Are you a secret or not-so-secret Buckeye? (You can either have been born a Buckeye, or you may have adopted the Buckeye state as your home state–it doesn’t matter.) In a recent conversation over e-mail with another blogger, we discovered that we’re both Buckeyes by birth, although no one would guess it from looking at our CVs. There are two other Buckeyes by birth in my department besides me–and I’ve always thought that we have a special Buckeye understanding, a down-to-earth way of seeing the world. James Thurber was a Buckeye–from Columbus, as it happens. Gloria Steinem is a Buckeye too. Many people you know probably have Buckeye ancestors, when you drill down a few generations.
I grew up making Buckeye candies. I was Buckeye born and returned for four years at the beginning of my career. (I never cared for football or Ohio State, though–probably because I grew up a lot closer to Ann Arbor than Columbus.)
So, you can tell me: are you or have you ever been a Buckeye, too?
Historiann 
I’m a Buckeye, Historiann (as I’m sure you already knew!). Several generations (at least) of Buckeye-dom on both sides of the family tree, but now my siblings and I all currently live in non-Buckeye states.
The Buckeye candies look tasty; wish I had a few right now!
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I am proudly a child of New Mexico. Does that make me an Enchanter?
For Ohio, I always loved WKRP. That counts for something, right?
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I, too, am a native Buckeye–the only one in my immediate family, as it happens, since all my siblings were born here in Morgantown. There’s quite long history of West Virginia-Ohio migration; my parents both grew up with the expression that “The 3 Rs in West Virginia are readin’, ritin’, and Route 33” (the US highway that runs from the center of the state to Columbus). Guess I got it backwards!
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I was an adopted Buckeye for four years when I attended a small University in Cincinnati. Now I’m a proud New Yorker.
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I guess I’m an accidental Buckeye, having landed in Ohio after spending my childhood in North Dakota and my young adulthood northern California, upstate New York, and Berlin, Germany.
I can’t imagine moving again. We have too many books. And Athens has really grown on me. I like the hills and the front-porch culture in the summer. I love the combination of the unlocked doors of my childhood and the progressive politics of my later years.
Then again, what does it mean to be a Buckeye? I mean, it’s basically a nut, isn’t it? 🙂
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Native Buckeye here, too. Left for education and employment, returned for employment, now attempting to find new employment. Not a big OSU football fan, but I will ALWAYS watch the senior tuba player dot the “i” in the script “Ohio” as a member of the Best Damned Band in the Land. (My high school’s fight song was that of OSU–still can play it.)
The worry here, is that the buckeye tree is finding its way to Michigan. Seems nature doesn’t recognize rivalries or political boundaries. Or maybe with such high unemployment and political stasis in this state, the tree is leaving for more fertile land.
How many recipes do you have for buckeyes? And which one, really, is the best damned in the land?
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I’m New York born-and-raised, but was a collegiate Buckeye. Thurber’s story about “Rex,” the mongrel dog’s stopping trolley traffic (and thus all traffic) on East Broad Street in an endless fight over a stick with another cur; and the one about his hard-of-hearing grandpa fleeing in terror on a misunderstood rumor that the dam up at Hoover Reservoir had broken unleashing a biblical flood, are worth the price of that book, whatever it must be now.
Pass me a Vernors, and go Wolverines!!
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I knew there were a lot of you out there–interesting about the migration of the buckeyes to Michigan. Actually, the only buckeye tree I knew up close and personal was in Michigan. I’ve got a similar thing here in my front garden in Colorado, but out here they’re called “horse chestnuts.” Is that the same thing? There are buckeye-looking nuts on the ground every autumn, and it’s the squirrels’ fave in my yard.
As for the candy buckeyes–I don’t have an official best recipe. I’d say to go for those that are heavier in the butter and PB quotient, rather than heavier in powdered sugar, and be sure to dip them in good quality chocolate.
As for GayProf: you are indeed enchanting, always!
