Kathleen LundquistFLYOVER COUNTRY
You can populate a good-sized nation with former Midwesterners who detest the place. The number of people who have left St. Louis or Des Moines or Omaha or Topeka or Taylorville or Webster Groves or whatever their hometowns happened to be because the places were too dull or too conservative or too situated in the middle of the United States is as high as the number of stars on a clear western Nebraska night.
After high school or college, these people flee the Midwest as fast as they can for hipper, more exciting places like the Rocky Mountains or the West Coast or the Southwest or New England or Manhattan. Or they'll go live and work in London, Paris or Rome for a few years, spending their off-hours entertaining the locals with stories of the hicks, rednecks and religious goofballs they grew up with and luckily managed to escape.
They might visit the Midwest every six or seven years for a wedding, a school reunion or a funeral. While there, they'll view their former home with a sort of bemused contempt, they'll make sure they tell any of their friends who haven't left how fascinating New York City or Paris are and they'll get out of town as quickly as they are able.
But the word "Midwest" appears in the title of this enterprise for a reason. There are lots of us who grew up in the Midwest, have never left it, love this region as passionately as Southerners love the South and wouldn't live anywhere else. Some of us have no use whatsoever for hipness or sophistication, don't think driving through Kansas is a chore at all, would rather watch a thunderstorm than any movie and prefer large skies to small or non-existent ones. James Lileks beautifully explains people like us:
People who grow up in big cities can never quite grasp the urbanity of places like Fargo. Manhattan is simply the apotheosis of miles and miles of compacted humanity; Fargo was an anomaly, a dense, self-contained world in the middle of an empty plain. The Black Building is more impressive than the Empire State, because five minutes from its front door there's simply no evidence that man matters at all. Ten minutes from the outskirts you're on the prairie. And then you're on your own.
You can't describe the vastness of the Panavision prairie to East Coasters. Either the idea bores them--sorry, if there's not an all-night Thai take-out every ten blocks I am so not there. Or it's incomprehensible--what, a dirt ocean that just sits there?
Yes. That's it. The earth is flat and the sky is big, and you're a small lone thing rolling between the two. True Midwesterners have no time for oceans--all that pointless motion. It comes in, it goes out. What's the point? True Midwesterners have no time for mountains. They're so obvious. They don't do anything. We have mountains, in a way; they're called clouds. And they move. Can yours do that?
Submitted by J.M. Heinrichs
at 6/17/2004 8:08:25 PM| Well, I've lived on the prairie (edge there of), I've lived in the city with ... what ever you will. My mother is Oklahoma-bred but now eschews the prairie for mountains and sea. Like her, on retirement I shall return the the place where mountains are real and next door, trees are tall and in the front yard, and the rolling plain is the sea. Liliks ain't been there.
Cheers JMH |
Submitted by Will Duquette
at 6/17/2004 10:29:07 PM| I live in Southern California. I've always lived in Southern California. I live in my home town in Southern California, in the house I grew up in, which my wife and I bought from my parents when Mom could no longer handle the stairs. And I've always suspected that I have more in common with the folks who stayed home in the Midwest than I do with the folks who left home to move to Southern California.
Here's to Webster Groves! |
Submitted by mtk
at 6/17/2004 10:35:24 PM| as a son of west-central Illinois, I'm with you, bro.
There's something strangely beautiful about driving over the crest of the only hill in sight and looking over the flat expanse of pale gold that is harvested cornstalks as it fades up into the pale blue sky, broken only by the occasional tree or house . . . |
Submitted by ockham
at 6/17/2004 11:08:59 PM| I grew up in the *real* Manhattan, the one in
Kansas, and agree with most of this. Except for the emphasis on flatness. The eastern half of the "prairie states" is hilly and woodsy. Plenty of first-gear driving in Manhattan! Another point that deserves to be made: The cultural specialties of New York or San Francisco are only fully available to those with money or privilege. The rest of us have to fight huge crowds. In the *real* Manhattan, I could walk down to Wildcat Creek and learn biology, or walk to the County Museum and talk about local history with the curator, who was happy to instruct an interested kid. Would a kid in the *big* Manhattan be able to walk into the Guggenheim and chat with the curator? |
Submitted by Ken
at 6/18/2004 12:07:43 AM| It's hard to admit it with summer upon us, but Chris' comments express a lot of how I feel about Texas, especially Fort Worth. I lived other places from 1970-89. I even lived in (shudder!gasp!) Dallas for awhile. It was a short while, though. Today, I live less just over a mile from the hospital where I was born. It's not the house I grew up in, but I did have relatives lived in this neighborhood and I played here as a kid. Because of my job, I know a lot of alleys and side streets, not to mention the best short-cuts to wherever I want to go.
People here are just people. You'll hear all sorts of languages and accents, true. The Koreans have the donut franchise and about half the convenience stores are run by Middle Eastern people. My dry cleaners are from India. I can get real Mexican food cooked by real Mexicans or Tex-Mex cooked by real Mexicans who know what sells. I can also get about any other ethnic food you can name cooked and served by people with accents. That jerk out at the ballpark could have come from Fort Worth, too, although he didn't. The job may take me away for awhile, but pray God I can rent out the house and retire back here. |
Submitted by Mahan
at 6/18/2004 12:26:12 AM| Hey, JMH, I'm from Minnesota, where Mr. Lileks writes from, and we've got trees that are as tall as anything you can boast of and lakes that are as gorgeous as any ocean you care to name; I'll take Mille Lacs over the Atlantic any day of the week, thanks, and Superior for sheer grandeur (although Duluth's a tourist trap). I'm Midwest born and bred, and damned proud of it, and I'll take issue with anyone who laughs at me as a rube, especially those who've left to move to the coasts. So here's a health to Webster Groves and to all those who won't kowtow to the urbane elites of the coasts!
