The summer is officially over.  Elliot and Olivia went back to school today.  Buckets and buckets of rain soaked us on the way from home, but we made it.

Cor doesn't actually start pre-school until next month (which, I'm sure, will warrant its own post), but he wanted to put on a backpack and join in the photographic fun.

Olivia is now in Group 3 (1st grade), and Elliot is in Group 5 (3rd grade).  It's absolute lunacy to see how quickly time flies.

I heard the news about LeBron James (star of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team) signing with the Miami Heat on the morning of our family's departure for Ohio, six weeks ago.  Because I didn't want to make the travel preparations any more stressful than they already were, I didn't break the news to my son (a huge Cavs fan and LeBron James fan) until we were about half-way over the Atlantic.  But I knew that I had to let him know -- because it was definitely going to be a topic of conversation when we landed in Ohio.

Elliot and I, like a lot of people from Ohio, were disappointed by LeBron James' decision to leave his home state and pursue glory, glamor, and success in Miami -- down south, on the Coast (common destinations for the oft-lamented Midwestern talent drain).  But as I've processed his decision further, I have to admit that it makes a lot of sense -- and I think that it actually reveals a lot about the evolution of cultural and generational values.  And I, for one, don't mean that this shift in values is necessarily a bad thing.  It's just interesting to note.

A lot of people have given LeBron James a lot of crap over the last month and a half.  They say he's a sell-out, that he's self-centered and childish and unfaithful.  The previous generation's great basketball players -- guys like Michael Jordan, Magic Johson, and Charles Barkley -- have publically and universally denounced the move, which coincided with Miami re-signing its biggest star, Dwyane Wade and also winning Chris Bosh, another highly-regarded talent in this summer's free agent signings.  They say that a phenomenon such as Miami's new "Big Three" would never have happened in their days because they were too competitive, too intent on beating each other rather than teaming up to run laps around the competition.  The previous generation's superstars complain that LeBron's legacy will be tainted by his lack of competitive individualism -- that he'll never be as great as they were in their day, because he didn't "go it alone" against the top talent of his generation.

But I really have to wonder if this criticism is just generational ignorance and arrogance.  To me, LeBron James' move to Miami is very much in line with the cultural values of today's twenty-somethings:  less individualistic, less cut-throat competitive, more global, more synergistic.

LeBron James has his own set of values that aren't so hung-up on individual "greatness."  I'm guessing that he's not so concerned with having great enemies (as if this somehow made him a bigger man) -- as much as he's concerned with having great friends.  He seems to hope for ongoing support from his Ohio friends and family, even as he transitions to Miami for the next few years.  And with transportation and telecommunication as efficient and effortless as it is today, ties to "home" are defined in much different ways than ever before; he can still be every bit as much of an Ohioan as he's always been -- it's just that he doesn't always have to be in Ohio to do it.  I'm sure that the championships are still important to LeBron James -- but he wants to have someone with whom he can share that glory.  The teammates are not something to detract from himself, from his spotlight, but rather something to make the experience all the more sweet.  Like a lot of young people today, it seems to me that he cares about where he's going only secondarily, after he's figured out who he's going with.

Maybe this is total psycho-babble.  I don't really know.  A lot of my speculation comes from the news stories reporting that James, Wade, and Bosh have all been close friends since their time playing together on the USA basketball team during the 2008 Olympics.  But again, I can't really claim to have any particular insight into LeBron James' way of thinking.  Yet the more I process his recent career decision, the more I can see my own values at play.  After being away from Ohio for a number of years, myself -- I've had to come to terms with the fact that I can be both an Amsterdammer and an Ohioan.  It doesn't have to be one or the other.  I didn't leave Ohio because I was disloyal or embittered; on the contrary, I love it there!  But I didn't have to keep my feet planted eternally on Ohio soil in order to maintain my cultural identity.  Furthermore, as I think about the future -- I realize that my goals in life are a lot less about what I accomplish than they are about who I get to accomplish them with.  If I were ever to move away from Amsterdam, for instance, I would hope that it wouldn't be for some amazing job opportunity or to live in some amazing city -- but rather that it would be to team up with some amazing people to "make history" together.  In my case, of course, it would probably be to make disciples instead of win NBA championships; but when you really break it down, my values are not so much different from those that LeBron James has exhibited this summer.

As for our personal basketball loyalties, Elliot and I have basically decided that we're going to have to cheer for both the Cleveland Cavaliers and for LeBron James, now that their paths have diverged.  If it comes down to a head-to-head match-up, we'll probably go for the Cavs (we do, after all, have our Ohio identity to maintain!).  But I don't see myself remaining embittered with LeBron James for making the decision he did.  If he ends up winning championships, I say good for him.  We'll still have to wait until next season to see how things really feel, in the midst of the action.  But for now, I'm saying that I can at least see where LeBron James might be coming from...

Coming back is not the same as staying.

