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Part I . . .

If you were to ask me where I was from, I would probably answer you, “Ohio.” But in truth the answer to the question depends upon what it is that you really want to know.

If you are asking where I was born, the answer is Akron, Ohio, in the year 1957. If you want to know where I grew up, the answer is Canton, Ohio; more specifically, Canton Township. If you want to know where I live, the answer is Harrison, Ohio, a little town in the very southwest tip of the state, about 20 miles from the city of Cincinnati and right on the border of Ohio and Indiana.

But if by asking me where I’m “from” you are really asking me “who” I am, then the answer is St. Clairsville, another small town in eastern Ohio. A mere 12 miles west of Wheeling and the West Virginia border, St. Clairsville sits just off Interstate 70 in Belmont County.

St. Clairsville always felt, well, unique. I lived there from the summer of 1964, when I entered the 1^st grade, through the fall of 1966. It was this little-town haven in the midst of coal country. It was small and country, yet big enough and modern enough to feel towny. It was hilly and rural, but also clean, comfortable, friendly and safe. It felt isolated when storms blew through and idyllic when the sun shone.

Although I did not live there long, and the town has grown considerably since I moved away, to me St. Clairsville always felt more like “home” than any place I knew and remembered growing up.

I remember quite a bit about that place and that period in my life. But in the interest of being brief, I’ll summarize with just two observations.

First: I remember starting school, making friends, having fun, and being sick. Yes, being sick. I got sick there, a lot. It actually started my kindergarten year (in Akron) and continued right on through my 1^st and early 2^nd grade years in St. Clairsville. It seemed I had all – and I mean ALL – my childhood diseases and then some.

I missed a lot of school but managed to not be held back. I credit my mother for that. She helped me keep up and encouraged me in ways that I understood only later in life. She read to me, and to my brothers and sisters, constantly. And she taught me to read: flash cards, phonics, and the whole nine yards. She was my first real teacher.

Still, I did miss school. And since I liked school, for me, being sick was not a vacation, it was a pain. I may have been just a kid but I loved St. Clairsville and school. And the funny thing about that was that I was aware enough of my surroundings to understand that I loved both!

It was a great place (and time) to grow up, even if I only grew up there for 2-1/2 years.

My second observation: it was in St. Clairsville that I first became aware of God and felt inspired to take up writing.