A couple updates added below on August 18.

This has nothing to do with the regular theme of this blog, but I think it’s a pretty neat tidbit and I don’t have any other blog to put it in.

I live near Seattle now, but I’m originally from (a farm near) a small town in the U.S. Heartland, Union City, Ohio.

Union City is actually two very small towns–Union City, Ohio and Union City, Indiana–with the OH/IN state line running through the middle of town. The combined population of these two Union Cities is just over 5,000, and according to the latest Census statistics, about 20% of the local population lives under the poverty line. Technically speaking, both towns should be in Ohio, but a surveying error in the 19th century split the town between the two states. When this mistake was discovered in the late 1970’s–during a follow-up survey to decide which side of town had jurisdiction over a prosecuting a fight that had spilled out from a bar onto the State Line street–everyone decided it would have been too much of a hassle to amend the results of the error, so the division was left to stand as is.

There have been a few claims to fame coming from Union City over the years.

Ohio’s 1993 high school “Mr. Football” Curtis Enis, later a Penn State standout and Chicago Bears short-timer, is from Union City, Ohio. I remember him as a little squirt who liked to sit behind our bench at varsity basketball games, but a 2005 Chicago Tribune article reported Enis as “currently working the night shift at an Ohio garage door factory” (source).

And oddly, so many “Curtis Enis” stories online list “Kilven” as one of his brothers, but I knew Kilven, whose last name is (was?) “Williams,” to be his cousin. And Annie Enis, who was in my class, I thought was Curtis’s sister, but she gets no mention in any of these stories, nor do any of the three or four other older sisters. Confusing. But Lincoln, Curtis’s dad–who burst into the locker room after a disappointing away game my senior year and yelled at Coach Courtney, “You’re a G*d D**n C**k S****r”–uh, yeah…I remember Lincoln.

Update 1: I ran Curtis’ name through Google, and even though a friend back home tells me the sign is still up at the outskirts of Union City that says, “Hometown of Ohio’s 1993 Mr. Football Curtis Enis,” Curtis unfortunately doesn’t fare too well in sports fans’ memories even now. Some say he’ll always be remembered most for promising hellfire and brimstone to friends and family a few weeks after his “conversion” and a couple hours after marrying his pregnant ex-strippper girlfriend. And just a few weeks ago, at a proudly rabid Chicago White Sox online forum, one person asks, “It seems like a lot of guys get a jersey with a younger guy/ rookies name on it to be ahead of the curve. Just wondering who turned out to be the biggest bust after you bought a jersey with there name all over it?” On page four of this still-running discussion, someone else answers, “a friend of mine had a curtis enis jersey…”. The next respondent says, “winner, no one need read anymore.”

Ouch.

Anyway, there are a few other names coming out of Union City you might actually recognize: (auto-play audio alert) Rick Derringer (you know his classic rock song “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo” if nothing else); “The McCoys” (the first band Rick made it big with); and their biggest hit, the unofficial state song of Ohio, “Hang On Sloopy.”

I occasionally run “Union City” and the name of my high school through Google to see what turns up, and when I did that last night, I found this:

Another Union City native, Brian Bousman, is working on a documentary of the story and history of this song, “Hang On Sloopy,” which on October 2nd, 1965, replaced The Beatles’ “Yesterday” at the top of the Billboard magazine’s Top 100. Brian has posted an excerpt (narrated by Chris Hawkey; see below) online at YouTube.

(I recognize the name ‘Brian Bousman–maybe he was my childhood Sunday School teacher’s son? Update 2: I got in touch with Brian, and yes, his dad Keith was my Sunday School teacher when I was 11 or 12…and Brian was 2 or 3.)

The documentary is looking quite good; lend it your eyes and ears:

(And–though he’s not about to quit his day job–Rick has started a new side gig as a Florida real estate agent.)

Back to Chris Hawkey.

Chris’s older brother Mike was (along with Curtis’s sister Annie and 64 other goods folks) one of my Class of 1984 classmates.

I remember Chris more like this:

But Chris is now a Radio Personality and Singer in Minnesota who sometimes rubs elbows (and hips?–look for his left hand below) ;-) with the bold and the beautiful. Here he is at a fundraiser earlier this year with Desperate Housewife Teri Hatcher:

And here’s another video clip via YouTube with Chris singing a tune from his latest album and talking about his latest charitable venture (and Chris, what’s up with saying you’re from Indiana?):

Nice!

Union City. Not a bad place to be from, really.

But of course the greatest pure musical talent born and raised in the Union City/Darke County corner of Ohio is–I exaggerate not–my cousin D.A..