The Running Free

I am going to try not to overstate it, but, if this isn’t your first tonydegenaropoetrydotcom blog post, you know that’s a fool’s errand for me. I of course will overstate it. Strap in.

Rachel & I are moving home.

I can’t even let that hang as simple a sentence as it is. “Rachel & I are moving home” could mean anything or it could mean nothing. We’ve had so many places: Mississippi, Northern California, Southfield, Livonia, our parents’ houses, my uncle’s house. Columbus, really, is the least of our-places out of all of our places.

We had too short a time at Otterbein and then we both left.

Thank god we came home, not a location but to each other, because we of course came to be miles and miles and miles apart.
​
But now we’re going Home. To our families. To our friends. To their children!
In other words:

The reason we are going home is because I accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of English at Ohio Dominican University, which in of itself bears over-analysis at the intersection of autobiography and pop culture criticism.
​
Superfans know I went to Otterbein for my undergrad. I looked like this for the duration of the story I am about to tell:

During my tenure in Westerville, I stayed busy going to concerts, restaurants, and sporting events in downtown Columbus. Depending on the traffic situation, you could either go 270 West to 71 South, or, 270 South to 670 East. Players’ choice really.

If you take the Outer Belt past Easton, you drive past the exit for Ohio Dominican University. Now, having friends with girlfriends at the other liberal arts institutions around town, or being roommates with a sports broadcasting major covering games for the radio, you got a little familiar with the higher ed landscape in the Greater Columbus Area. For some reason, until I was invited for a visit in late April of this year, Ohio Dominican’s campus evaded me. It was a mystery.

Let’s briefly fast-forward to January 2022. Ben is a few months old, and I have just been informed my one-year visiting line was not able to be renewed by the college at Detroit Mercy. This was expected, but still a huge blow.

Since I’m celebrating in this post I’ll skip ahead to a key date: March 2nd. The 39th job I applied to: “oh yeah, Ohio Dominican, that’s in Columbus, that’d be cool.” (Note: I obviously did more research on the school to determine that it would be a good fit professionally and personally, duh!).

Let’s do one more jump: April 28th, I am driving an all-too familiar route to what will soon be the place I begin my career. Enter a vivid memory:

DJ Bryguy, right.

In Winter 2009, a bunch of radio people got tickets to see the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was going to be my first hockey game. Since our good buddy DJ Bryguy was driving, that meant we’d be listening to Coheed & Cambria and I extremely remember him playing two songs. First, “Blood Red Summer” which I liked but didn’t love (at the time) and the second: “The Running Free,” which was an instant hit.

I can remember blow-for-blow the events of that night, starting with that song in that car, on that stretch of the highway, unknowingly driving past the exit for Ohio Dominican University, going to Nationwide Arena, seeing some hockey, getting a free desert at the BD’s Mongolian BBQ down in the arena district.

It might mean everything or it might mean nothing but in that song, Claudio Sanchez sings “we’re going hooooooooome / we’re running freeeeeeeeeee” and I cannot help but believe the first time I heard that song I was driving past place that is bringing me and my family back to Columbus.
​
In other words, we’re going home. We’re running free.