“Like most small children, I kept my home address memorized so that if I got lost I could tell an adult where to take me.”
That’s the opening line of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir by Senator and Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, which chronicles his tumultuous childhood growing up in Jackson, Kentucky, and Middletown, Ohio.
Like Vance, I learned my address for the same reason. In fact, geographically, it’s pretty similar. Like Vance, I was born in Middletown, but I grew up a little west of there. I can’t claim Middletown residency like Vance, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, basketball Hall of Famer Jerry Lucas, football Hall of Famer Cris Carter or baseball all-star Kyle Schwarber can.
I didn’t graduate from Middletown High School like Vance did, but I spent a lot of time in Middletown during my childhood, and I know Middletown better than any place on Earth.
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A welcoming sign invites visitors into downtown Middletown, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Both of my parents graduated from Middletown High School. My father worked for 40 years at ARMCO Steel, Middletown’s main manufacturing plant. In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance writes about how Middletown’s fate is tied to ARMCO (now known as Cleveland Cliffs). I spent countless hours visiting my maternal grandmother, who lived in Middletown. Like Vance’s family, my parent’s grandparents moved to Middletown from eastern Kentucky to work for ARMCO.
Middletown was the center of our lives.
We went to the doctor and dentist in Middletown, we shopped in Middletown, we went to church in Middletown, and in 1976 I saw President Gerald Ford drive an open-air convertible down Verity Parkway in Middletown.
Growing up, I bought Def Leppard and Iron Maiden cassette tapes in Middletown. We ate at Frisch’s and The Jug burger stands in Middletown. I took some classes at the Miami University (Ohio) branch in Middletown. I played basketball and soccer in Middletown. I also ran indoor track and swam at the YMCA there.
I still stop by Middletown and regularly buy little cakes and boxes of smiley face cookies from Central Pastry, and I’ve never found anything that can compare to Central Pastry’s butter cream icing.
Vance was working as a cashier at a local grocery store, Dillman’s, when the store’s owner, Roger Dillman, sponsored me as a delegate to participate in Buckeye Boys State, a national government political program run by the American Legion.
Beginning in junior high, I studied vocal performance with the legendary Helen Ramsdell in Middletown, where she taught music in her grand Central Avenue mansion. She also famously taught the McGuire sisters in the 1930s. Look her up, kids.
Some of my most formative experiences happened in Middletown during my high school years.
Local arts organizations ran a program in Middletown called Summer Youth Theatre, where students between the ages of 12 and 18 could audition for musicals and other shows. The performances often took place in late July or early August at Middletown High School. In fact, if you watch some of the video from Vance’s assembly at the school last week, you can see the raised section of the building that still serves as an auditorium.
At the time, Middletown High School had one of the finest high school theater facilities in the state, a spacious wooden stage with built-in footlights and a protruding apron that extended into a recess that doubled as an orchestra pit. Backstage was spacious and deep enough to accommodate multiple layers of curtains, travelers, and scrims. There was also a set shop, a spacious makeup room, and two dressing rooms for the performers.
My high school, southwest of Middletown, didn’t have anything like that. We had a “stilt garage” in our “cafetorium,” so it was an exciting experience to perform in Middletown every summer. I did “Oklahoma!”, “South Pacific,” “Gypsy,” “Li’l Abner,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “George M!” It was a lot of fun, plus I got to meet and hang out with kids from other schools.
Variety magazine’s film critic wrote that Hillbilly Elegy “may have created a monster,” vindicating J.D. Vance.
Buildings in downtown Middletown, Ohio (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Every night after rehearsal, many of us drove down Brielle Boulevard in Middletown looking for something to eat. No boulevard in America was more densely packed with fast-food restaurants and other eateries: Burger King, Long John Silver’s, Friendly’s, Famous Recipe Fried Chicken, Luxe Roast Beef, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, White Castle, Pizza Hut, Captain D’s. There was an Arby’s around the corner, as well as a local pizza place, Casano’s. If we were out late, some of us would go to Milton’s Donuts, which was open all night.
Like kids, we talked about our aspirations, our hopes and dreams, but most of us were heading out of Middletown to make it in theater, music or film, dreams all fueled by ice-cold Coca-Cola and Burger King bacon double cheeseburgers.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Middletown, but always thought of a visit as a “going to town” – we are from the country, after all.
