Cambridge, Ohio

So, I’ve been to Cambridge, MA…but did I forget to mention that I also live a few miles from a Cambridge, Ohio? It’s about the closest town to New Concord, with Route 40 connecting the two.  The drive is about fifteen minutes or so into the downtown area.  The sites?  The attractions?  The reasons to go to Cambridge in the first place?  Well, to be quite honest I’ve only gone to Cambridge for four reasons:

1. WalMart— There are a bunch of major chain stores just outside the downtown area, and one of these places includes WalMart.  There’s also a K-Mart, but the WalMart is right next to a Chinese Buffet restaurant, mexican restaurant, pet store (with PUPPIES!), and the GameStop.  It is the central hub of all the shopping options in Cambridge…and everyone and his mother shops here.  At Muskingum University we have “WalMart runs” to get food for our dorm rooms, etc., and will carpool with each other to get there.  That really says something about the options in this part of the state…there aren’t many.  To be honest. if we really want to go shopping we go to Zanesville mall, which is a sad excuse for a shopping center.  If you REALLY want to go shopping, you drive the hour to Columbus.

2. Community Theater— In the past Cambridge has had a pretty exciting community theater.  My junior year, me and bunch of students decided to audition for Cambridge Performing Arts Center (CPAC)’s production of Sweeney Todd.  It was a great time and a great performance, incorporating people from the community, as well as university and high school students.  The theater itself, located on Wheeling Ave. and right in the downtown area, is an old relic worth taking a look at.  It’s nothing extremely special, but there’s some real history behind it.

That being said, the theater is currently being run by a bunch of small town bullies…and so we no longer wish to audition or attend their productions.  It’s a shame.

3. Food — There are lots of different and relatively cheap restaurants in Cambridge, including Denny’s, Ruby Tuesdays, Cracker Barrel, Bob Evan’s, Arby’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Chinese, and Mexican.  If you want a real nice sit down place, it’s basically the closest place to go when you live in New Concord.  Of course, the number of fast food restaurants is pretty astounding…but then, I’m talking about a town that considers WalMart to be a hang-out spot.

4. Church— If I am not able to attend the small Catholic mass offered on my campus, I have to drive to the small Catholic church in Cambridge.  It’s called St. Benedict, and there are a bunch of nuns who run the school connected to it.  It’s a cute enough place, built entirely in brick, but one of the priests talks super super super fast…which frustrates me.  Mass is not a race, but if you end up with a mass where he is presiding, it will inevitably be 20 minutes shorter.

Anyway, Cambridge is…cute.  It’s a town in the middle of farm country, with people who may or may not have gone to college and who are okay with that.  Personally, my biggest issue with Cambridge is their politics.  I know a lot of good families in Cambridge who are shunned from its society by conniving, power hungry people who think that because they have a leadership position in the city of Cambridge that means they are hot stuff.  It’s pretty ridiculous.

I draw a lot of parallels from my town of Delaware, just north of Columbus.  It’s a smaller city…and there’s this same mentality that if you have power, you should use and abuse it.  In Cambridge it’s to the point where there are plots to humiliate other families into leaving–hence why the theater is now run by the wrong people.

It just makes me remember why it’s important to put things in perspective.  And also why it’s important to educate yourself…and stop eating ridiculous amounts of fast food.  Cambridge has so much it could offer, if it would just up its standards and clean itself up a bit.