Beauty going waste

Saeed Minhas

Toledo Ohio– A beauty waiting for opportunities Saeed Minhas Beauty in abundance as you walk down the downtown Toledo, Ohio specially the river front to catch the beauty of Maumee River but it hurts to see such a beautiful place is giving a ghost-town look.

Buildings, both commercial and residential are empty, most of them with vacancy postings on the front windows, roads give deserted look most part of the day and night and bars are at the best housing not more than a couple of people in the city.

Joblessness rate in this part of the Ohio is touching a whopping 12 per cent which is way higher than the national six per cent and I was wondering how those living here would be surviving.

As I came across some weary looking man in his 50s standing on the summit street and waiting for the bus, I did not waste time to enter into a conversational mode with him to find out the mystery of this beautiful place.

Joshua, as he introduced himself was welcoming but to my questions, he said that the downtown had a much busy life not far back when auto industry was here and since the industry has moved out it took the economic activity and the social life with it as well.

Down the river front, I found an aged couple sipping coffee from Tim Horton’s—a known coffee outlet from across the border, Canada—and as I sat besides them they immediately asked you must be out of job these days.

Upon introduction, they explained that since downtown is quite old and used to house more businesses than residential buildings, that’s why with the economic shift in fortunes, the outer look of the town has also become so gloomy.

The bar tender at the Madison street was cheered up when I pulled the chair to sit on the bar table and ordered him some refreshments. I was the only one there and it was around 6.00 pm on Friday night.

And by Nine o clock we had three more people walk in there to sit a somber gloomy mood like attending a funeral and perhaps TV with some soccer ball game on it was showing the only sign of life there.

I know it sounds quite a thumb down approach but I tell I found some hustling-bustling as well during my stay in Toledo and this was nowhere else but at the campaign headquarters of the Democrats and Republicans in the Downtown area. But again given the overall look of the city and the outside activity, it was not as great as a New Yorker or Californian or even Bowling Green (an area hardly 15 minutes drive from Downtown with lots of students activities due to universities and colleges) would imagine.

Still as I have mentioned earlier, it was much of relief to find in both the offices, especially at democrats centre, phones ringing, more than one person talking on the phone canvassing the voters while others coming and going out with loads of publicity materials and papers.

As for elections itself, being part of the swing state, this part of Ohio seems to have fallen for the Obama who has tirelessly appealed to the middle class, jobless and low paid workers and certainly the youth sees in him a chance of change and “yes we can do it” mantra is playing wonders for Obama here. As Michelle, a 23 year old from Toledo said that while waiting for a bus at the cherry street bust stop “I don’t know what his religion or race is, all I know is that he is talking about people like me who are in and out of the job most of the time past year and I have cast my vote already by showing up at one of the advance polling stations.”

By showing me her ID and allowing shooting it, she said that “I know it’s difficult for people of race to go for these kinds of elections, but there are scores of voters out there just like me who don’t care anymore about the ethnicity or origin of the person running for the president.

All I care is how closely, he understands me and relates to me and I think Obama has done so whereas McCain has been beating the bush about throughout the past couple of months.” Michelle was just an example of many other youth I spoke to in this town but then I got the same comments from the whites across the city and now what they will be waiting for after the elections and after the possible victory of Obama that will he be able to deliver on his promises and turn this beautiful land of Toledo in to a livable and thriving with economic activity town or not?