Top Ten Rules On How To Be A Colerain Area Resident (Cincinnati: home, neighborhoods)

[lake_cuyahoga]

Former Colerain resident here, making a few wisecracking posts. I still visit Cincinnati quite frequently, mostly in the Colerain area. Okay, onto the list.

1. Make sure you live within an earshot of your parents.
2. Realize that driving out past Wal Mart on Colerain across from Dry Ridge is considered "outer planetary exploration".
3. Only go to two places for vacation - Gatlinburg and Florida.
4. Turn down every school levy then whine about no bus service.
5. When turning 25, make sure you are twice your weight when you were 18.
6. Karaoke to "Friends In Low Places" and believe it was written just for you.
7. When being a patron at Crossroads, make sure you wear enough perfume or cologne to asphyxiate an entire barn full of cattle on a dairy farm. Nine pounds or more of hair gel on your head is optional, but encouraged. So is fake-baking.
8. Understand that Cheviot Road will always be under construction yet nothing will ever get fixed.
9. Constantly blame Mr. Russo for the 1995 Pace Debacle even though he had nothing to do with it.
10. Understand that Memory Lane is an actual street, not just a phrase.

[DrZero]

What is the composition of Colerain residents? Is it an area of Appalachian immigrants? Protestant? Just curious ... I don't know much about it.

[lake_cuyahoga]

No, Dr. Zero. I'm sure the above list would insinuate that's the case, but it is clearly not.

It is mainly made up of individuals made up of the Catholic sect and German or Irish ancestry with a few small pockets of Protestant sects. Due to virtually every form of regular commerce is within the Colerain area, this is mainly why people tend to stay there generation after generation, which subsquentially creates very tense traffic conditions.

However, due to the recent slow influx of individuals coming into Colerain Twp. from within the Cincinnati city limits and some of them bringing their b.s. with them, many Colerain individuals have chosen to leave the area in favor of places like Ross, Harrison or Bright, IN.

Respectable areas of Colerain Twp. would include White Oak, Mills Lake and areas bordering the Miamitown vicinity. Places that have never been all that great and continue further decline are areas that border North College Hill or are east of Colerain Avenue, such as Northbrook, Groesbeck and Bevis.

[DrZero]

Interesting ... so there is a certain breed of "Cincinnati Catholic redneck," more or less?

I have lived in Cincinnati for a couple of years but am not from here originally, so I am still trying to make sense of it all.

[aquila]

Originally Posted by lake_cuyahoga

10. Understand that Memory Lane is an actual street, not just a phrase.

I actually knew someone that lived on Memory Lane for a long time.

[goyguy]

Ah, Colerain Township, Ground Zero for lil' brick Capes and tacky split-levels. Your "suburban ghetto" Skyline Acres is now often imitated (close by in Northbrook, down the road a piece in western Finneytown and southern Mt Healthy) but never duplicated. Appalachians found a subdivision to make their own holler-away-from-holler in Groesbeck. That epitome of cheese n' sleaze, male strippers, once had a home on Colerain Ave for shakin' their stuff. True to form, your Northgate Mall keeps right on spawning strip malls and big-box stores and fast-food outlets to the point that the old boundary line of 275 has been breached. Everyone in the Tri-State speaks of your human-made topographical wonder, Mt Rumpke. Devotees of right-wing Christianity Lite flock to your megachurches, which are multiplying like fungi along the Interstate. The true meaning of Christmas, American style - illuminated inflatable snowmen, an electric model train wending its way through a plastic village to the North Pole, canned carols, hundreds of colored lights, wooden reindeer, and much much more - is on brilliant display at Galbraith and Pippin every December. Your auto-shopping Mecca may have been upstaged by Fields-Ertel Rd, but I'll never forget that the ugly station wagon my sibs and I hated being seen in was driven off the lot of Bennett Ford. Also never to be forgotten is the Diefenbacher farm market at Kemper and Colerain, back when Dunlap was "out in the sticks" and that corner was a major highway junction - its hand-pressed-on-the-premises apple cider, sold in big glass jugs, won't have its likes tasted again.

Sometimes when the target's big enough ya gotta drive your Mack truck through it! No offense to the now-vacant farm stand across from the "Colerain Twp District 3" firehouse, formerly known as the Dunlap FD.

[lake_cuyahoga]

I think Goyguy covered what I missed.

Two things I must add, though - clear icicle Christmas lights. Lifeless, boring, drab, cookie cutter, yet they all seem to be so proud of having them. I don't think I've seen a colored C7 or C9 in Colerain Twp since I was in my late teens. It all went away with the guy on Cheviot Road near Cross County and his massive barrage of lights. Shame shame.

And the next thing...new parents in Colerain are notorious for this - making sure the family photo shows everyone in exact matching top and bottom clothes.

[Ohiogirl81]

LMAO --- great list! I'm trying to think if I've ever been to Colerain Township other than to pass through on my way to elsewhere, like the Germania Society's Oktoberfest (which may be in Colerain Township, for all I know!).

1. Make sure you live within an earshot of your parents.

This could apply to a lot of Cincinnati neighborhoods ...

[lake_cuyahoga]

Originally Posted by aquila

I actually knew someone that lived on Memory Lane for a long time.

Probably Charlie or Victor.

[aquila]

Who?

No. I can say with complete confidence it wasn't either one of them....although now I'm curious about who they are.