How To Be An Ohioan

After several decades of living in Ohio, I know how to be an Ohioan.
While I was learning, written guidelines would have been helpful.
So I've written some to assist others:

1. Know the State casserole. The State casserole consists of
canned green beans, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and dried
onions. You can safely take this casserole to any social event and
know that you will be accepted.
In fact, Neil Armstrong almost took this casserole to the moon in
case he encountered alien life there. NASA nixed the plan out of
concern that the casserole would overburden the Apollo rocket at
lift-off.

2. Get used to food festivals. The Ohio General Assembly, in an
effort to grow bigger offensive linemen, passed legislation years
ago requiring every incorporated community to have at least one
festival per year dedicated to food. Thus, Sugarcreek honors Swiss
cheese, Troy delights in Strawberries, Bucyrus has a bratwurst
celebration, Circleville has a pumpkin festival, Jackson has an
apple festival, Deerfield and Enon has an apple butter festival, Rio
Grande has the farm festival, and Gahanna, seeking an edge over
other towns, has recently introduced the Triglyceride and Low-
density Lipoprotein Festival. In addition to festivals, each county
has a fair.
It is your duty as an Ohioan to attend these festivals/fairs and at
least buy an elephant ear.

3. Get to know the geography....Of Florida, I mean.
I've run into Ohioans who couldn't tell you where Toledo is but they
know the exact distance from Fort Myers to Bonita Sp rings. That's
because all Ohioans go to Florida in the winter. Or plan to when
they retire. Or are related to retired Ohioans who have a place in
Sarasota. We consider Florida to be the Lower Peninsula of Ohio.

4. If you can't afford to spend the winter in Florida, use the st
ate excuse, which is that you stay here because you like the change
of seasons.
You'll be lying, but that's OK. We've all done it.

5. Speaking of Ohio weather, wear layers or die.
The thing to remember about Ohio seasons is that they can occur at
anytime. We have spring-like days in January and wintry weekends in
October. April is capable of providing a sampling of all four
seasons in a single 24-hour period. For these reasons, Ohio is the
Layering Capital of the World. Even layering, however, can pose
danger...Golfers have been known to dress for hypothermia and end up
dead of heat stroke because they couldn't strip off their layers of
plaid fast enough on a changeable spring morning.

6. Don't take Ohio place names literally. Upper Sandusky is below
regular Sandusky. Circleville is square. East Liverpool has no
counterpart to the west. Also, if a town has the same name as a
foreign capital... Lima or Berlin or Louisville, for
example......you must not pronounce it that way lest you come under
suspicion as a spy. Hence, it's not LEE-ma as in Peru, but LYE-ma
as in bean, and it's BER-lin, not ber-LIN, like in Germany.
Louisville in Stark Co., Ohio is pronounced Looisville, not lou-a-
ville as in Kentucky.

7. Become mulch literate. Ohioans love mulch and appreciate its
subtle differences. Learn the difference between hardwood, cypress
and pine bark at a minimum. Researchers think the state affinity
with mulch derives from its relatively flat terrain. People have a
subconscious need for topography, and when it can't be supplied
naturally, they are more likely to make little mulch hillocks in
their front yards.

8. In order to talk sports with obsessive fans in Ohio, you have to
be knowledgeable on three levels -- professional, college and high
school.
The truly expert Ohio sports fan knows not only the name of the
hotshot quarterback at Sandusky High School, but also what college
he's interested in, how much he bench-presses, who he took to the
prom and what he got on his biology quiz last week.

9. Remember that Ohioans are never the first to embrace trends.
When we do embrace them, we do so with a Midwestern pragmatism. For
example, if you see an Ohioan with a nose ring, there's a good
chance he's had it undercoated to guard against rust.

10. The best way to sell something in Ohio is to attach the
term "Amish"
to it. The product need not be genuinely Amish. This would explain
the existence of Amish moo shu pork.

I hope you found this guide to be useful. If it offends you, please
let me know and I will bring a green bean casserole to your home to
make amends.