Yo Love
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I love the street sign on the corner of Midlothian and Youngstown Poland Road because the Youngstown was abbreviated to YO. Yeah, it says YO-POLAND on that sign. So there. That is proof positive that the abbreviation for Youngstown should include an O as in Yo’s town instead of Y-town. Yo’s town makes more sense as Youngstown is, historically, Young’s town.
I don’t know where that Y-town nonsense started, perhaps at YSU (which stands for “You’re Still Unemployed” if you ask a Kent State graduate of a certain generation, just a bit of teasing to their Youngstown State counterparts.) Perhaps a planning committee launched the Y-town thing and the local media perpetuates the nickname because they think it sounds progressive and exciting, adds vibrancy to an old steel town, but it comes off as manufactured and just downright cute.
Maybe Yo’s Town sounds too much like something a gangster would say in an old black and white movie? When I try to think of a line, I hear my father’s voice in my head saying, “You’s guys over there…” and laugh. Youngstown has worked hard to shed its mob town image, to lay the past down and embrace the future. But Y-town sounds too much like Why-town, makes people ask, “Why Youngstown?”
Yo is a good word fragment. A lot of people answer the telephone with a simple “Yo” or holler “YO!” across a parking lot to get someone’s attention. Maybe that is a local thing.
YO is also just the first two letters of YOU, as in a sky written, “I (heart for love) you” that just happened to trail off the page. Today’s art was drawn with Faber-Castell Polychromos on bristol.
Thank you for viewing my art!
Posted on May 14, 2012, in Uncategorized and tagged art, Artist Trading Card, atc, Barnes, Colored Pencil, drawing, Faber-Castell Polychromos, Y-town, Yo's Town, Youngstown. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
I got a kick reading your take on Y Town vs Yo Town. We identify with our communities. Imagine me emailing the Ellen Degeneres show to put in a bid for her May car giveaway and I live in a place called Ellensburg….for real. Each time I have sent an email there, I have had to fill out an address thingy, and I had thoughts of wondering what the preson reading it will think, even imagining because I live in Elensburg, my plea might stick in the mind of the powers that be, lol. Well, one can hope! My daughter NEEDS a car that runs, she has had 4 cars in her young life that ran for a short time and then didn’t. I gave her my Junker Queen Crown when I stopped driving. At least I used to have better luck with cars than that!
Oh, best of luck! It would be so wonderful if you could win her a car. Ellen Degeneres is great. I met her once, years ago, before she became famous enough for name recognition… or at least I think it was her… a women’s conference booked a standup comic for the evening entertainment after a long day of workshops, but most people left after the dinner so only a small handful of people bothered to attend. Surely, it must have been disappointing, but she did her routine as if the room was packed, then hung out for the social thing afterwards. I was impressed with how professional she was… a lesser person would have copped an attitude, booked immediately after, etc.