Ohio is a place where farms, fields, and forests dominate the landscape.  Oh, don't get me wrong:  the good people of Ohio are proud of their cities, their factories, their centers of commerce... but it seems to me that Ohioans are most at-home in the great outdoors -- trolling the streets of their smalltown festivals, working on their yards (maybe raking leaves) or fields (maybe chopping and stacking wood for the fireplace), and enjoying recreation in the form of backyard football or pick-up basketball or capture-the-flag... Yes, Ohio is primarily populated by salt-of-the-earth people who work hard, eat well, and enjoy nothing more than a good ballgame, taken in with good friends in the sanctuaries of living rooms, sports bars, or stadiums.  Archetypical Midwest America.  "The Heart of It All," as the state's license plates used to proclaim.

It seems that my fondness for my home state has increased in direct proportion to the length of time in which I have lived abroad.  Where I was initially bashful about the stereotypical icons of Ohio -- weathered farmers blasting country music on their pick-up truck's radio as they bounce over dusty country roads in the middle of nowhere (for instance) -- I now find an inexplicable pride and joy welling up from within my old Ohio heart.  I've come to embrace this colloquial identity.  I've come to revel in the down-to-earth, rough-and-ready goodness of Ohio.  And as such, it only makes sense that I am now the proud owner of my first Carhartt jacket.

Carhartt jackets are an icon of rural Ohio, the Midwest, hard-work, rugged fun, the great outdoors...  Simple.  Tough.  Classic.  And they're just plain good coats, being exceptionally warm and durable (and no, Carhartt is not paying me to write this post!).  When I was growing up, Carhartt jackets were most popular among the FFA (Future Farmers of America) crowd at my high school, and among construction workers, area farmers, and white-collar weekend warriors.  Truth be told, I never desired to own a Carhartt coat or associate myself with its common working-man identity... However, in the last couple of years, and especially since moving to Europe -- as I've changed my perception of Ohio and of myself... and as such, I've been thinking more and more about outfitting myself in the classic duck fabric of a Carhartt jacket.

And since I was back in the United States over the last couple of weeks -- back in the land of shopping malls and outdoorsman's outfitters, back in the land of the not-nearly-as-almighty-as-it-used-to-be dollar (compared to the euro, at least, which makes all products bought in America seem considerably less expensive), back just at the beginning of the winter season, and back just when I was needing to look into getting a new winter coat... it only made sense that I would look into purchasing a Carhartt jacket for myself.  I tried one on for the first time in the Bass Pro Shop in the Cincinnati Mills Mall, and encouraged by the positive reaction of a couple of my Dutch friends who were able to judge its effect on the streets of Amsterdam, I decided to go for it.  It feels so silly and materialistic and sentimental... But I'm really proud of my new coat!

I'm glad that I came home to Amsterdam with my Carhartt jacket.  It's been lekker warm (nice-and-warm) against the wind, chill, and rain of the fall weather.  It's surprisingly fashionable -- in spite of its iconic American aura -- even on the streets of cosmopolitan Amsterdam.  But more than anything, it's a connection to "back home."  Novembers are typically tough for me in Amsterdam -- probably my least favorite month of the year.  No Thanksgiving.  No American football classics.  No reverent hush of the season's first frosts and snows.  Just a dark and dreary descent into the bowels of Amsterdam's gray, rainy, depressed meteorological calendar.  Especially having just left the cool, crisp, blue-skied, colorfully-foliated glory of October in Ohio -- the nefarious Nederlandse November looms large.  But for some reason, putting on my Carhartt jacket, pulling up the collar against the chill, seems to provide me with some sense of protection... some ability to persevere... some reminder of who I am, where I come from, and where I am going.