A Tribute to the Springs
The Yellow SpringYou wouldn't know to look at me, but I am a foreigner from another land. I arrived on the East Coast from the Midwest 42 years ago. And, yes, I have assimilated well into life in the East. But, like all emigres, my heart lies back in the mother country - in the farmland of Ohio. Not the Ohio of industrial centers and tire towns, but the oasis of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Yellow Springs, the home of Antioch College, lies in southern Ohio surrounded by corn fields and pig farms, but it maintains the philosophy of Berkeley, Manhattan, San Francisco, Eugene, OR, Santa Cruz, CA all rolled into one very small town. There is no other place like it!
Antioch's philosophy of equality for all men and women regardless of race, experience is a great education, learn from travel and work, etc. was fed to us "townies" with our mothers' milk. All my friends from back home share a sensibility towards the world and its people that you don't find most places. We grew up with a black police chief (who's daughter was in our class at school), who ate lunch everyday with the town manager (who was white and whose son was in my sister's class) and the county sheriff would drop by (black) and the newspaper editor (white) and the high school principal (black) would wave while driving the school superintendent (white) to a meeting. Get it? And this was the '60's!!!.. I've never met anyone who grew up the way we did! And that's why we dream of moving home. It's too difficult to live in this highly competitive, racially charged world. Especially when you weren't brought up that way.
Everyone who grew up in Yellow Springs thinks about retuning home. We have our own Facebook site - Ex-Pats of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Even Dave Chappelle, the famous comedian, came home. Dave spent summers living with his Dad, an Antioch administrator, in Yellow Springs. When he gave up his $50 million TV show he came to YSO and bought a farm, put his kids into school (the same elementary school I attended) and hung out with his buddies. So much for Hollywood!
Yellow Springs! Everyone who ever lived there loves it! The town is pretty, the people are interesting and any discussion about race takes place between neighbors, lovers, husbands and wives.The rest of the country could learn a lot from The Springs. But, I won't hold my breath for that to happen - I'll just retire there!
By the way, I have my tickets and I'll be there on the 4th!!!! Save a spot on the hill for me!
Loved reading about this. We had an Antioch College branch, I believe, in the very racially-mixed Rouse company planned city of Columbia, Maryland, when I moved there to attend a high school that was pretty evenly split, half black and half white, a mixture that often led to ugly tensions. I never realized what the big deal with Antioch was, why the name was spoken with such reverence in this planned fantasy city that was aspiring, but not exactly achieving all its dreams. Now I know.
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