In fact, Middletown was the place I longed for at the time. It wasn’t Cincinnati or Dayton, or New York or Chicago. But it seemed more sophisticated than the rural landscape where I’d lived. Middletown had a vibrant arts scene; there were art galleries and regular classical music performances. There were also a few “adult” theater companies and movie theaters.
The houses in Middletown were nicer. Many of the students seemed a little better off. Their parents might have worked for ARMCO, but they might have worked on the corporate side. They weren’t manual laborers like my father.
It always seemed like there was more to do in Middletown than where we live.
But something was going on in Middletown that I didn’t realize at the time.
Middletown was a “company town” thanks to ARMCO, which began to struggle financially in the 1980s, when the recession hit American steel manufacturers hard, exacerbated by the influx of foreign cars into the American market, as well as the “dumping” of cheap steel from overseas onto the American market.
ARMCO downsized. Kawasaki Heavy Industries bought ARMCO and created a new company called AK Steel. The company temporarily moved its headquarters from its vaunted “Central Office” in Middletown to Pennsylvania. There was a brief lockout at ARMCO in 1987. There was a near strike in 1990.
I would always parachute down to Middletown when I returned from Washington, D.C., sometimes just to see friends or go out to eat, but things were changing.
Eventually, people left Middletown. Maybe they didn’t move to Washington, DC, like I did, but they moved to bigger cities like Cincinnati or Columbus. AK Steel stayed in business. Middletown never became Youngstown or East Chicago. But the place was very different than it had been a few decades earlier. The global economy had evolved, thanks to outsourcing and Congress’ adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
This is what makes Middletown an American story.
The changes in Middletown after the 2008 financial crisis were clear to me. The streets were red, dirty and damaged. The shopping mall on the city’s east side, near I-75, was struggling. Storefronts were boarded up. The population had dwindled slightly. Middletown had always had poor areas, but like many other parts of the United States, the struggles had become more pronounced. The city seemed to be sliding into poverty. Meth use had skyrocketed. Homelessness, previously a rare sight, was now visible in downtown Middletown. There was even prostitution.
In late summer 2008, the presidential campaign of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) flew former Republican Alaska governor Sarah Palin under cover of night to Hooks Field in Middletown. Ms. Palin was a surprise choice as McCain’s running mate. McCain had planned to make a public appearance with Ms. Palin at a rally near Dayton the following day. By bringing Ms. Palin to an unsuspecting Middletown, the campaign was able to keep its candidate in the dark.
The campaign put Palin and her family up at the Manchester Motor Inn, a luxury hotel in downtown Middletown that President John F. Kennedy had also stayed at while campaigning in Ohio in 1960. But Manchester was a shadow of its former self, with worn carpets and outdated bathroom fixtures. Palin’s daughter, Bristol, wrote a scathing 2011 book about Manchester’s dilapidated state.
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Homes on McKinley Street in Middletown, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“The shabby old hotel had outdated furniture, tiny rooms, ugly pink walls and a ton of cockroaches,” the younger Palin wrote. “I never saw a cockroach. Reporters may not think Wasilla is the cleanest town in the world, but at least we don’t have them.”
And Bristol Palin couldn’t even get the name of the town right: She said “Middleton” instead of “Middletown.”
But like much of America, Middletown bounced back from the economic crash of 2008. The big banks that occupied three or four corners of downtown Middletown closed, while the University of Cincinnati opened a branch in the old Cincinnati Gas & Electric building. That led to several coffee shops and restaurants downtown. There’s now an Italian steakhouse. They paved the roads.
“Middletown Dreams” is a mid-80s song by the Canadian rock band Rush. The band’s late drummer and lyricist Neil Peart said he chose the title because “there’s a Middletown in almost every state in the U.S.,” and it comes from the strong sense of community people have.
One of the lyrics is as follows:
“Dreams carry people who need to leave the city…”
That sentiment is easy to understand when you consider the portrait of Middletown that Vance painted in “Hillbilly Elegy.”
But Rush’s song ends like this:
“And life is not unpleasant / In their little neighborhood / They’re dreaming in Middletown.”
Middletown may be the place of nightmares for some, but it’s also the place of dreams. Just think of the people who moved to Middletown from eastern Kentucky to work at ARMCO.
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They had dreams, dreams of a better life and better wages. Middletown certainly fueled my dreams, and I suspect it did the same for J.D. Vance.
And dreaming in Middletown, and across Middletown, is a very American story.
