BIG OLE CRAZY IDEA DEPT... THE STATE OF NORTH OHIO: Travel is broadening, and not just because of the McDonald's at every interchange. In July we spent a couple of weeks at Yellowstone, admiring the teeming herds of mosquitoes and contemplating the cauldron of magma bubbling a couple of miles under our feet. It was fun. And on the way there and back, I got to see Wyoming.

Here are some interesting facts about Wyoming:

It has a total population of 493,000 -- just about 15,000 more than the City of Cleveland.

These half-million people have two United States Senators of their own. They have a state government of their own, too, with all the powers reserved to states by the Constitution: They get to choose their own tax structure, run their own schools and highways, and pass their own laws about everything from zoning to the death penalty, from utility rates to the drinking age.

Wyoming made me think: Why don't northeast Ohioans have our own state? I mean... what does being part of Ohio get us?

The 2000 Census shows twelve states with fewer residents than Cuyahoga County's 1.4 million. If you define "northeast Ohio" as Cuyahoga, plus all the counties touching Cuyahoga, plus all the counties touching them -- fifteen counties in all -- you've got a region of 4.1 million residents, which is more than 27 of the 50 states have. These NEO counties include the nation's fifteenth biggest consumer market and pay about a third of all of the state's taxes.

So why are we continuing to drive 140 miles down I-71, the world's most boring highway, to beg the likes of House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Perry County) and Senate President Doug White (R-Adams County) for the things this region needs? (In case you think this is just a Democrat thing, I'd say the same thing if it was still Vern Riffe (D-Scioto County)... but boy, that seems like a long time ago!) Why don't we keep our own tax money and decide how to spend it ourselves? Who really wants a Bicentennial Barn, anyway?

You want a "regional perspective" and a "regional strategy" for the future? Here's a nice, clear, Big Idea for the New Century... the northeast Ohio statehood movement.

North Carolina. North Dakota. North Ohio. Sounds good to me.

And it certainly makes as much sense as Wyoming.