Taking Uber To Calvin And Hobbes’ House?

by Kevin Burton

   I open my Uber app. First thing it wants to know, “where to?”

   Good question. Obvious question, logical.

   Oh I know exactly where I want to go. And I’m pretty much packed already. Traveling light.

   But the thing is…well I don’t, you know, strictly speaking, have an actual physical address, in the linear geographical, Rand-McNally sense of the word, per se.

   If I ever get there, I will know it. I’ll know it by the adventure in the air, the possibilities. I’ll know it by the weight lifted off of me.

   But I can’t seem to circumvent that “where to” thing…Lyft is no help either…

   So here’s the deal. I want to go and live in the land of Calvin and Hobbes. It seems like a nice place, a funny place, a place of exploration, wonder.

   Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip by Bill Watterson that ran from 1985 to 1995. It featured the adventures of six-year-old Calvin and his best friend Hobbes. Yesterday I ran a piece from interestingfacts.com with some details of the making of the strip.

   When we see through the parents’ eyes Hobbes is only a stuffed tiger. But through Calvin’s eyes he’s the best buddy an American boy could ever have.

   Wouldn’t it be nice to see through Calvin’s eyes again, just for a little while.

    Come to think of it, I don’t need to live with Calvin and Hobbes . I would settle for a visit. An extended visit, maybe four years or so.

   Dennis the Menace lived in Wichita. But no one can tell me where Calvin and Hobbes live. I got some clues though, on the Calvin and Hobbes fandom page from Wikipedia.

   Somebody has combed through all the Calvin and Hobbes strips for clues about where they live. Wow!

   “It has never been clearly stated what city Calvin lives in, or even whether the city is an original creation of Watterson,” reads the Wiki page.

“Among the few certainties, we know that:

• Calvin lives in the United States.
• The town is vaguely similar in some regards to Watterson’s home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
• It is explicitly stated that Calvin lives neither in Florida, California, North Dakota, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii or The Yukon.
• He lives in a state where it snows in the winter.
• Arizona is generally to the west.
• Buckeyes, which are native to the Midwest,  can be found in his neighborhood.
• Poison Sumac can also be found nearby, which is native to the Eastern US. Combining the native regions of Buckeyes and Poison Sumac, the only possible places from a plant perspective are northern Ohio and northern Alabama. Alabama is further ruled out by the time zone constraint below.”

Speculation

   “In one comic Calvin becomes a giant and walks downtown (he also went there on his flying carpet). There, we see many skyscrapers and the area appears to be up against the ocean or some other large body of water. The city was probably once a harbor town and could likely be Cleveland, as there is also a Natural History museum like the one seen in the strip. Also, when Calvin floated away on his balloon, he mentions a river and a town triangle, and on the back of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, a giant Calvin is seen rampaging through the town triangle in Chagrin Falls, Ohio all the while holding Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop.”

    “In another comic, Calvin’s father said that it took an hour and a half of driving to get to the beach. Because Calvin is close to downtown (where his dad works) and lives in a rural area, he seems to live in the suburbs of a big city. That city is likely Cleveland and the beach is probably on Lake Erie.”

   “Also, during the trip back from Mars, Hobbes  states that they live near the letter “E” in “United States,” which on most maps is in Illinois, indicating they likely live in the Midwestern United States.”

   “In one strip, Calvin had a map of Montana that he carried as part of a “Be Prepared Kit.” Hobbes mentioned how “close” his state was to Yukon on a globe, however, his conception of distance is demonstrably unreliable.”

   “In one strip, Calvin’s father says that ‘If you fly to California, you gain three hours on a five-hour flight.’ This indicates that Calvin lives in the Eastern Time Zone. This eliminates an enormous portion of the US.,

   “People have speculated that he lives somewhere in Ohio….Cleveland may be the most likely candidate.”

   If we don’t quite have the specifics I need to take Uber to Calvin’s front door, we do have enough evidence to place them in Ohio. So I claim them for the Buckeye state!

   I think I will take a trip to Newton Falls, Ohio, which has the only mono-numerical American zip code (44444). I think from Newton Falls I can get to Calvin and Hobbes, travelling by flying carpet. That’s probably the only way to get there.