Growing Up Weird in J.D. Vance's Hometown

How diversity and 'weirdness' are assets in America's heartland

Central Ave. near Clinton St. - 8/16/1998, Middletown Historical Society

I spent my adolescence in Middletown, Ohio, the backdrop of J.D. Vance's bestselling 'Hillbilly Elegy' and a town that’s now in the national spotlight again because Vance was picked to be Trump’s running mate. Because a few people have asked me let me just put this out there: no, I don’t know J.D. Vance personally. But I have some thoughts. I know some of his friends and I experienced many of the same streets, the same people, the same "vibes" that Vance did. I’ve read his book and for a few years have been thinking a lot about what it means to be from Middletown, Ohio. I’ve come to very different conclusions than Vance. This is a long post but I’d like to share my thoughts with you. My story and the story of small-town America is more complex than the narratives that often dominate our national conversation.

In the thick of another heated election season, the debate about what small-town America represents has intensified. Politicians like Tim Walz, nominated as Kamala Harris's running mate, offer a rosier vision of midwestern life than Vance. I was heartened when Walz was picked. I appreciate Walz’s sunnier view of small town life. Like Walz, the Midwest I know nurtured values of community and neighborliness – virtues that have shaped my life far beyond the borders of Butler County. And like Vance and pretty much anyone else living in Middletown Ohio in the nineties, I noticed the problems. There’s something to Vance’s despair. I drove past the crumbling buildings downtown every day. I have friends that succumbed to substance abuse. And I always struggled with feeling like I belonged there.

Taken together, Vance and Walz represent different ideas of what small town America is like and what virtues it might bestow. These competing narratives reflect a larger truth: small towns aren't monoliths, but vibrant, evolving communities where being "weird" – different, unique, or unconventional – can be both a challenge and a strength.

Unlike both Walz and Vance I cannot brag about my accuracy with a rifle. I never quite mastered the common parlance of high school football and cars. As these Vice Presidential candidates argue about who is more “weird” something keeps nagging at me: they’re just not that weird. Vance especially reminds me of a lot of people I’d run into in Middletown. Sorry to say it, but men casually saying misogynist things like Vance does is just not that unusual. But the idea of weirdness in small town America is important and there’s a reason it’s in the news right now.

Weirdness in the midwest means a lot of different things. It sometimes means holding ideas or views that are different or seem fringe, as Walz has used the term. But it can also mean being being quiet, being feminine, being Black or Asian, or even just not being that into sports. As is obvious to probably anyone watching this election cycle, Vance and Walz each represent what it means to be a normal man in the midwest. What do I know about this? I’m weird! Truly weird. W-I-E-R-D-O weird. Ha!

Ask anyone who knows me. I’m an artist, a musician, now an eccentric art professor. My lanky limbs swing around uncontrollably when I walk. My giant eyeballs make me look like a cartoon. I cut my own hair. I have a collection of small filing cabinets. I have always known my weirdness deep in my heart because I grew up in an environment where being different or weird was often unacceptable. I never could get away from it. The cultures of Trenton and Middletown Ohio were like fun house mirrors, reflecting my own weirdness constantly, even as I generally enjoyed and learned from small town life. Let me tell you about life in Trenton.

I started school at the public school in Trenton, Ohio, a growing farming community about fifteen minute drive from Middletown. We lived on a dead end street next to a corn field. My family was involved in the community. My father helped start the Trenton Ohio Garage Sale Extravaganza, an event that in the eighties brought visitors from all over the midwest. He was the Lion’s Club President, and the only attorney in town, while my mother worked as a speech therapist at the elementary school and gave everything to me and my three sisters. My went to church on Sundays. We brought meals to families in need, and knew pretty much everyone in town. We were good neighbors, even if we sometimes let our front yard go a little wild. I have fond memories of growing up in the relatively normal town of Trenton. But I spent a lot of time alone drawing and writing and couldn’t quite connect with other kids at school.