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Wiki says that Buckeyes bloom in the summer and horse-chestnuts in the late spring. Ogilvie and Eisenbeis sort out much of this subject in their classic “Nature Bulletin # 266-A” of the Forest Preserve of Cook County [IL], (1967, n.p.). They conclude with the pithy observation that “small boys like buckeyes for slingshot ammunition.” With that early publication date, it’s hard to fully discern the gender implications they attribute to this particular species of tree!
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People actually make buckeyes? I guess when one lives in the land of Buckeyes they’re just easily available for purchase…. it never occurred to me to make them 🙂
Buckeye born and bred, and now I’m basically back (well, a few miles away, but close enough). And I know of at least two or three other bloggy types off the top of my head who are also buckeye types.
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Not a buckeye (a born Baltimorean, but northern VA raised), but James Thurber did live in my hometown for a little while:
http://richardspooralmanac.blogspot.com/2008/03/local-history.html
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I also grew up making those tasty buckeye treats about an hour south of Toledo. I’m now living above the border in the vast frigid expanse of Michigan, but I very much enjoyed growing up in Ohio. Lots of room, lots of starry nights, lots of nature. But I did find a lot of the education on the primary and secondary education to be lacking for practical life skills… 10% of my graduating class was pregnant or had a child by the time we graduated. I don’t know how common that was around the rest of the state for my generation…
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I wasn’t born a Buckeye (what’s a person from Pennsylvania called?), but lived there from 2 to 18 and still consider it my home. Plus I’m addicted to chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls 😀 NOM NOM NOM!
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We gave birth to a Buckeye, born in Hamilton. And my other son considers himself a Buckeye after living there from K-5.
I heard someone once say that Ohio is like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but…Fortunately, I’m back in the actual Hotel California, and I don’t plan on checking out any time soon.
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You have to watch out for those native-born Buckeyes like me, Dr. Crazy, and History Maven–all roads lead to Ohio somehow.
Fortunately, The Hotel Colorado still has a few vacancies!
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Here’s an original Buckeye State Buckeye recipe.
1 pound of peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
1 1/2 pounds of powdered sugar
2 sticks of butter
Mix all together. I use a heavy spoon. Refrigerate so that mixture can be easily rolled into balls. I put the balls on waxed paper on a cookie sheet and put in them in the freezer for at least an hour.
12 oz chocolate chips
1/2 bar of parafin
Melt together in a double boiler. Use a toothpick to stab the p.b. balls and dip in the hot chocolate. Refrigerate.
This has been a family favorite for years. Enjoy!
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I, too, am a buckeye. I lived there until I was 27 and despite every effort on my part I have not been able to move back. For awhile I was really depressed about it because my family is all still there but frankly I’ve come to love my new home and I don’t think I can ever live through a northern winter again. And anyway, where I live now we have a non-stop party from February through April!
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I am not, nor have I ever been a Buckeye. Moving to Pennsylvania has not helped matters 8-).
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If Chrissie came back, maybe I’ll come back too, although doubtless not forever. (She’s owns a vegan restaurant in Akron now, and maybe will rebuild the train station on one of those parking lots). I too fondly remember the front porch springs in smalltown Ohio, although not summers. We hired someone out of Gam-Beer, OH last year, and after one year in Bituminosia, ze hightailed it out and is now holed up running a public history program out in Durango. So on that anecdotal evidence, the Hotel Colorado must be filling up quickly with former Buckeyes!
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I too am an Enchanter but my partner of 20 years is a Buckeye. I asked her what Buckeye candies were this am and she rolled her eyes at me . . .
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buckeye here too…
Grew up in a suburb between cleveland and akron.
my school cafeterias all served buckeyes and haystacks–chocolate covered coconut–many days a week.
I always liked buckeyes better and think they are still the “bomb.”
Left the state to pursue the PhD.
Ended up in Philly pursuing someone that had finished her PhD.
I would never move back, everytime I go home to NEO I get depressed because it is so obviously on a very long downward slope…
I do miss the lake though, and the river…
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I was only a Buckeye for two years, but while my workplace was not great, I unexpectedly loved living there, and have kept in touch with friends there to this day. Only thing I never got used to was the testing of the tornado sirens. How I came to dread the first Tuesday of every month!
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