In 2003, Ohio celebrated its bicentennial in a big way. Artists were commissioned to paint the sides of barns with the bicentennial logo. It became a cultural phenomenon, with nearly 2,000 Ohio barn owners volunteering their barns for painting. One artist, Scott Hagan, painted the logo on at least one barn in every county in Ohio. It took him five years to paint one in each of Ohio's 88 counties, but he finished in 2002 and the barns were ready to go for the Bicentennial celebration.
I enjoyed looking at all the barns as we drove the highways and back roads of Ohio. Many of them are still being retouched and repainted today. But back in 2003 I noticed one barn that seemed to be flawed. Instead of celebrating Ohio's 200th year of statehood, this barn (seen from a distance off the highway) seemed to be missing 100 years.
Curiosity got the better of me. I had to see this up close and see whether they'd really put 1803-2003 and then miscalculated how many years that was. After all, this blunder was painted on the side of a barn! So we pulled off the highway and drove closer. Then I saw that this one said 1903 which didn't make any sense. Ohio became a state in 1803. This was the bicentennial after all.
I shouldn't admit this, but it took me a long time to figure out that this barn was commemorating 100 years of flight in Ohio instead of Ohio's statehood. But I can't help thinking that choosing to commemorate that with the same approach as celebrating the bicentennial was a stupid way to go. Why not create a new logo? Something with planes, or flight? Why use the same color scheme and license plate imaging that the bicentennial was already using? If they do this again (and I'm still alive) for the tricentennial, I'll catch on a little quicker. But I'm still not going to like it.
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