This post did not transfer during my 2018 blog migration. Original post and comments are here.
A few years ago, I was getting an EKG and chatted with the nurse doing it about where she lives. Zion, she told me.
“Oh, Zion! I don’t know much about that town!”
“IT’S ZY-IN, NOT ZY-ON!!!”
Geesh. I didn’t get to ask her much about Zion, since I effed up the pronunciation so much! I’d only ever heard that name in The Matrix before, and that was the way they pronounced it in the movie. I’ve never mistakenly said ZY-ON again. ZY-IN, ZY-IN, ZY-IN. Got it.
Not our water tower – we’re on a well!
I really DIDN’T know much about Zion at the time – just where it was located (near the lake, and far away from our townhouse). I hadn’t heard about the Zee Bee Run 5K Run Series yet. I didn’t have a reason to go over there.
But now… you guessed it. Now we live in Zion.
Unincorporated Zion, actually. We’re so far away from the town of Zion, it’s kind of silly we’re even considered unincorporated.
Zion doesn’t have a fantastic reputation. I became more aware of this as we told local people we were trying to buy a house there. Almost every person responded with a bewildered look and asked “Are you sure?” Followed by “The school district is HORRIBLE!” Then whatever random story about Zion’s reputation they could remember. Even our townhouse neighbor who moved in from a rough part of Chicago thought we were loco. Ha – my mom witnessed our movers do it to us (and was surprised by it) – when they were at the rental house, they straight up asked “Why are you moving to Zion?!” I told them they’d see when they got to the house. (A few people did have nice things to say – but the overwhelming response was “WTF are you thinking?!”)
I appreciated that people were concerned for our well-being. Heck, I just did that to a friend when they moved – “make sure you’re on the south side of the train tracks!” But here’s the thing (which I always explained) – we’re over six miles from downtown Zion. We’re a mile and a half from the city limits. And we basically live in horse country – most of our neighbors have property with horses and sometimes other wildlife (yesterday I saw a horse playing with a donkey during my run, and during my first run from the new house, I saw horses, donkeys, and bison!). We’re not so much concerned about city crime – not to say we’re oblivious – it’s just that there are other things to think about for security, where we live. And the school district thing isn’t an issue, since we aren’t having kids.
I’m not sure what’ll happen if you say Zion wrong around here though. So I’m definitely being cautious about that. Ha!
This post did not transfer during my 2018 blog migration. Original post and comments are here.
