How To Handle Good News

This V&M announcement Monday that the expansion is on and on in Youngstown has me flummoxed.

How do you handle good news here?

We have such a negative image of ourselves that I really wonder how most people are handling it (and as a diehard Browns fan, there has not been a lot of good news for me since the mid '80s).

I covered the story for almost two years and as someone who has spent his entire life in the Valley but grew up in Youngstown, I am obviously pleased that the project will go forward.

Yet, there was a part of me, a large part of me, that thought there was no way this expansion and the accompanying jobs -- now pegged at at least 350 -- would ever come off, especially when Youngstown and Girard went to the matteresses during the summer over the arrangements to get the land in Girard that borders V&M's US 422 plant transfered to Youngstown for the project.

It was almost as if we couldn't stand our own prosperity -- as if we just didn't want to take the risk of luring such a project here.

And there is our history. We have been kicked around and beaten down. We've had our Black Mondays. And then, after that, we've had the promises -- who can forget the Avanti plant, the zeppelin factory, the brewery, and every other pie in the sky plan to bring more jobs that feels like the Simpsons episode where the residents of Springfield were sold on the monorail.

This one has a little different feel, right? I mean this is not a fly by night operation, V&M. They have plants all over the world. They are serious men doing serious business and they know what they're doing.

I guess so. And this is great news. At least that's what my head tells me.

All I need now is for my gut to catch up.