In part because I struggled to make friends in Trenton, in the sixth grade, my dad moved me to the Catholic school in nearby Middletown, Ohio. For my family it was challenging to afford the private school. But I think my Dad was right to make it work. 

Switching schools from Trenton to Middletown was like stepping into a different world. While Trenton was a growing farming community with one traffic light and the occasional tractor rolling through Main Street, Middletown seemed like a proper city with a long industrial history. Middletown was home to Armco, the lifeblood of the city and a defining feature of my childhood landscape. The smokestacks of the factory loomed tall and mysterious in the background of my life. At night, you could often see the sky glowing orange from the fires of Armco if you looked in its direction, sometimes from as far away as Trenton. Ash would often fall from the sky and blanket the windshields of parked cars within a ten-mile radius. It was grittier, more complex, and most importantly for me, seemed to offer a few more opportunities for someone who didn’t quite fit in.

By the seventh grade at John XXIII elementary school I had met a few other kids who were willing to hang out with me. At my new friend P.J.’s house I had my first exposure to the awesomeness of soft Korean blankets and spicy Korean food. My friend John Jimenez gifted me a Bolivian wallet and continued to every time he and his family visited their relatives in Bolivia (I still carry a Bolivian wallet). My friend Mariano’s father immigrated from Spain and landed in Middletown. In the early 90’s I played with Mar’s Amiga computer in his Spanish-style home—by far the most interesting architecture on the block. My friends and I had developed our own languages and histories and myths, held together and stewarded by Sam, the outspoken son of an insurance salesman and still today a proud promotor of all that is different, unusual, interesting and even weird in the world. With these guys, for the first time in my life, I felt a sense of belonging.

But I certainly could have used more people like “Coach” Tim Walz in my life. Walz was an ally to the gay community while he coached high school football. By contrast, I once had a tee-ball coach make me run laps simply for sitting with my legs crossed. “Hedges!" he barked, “don’t sit like a girl!”. While my experiences often made me feel like an outsider, I was fortunate to encounter individuals who broadened my perspective on diversity and resilience in small-town life. Here’s a short story for you to illustrate this.

Ms. Seifert, my seventh-grade English teacher and a German immigrant, left an indelible mark on my understanding of quiet strength and the power of choice in the face of ignorance. One day before class, a student drew a large swastika on the chalkboard in her classroom. When Ms. Seifert entered the classroom she turned bright red then erased it without a word. When I later asked her about it, she explained, "If I had said something, it would have given the person who drew it exactly what they wanted. I was forced to salute that symbol for years. Now I get to decide what I value and what I choose to share with others."

Her response struck me deeply. I glimpsed the complexity of her experience - a German immigrant teaching in small-town Ohio, carrying the weight of history yet choosing her battles with quiet dignity. Ms. Seifert became my first real supporter outside my family and friends, encouraging my writing and my "weirdness" in a way few adults had. On weekends she drove me to writing competitions in her tiny car, as I smelled her coffee and listened to her speak with a thick German accent. She encouraged my my drawing, my weirdness. At the end of the school year she asked for my autograph. Although I never saw her again, her deep respect for the humanities and the power of self-expression had a huge impact on my life.

The fact is that when I was growing up, people like Ms. Seifert were frequently chased out of town. To be an immigrant or even just different in Trenton or Middletown was challenging then and it’s challenging now. But contrary to what the oversimplified narratives and portrayals of the midwest would have us believe, weirdness is in fact somewhat universal, and it is valuable. These towns are diverse. And everyone sometimes feels that they don’t belong. Everyone sometimes feels like an outsider. Ms. Seifert and my lifelong friends taught me that it is our weirdness, our diversity, our creativity and even our criticality that allows us to thrive. These qualities, so often overlooked in discussions about small-town America, are the very strengths that can propel our communities forward in an increasingly complex world.