The eastern half of Richland County is full of forests, fields, and folklore -- with each of the area's legacies, legends, myths, and ghost stories connected to various bends in the road and other distinctive landmarks throughout the region.  This story below is the second in a series of attempts to write down some of the folklore from this Rich Land of Stories...

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Everyone in the eastern half of Richland County agrees that Geisinger Road can be treacherous terrain to travel, especially the easternmost stretch, where the road bends right as it approaches the bridge over the Brokensword Creek.  It's an absolutely beautiful stretch of countryside, where gold-finches flit and flutter across the road, the grasses grow tall along the way, and large red barns overlook lazy rows of corn on every side with their view broken only by randomly scattered stands of maple and oak.  It's enchanting to drive along this bypass of some of Ohio State Route 96's sharper bends; but it is not a road to be casually traversed.  Numerous accidents resulting in numerous fatalities have taken place in the area over the years.  In fact, even as our family has been visiting the area this summer -- just a little over a month ago -- there was a story in the Shelby Daily Globe reporting the death of another young man, in a pick-up truck, who had lost control of his vehicle out on Geisinger Road, not far from the landmark that area residents have come to call the Crying Bridge.

Everyone agrees that Geisinger Road can be treacherous terrain to travel.  But not everyone agrees on the specifics of the stories surrounding the Crying Bridge -- or that there are any stories to be told at all.

Generally speaking, the stories say that if you visit the Crying Bridge at night -- when the Milky Way stretches out overhead, the lightning bugs flash in the deep dark places where the trees crowd together, and the crickets sing softly on every side -- and if you stand there in complete silence (with not even the idling of an automotive engine), you can hear the sound of a woman crying.  They say that it's the sound of a ghost, crying for her baby who was killed at the creek.  But that's about as far as the stories agree.

Some say that the sounds of the Crying Bridge are a ghostly reminder of an Amish woman, whose family was traveling by horse and buggy at dusk, along Geisinger Road, when an oncoming automobile rounded the bend leading up to the bridge too quickly and crashed into the buggy.  The horse, the husband, and both of the little girls who were riding in the buggy were killed instantly.  The woman of the family, however, was completely unscathed by the accident.  When the driver of the car regained consciousness, he found the Amish woman sitting at the edge of the bridge with the heads of her two little girls in her lap.  The remains of the buggy were scattered around them like matchsticks, but the Amish woman just stroked the blood-soaked hair of her girls and sobbed, as she looked out over the water.  When the authorities arrived at the scene of the accident, the driver of the car blurted the story from start to finish.  But when they started looking for the Amish woman, she was nowhere to be found.  The scene of the accident was blocked off, the victims were identified, and the Amish community eventually laid them to rest, but nothing was ever seen of the Amish woman again.  Only at night, at the Crying Bridge, standing in complete silence, can she be heard again, eternally crying for her babies.

Others say that the sounds of the Crying Bridge go back much further than that, though.  These people talk of the very earliest days of Ohio's settlement, when the white people first pushed into Indian country.  One day, when some of the whites' horses had been stolen, they set off on a killing rampage -- riding from Indian village to Indian village and slaughtering men, women, children, and animals.  Thus one tribe found refuge in a hollow of the creek and hid out as the whites ransacked their village.  Frustrated by the escape of the "savages," the whites swept across the countryside in search of the escapees, roughly following the path of the creek with their long guns poised for action.  When they approached the bend in the creek where the Indians were actually hiding, one papoose -- just a few months old -- started fussing, threatening to betray their position.  The squaw tried to hush her child, but he could not be placated.  As the whites drew closer, the baby started wailing even louder -- at which point the mother was forced to clutch the baby so close to her that he was suffocated to death.  The squaw's sacrifice saved the tribe for that day, but the loss of her child was so bitter that she sobbed uncontrollably for days after the whites had moved on.  She rooted herself on the spot where her baby had been killed -- roughly the spot where Geisinger Road passes over the Brokensword Creek today -- and eventually, they say, her tears watered and cultivated the growth of a weeping willow tree which hung over the water.  Legend has it that the squaw died shortly after the death of her baby, and that her spirit settled within the willow tree.  And even today, the willow tree hangs over the creek, weeping the Indian woman's tears every night.

Beyond the stories of the Amish woman and the Indian woman, there are still other vague rumors about Indians, or early settlers, or Amish folks, or even teenagers on their way to a football game (the last one being surprisingly similar to the mythology surrounding the Olivesburg Fork).  But in any event, the stories all speak to the dangers of Geisinger Road -- warning any people passing that way to be careful.  It's difficult to know exactly which story should be affixed to the Crying Bridge.  But if you visit the bridge at night, in complete silence, and listen for the sound of a woman crying, maybe you'll be able to decide for yourself.

Down to our last week in Ohio... We're definitely trying to make the most of it.

You can find a few more images in our Family Pictures section.