetings at Nationwide Insurance. He regrets not having the time to drive up the road to Knox County to see where his family came from. 

My mother’s mother’s family farmed in and around Reynoldsburg. I see today it is a large suburb of Columbus and that “Bow Wow” is a famous son. That brought a smile.

I liked the story of this capital city, how Zanesville and Chillicothe were just not quite right, so they went to the center and picked a site with great river transportation capability and said, like Brigham Young, “this is the place.”  And then, like Washington D.C., in 1812 they started building a city where there wasn’t one and by 1814 the Ohio Statehouse was completed.  They started fresh.  That is a pleasing story.

I’m still sorting through the family who lived there – the ones who found their way there from other states and died there, and the ones who were born there and wandered westward to Iowa.  Their name was Bingaman. For a time they proudly claimed Franklin County, Columbus, and Reynoldsburg as home. I found Civil War Soldiers.

These Are My Jewels Civil War Monument
Columbus, Ohio

They had lots of kids, several brothers owned farms near each other.  For the children this must have been cousin heaven. There’s something special about cousins. You can feel the bond of kinship.

The people of Columbus are not without humor. I found that there is an ‘official’ weather motto – “if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes it will change!”  Love it.

Photos: Microsoft Clipart www.microsoft.comCivil War Monument, Ohio Statehouse http://www.ohiostatehouse.org
Government Center www.wikipedia.com