Midwest Banality

Let me save you a trip to Kansas: it's flat, dullish green, oil rigs dot the landscape, and the answer to every question is Jesus. To quote David Bromberg--"Kansas City, here I come. They got some funky smellin' women, I'm gonna get me some." It's true, we all smell funky in Kansas because it's a trillion degrees and humid as all get out. Y'ALL SHOULD GET OUT.

                                

Missouri was very similar, except for one defining factor-- it's still legal to smoke indoors at a lot of places. We stopped at a Denny's and almost sat in the smoking section, just to ooh and ahh and cough.

Illinois was similar, too. Let me let you in on a little observation I've made. Most of the midwest looks exactly the same. I came close to choosing Northwestern for grad school, which is near Chicago, so I spent a lot of the time in Illinois celebrating the fact that I didn't have to live there. My parents used to live in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, so we made some pitstops to check out their old apartments. I WISH we had also made pitstops to check out the world's largest wind chime and world's largest golf tee, but we've been on a time crunch. I'll make it back there, though. You make time for what's important... wind chimes.

                               

                                

Here's my barefoot dad in front of the old TV station where he and my mom worked. He's been wearing that outfit for three days. 😷