Recently, I visited the Middletown Hot Air Balloon festival with my wife and son. I have fond memories as a child watching the hot air balloons overhead, their massive billowy mysterious forms casting shadows on the hot July grass. They still inspire. As I sat in the sticky heat with my son I remembered being with my own Dad, from whom I learned at an early age about the values of compassion and acceptance. But this time at the festival I noticed something I had never noticed at the Balloon Festival before: many languages and all kinds of people. New foods and delicious smells. Middletown is more diverse now than it has ever been. True, it’s a far cry from San Fransisco or Chicago, but like many small towns it is changing. It’s more likely now that a lonely young white kid in Middletown will make friends with kids from other places or with other ideas about the world, and this is a good thing. That might even change someone’s life.

My journey from a self-described "weird" kid in Middletown to a professor living in another small town reflects a broader transformation happening across America. The changes I've witnessed in Middletown – from the increasing diversity at local festivals to the election of a mayor with Colombian roots – are not isolated incidents. They are part of a larger shift in the fabric of small-town life throughout the country. As our national conversation often fixates on the challenges facing these communities, it's crucial to recognize that the very qualities that made me and my friends feel like outsiders – creativity, diversity of thought, and openness to different experiences – are now becoming strengths that can revitalize and redefine what it means to live in small-town America. This evolution isn't just about demographics; it's about a growing acceptance of the weird, the different, and the unique – qualities that have always been present but are now increasingly celebrated.

Yes, there are challenges facing small towns like Middletown. The steel plant remains an economic engine. But despite a big investment from the Biden administration, steel production may not be an industry of the future. Drug abuse and deaths of despair are real. Among folks in my generation like J.D. Vance and my friends, the desire to “get out” was intense and felt warranted. We wanted more opportunities and a better quality of life than it seemed that the town could provide. But ironically, it was Middletown itself that provided those pathways toward success.

After graduating high school with a near failing GPA, I attended the local community college and learned to think bigger and more critically. I formed a rock band, found my voice and learned to turn my uniqueness into an asset. Eventually, I became a professor and I feel grateful to have the life I have now. I live in a thriving small town in Washington State. I believe my son is growing up in a century that is a bit more tolerant of difference. And so I have hope for small towns.

There are many people who are moving from cities to small towns in search of a better, slower kind of life. And in places like Middletown and in towns all over the world there now seems to be more acceptance toward different ways of being, different ways of existing. You can see it. You can feel it. There are a lot of people who see this as a threat. But as someone who grew up feeling a little different, I see this change as something we should celebrate.

Difference is American. This is what America is about, or what we should aspire to be about: that you can be whoever you want to be and not only be accepted, but be celebrated for being yourself. Black, white, Asian, straight, LGBTQ etc. Small towns aren't monoliths. They contain multitudes, including creative, unconventional thinkers. And there are ways to be different that don't reject community values but rather enrich them.

This election season is a time of complexity. Yes, Tim Walz's critique of Vance's weird ideas about women and family life is warranted. But somewhat paradoxically, I think the reason that word “weird” cuts so deeply is because oversimplified narratives about normalcy in the rust belt persist. A lot of folks would rather not recognize that small town America is not homogeneous. It's an easy story to tell: we've got diverse coastal elites and white hillbilly small towns. But this is wrong.

My friends and I benefited from the diversity of ideas and cultures in Middletown. I married an immigrant. J.D. Vance married the daughter of immigrants. Kamala Harris's parents are immigrants. Even Trump married an immigrant. These personal stories reflect the broader reality of America's diversity, even in small towns. And yet conservatives continue to use immigrants, LGBTQ folks and whoever else doesn’t seem to quite belong as scapegoats for all of America’s problems.

When developing policies around immigration, health care, and gender-affirming care both parties would do well to consider how those policies can benefit small towns and the people from small towns, whether they are normal guys or eccentric weirdos like me. There is potential for transformation in small-town America, as my own journey from Middletown outsider to where I am now demonstrates. The future of small-town America lies not in clinging to an idealized past, but in embracing the diversity and uniqueness that has always been part of our national fabric. By nurturing environments where differences are celebrated, whether in Middletown, Ohio or any other small town, we can create communities that are resilient and innovative, while giving everyone the freedom to simply be themselves.