Keep your concrete jungles and rock piles. I'll take my meadows and wheat fields every day. |
Submitted by J. Scott
at 6/18/2004 2:06:50 AM| The best thing about the Midwest is the people. Most of them still have more honesty and more of a work ethic than you'll find in those more "sophisticated" places.
And more kindness, too. |
Submitted by Therese Z
at 6/18/2004 8:17:53 AM| I know you're right, Will Duquette.
I was denigrating California (to which I've never been) to a fellow Chicagoan once, and they said that if I went to Church there, I'd see exactly the same, settled, earnest people as us. The media has done the same number to California that they've done to Christianity. Although your granola population IS fruitier, nuttier and flakier than ours. |
Submitted by Lindl
at 6/18/2004 8:43:20 AM| As a Hoosier transplanted to Texas, I can appreciate what all of you have said. There is something more real about these places where all of the land has not been covered in asphalt and concrete. We still have mom and pop businesses, where they know their own reputation is on the line. Our town square surrounds the county courthouse (well, the old courthouse, now a museum, but very nicely restored). We can walk around the square after dark without fearing for our safety. There's even a wine bar where you can get a carryout glass of wine to sip as you stroll. We avoid the restaurant row, where everything looks like everywhere else and go to the locally owned restaurants. It will be a lovely place to live when we retire.
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Submitted by Douglas Lewis
at 6/18/2004 9:33:46 AM| I grew up in a 'big' city (Portland, Ore.) and moved to a small town on the prairies about 15 years ago. I love Portland and I love Oregon, but here I can see the sun go down and I can catch all the different angles of light at various times of day. And here I can throw on six layers in the winter and get some air that comes straight from the Pole, not to mention hearing the coyotes howl at two in the morning. The farmers talk in quarters (of land) and tenths of inches (precipitation). Oregon is jam-packed with Natural Features; the prairies can be full or empty, depending on your mood. In Oregon landscapes are merely things you do something on (ski or golf or scuba dive). Here you can't, so you learn to see them. |
Submitted by Chis
at 6/18/2004 9:06:08 PM| I grew up in St. Louis (1972-84) and will forever refer to it as "the place where I'm from."
But having made stops in San Francisco, Boston and Munich I live in the south now, where most of my ancestors lived, and much prefer it. It's hot here in the summer but not any more so than St. Louis, and the fall, spring and winters are quite nice. Strangely enough, my old neighbor +Salmon now lives up the road from me in Charleston (he too a southerner), though his wife still spends most of her time back in St. Louis (she's also a southerner). So it has appeal for some people. |
Submitted by Denny Wilson
at 6/18/2004 10:49:43 PM| Chris - As you know, I grew up in Webster Groves. I always enjoyed my twice a year trips up from Atlanta which I quit after my mom died. Since I'm now a cripple, I don't do well on ice or snow, so could never move back. Webster was a great place to grow up. I always wanted to live in one of those big houses on Gore or Gray rather than the dinky little house I grew up in on East Jackson by Blackburn Park.
I only have three relatives I care about still living there and they're in their 80's. All my friends save about three people have either died or moved. I miss St. Louis, but Atlanta is now my home. |
Submitted by Ian
at 6/19/2004 12:52:21 AM| I've lived in New Haven for the past couple of years and it's been a big adjustment from Philadelphia or New York; and yet it's probably just as 'urban' or 'east coast' to the Midwesterner. I actually get irritated when I'm in a place where I can't walk to a dry cleaner, get dim sum on Sunday afer church, or drink without considering the time needed to sober up before driving home (ie no cabs, trains, or other quickly available public tran)... So call me a snob! :)
Still, from my limited experience of the Midwest, I can say that the air is better, I can see the stars, people generally seem a lot friendlier (although I think New York is friendlier than Philly or D.C. or even Pittsburgh), etc. And come on now... Indianapolis and St. Louis are definitely urban... I guess everyone's got their own tastes... |
Submitted by Andrea Harris
at 6/19/2004 11:39:44 PM| JMH: Lileks has been there. He used to live in New York City, and Washington DC too, I believe. Anyway, he's even dedicated part of his website to aspects of New York. Apparently he goes there once a year. |
Submitted by Christopher Johnson
at 6/20/2004 12:50:34 PM| Denny,
I don't care where you live now. If you're from the WG, you'll be one of us until the day you die. Oh, by the way, the library's got the yearbook from your senior year. Looked you up and everything. :-) |
Submitted by charles austin
at 6/23/2004 10:38:15 AM| I grew up outside Chicago and left the Midwest as soon as I could after graduating from the UIUC, heading straight to Florida, then to Alabama, England, Washington D.C., and finally Kirkwood (that's St. Louis for those of you unfamiliar with flyover country. I have enjoyed my time in every place I've lived, though strangely enough I seem to have ended up right back where I started. I won't claim that the Midwest is better than any of the other places mentioned, but it is home -- and that certainly counts for something. |
Submitted by Bill
at 11/3/2004 5:18:51 PM| As a native of southwest Missouri (is that Midwest or Southwest? I've heard both), all I can say is that you're mixing up the Great Plains and "flyover country." My part of flyover country has plenty of mountains (we also have clouds -- and they move!), and I think driving through Kansas is completely boring.
The real difference isn't geography, but culture, and you hit the nail on the head about the cultural difference of "flyover country" compared to the coasts. |
I commend to you the thought that one of the meanings of 'sophisticaton' is "skilled in sophistry."
That's probably why you don't genuflect towards 815 either.