Missouri is a nice Midwestern state. Er, fuck, no, it's a Great Plains state. Huh? It's Southern? Goddamn!
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I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Tulsa last night. He'd been through Waynesville before. Used to live in St. Louis.
"It's a nice drive," he told me. "Scenic. Not too hard...although, the only thing they seem to have there are fireworks, liquor stores, and porno shops."
And oddly-placed signs. Like:
"Vasectomy removal, the best in Mizzou!"
or, to signify the Mickey D's for truckers:
"MCSTOP!"
Don't forget the millions of seemingly endless signs for Branson tucked behind that patch of Ozark plateau. Branson even has its own 24-hour radio station with paid programming and only paid programming.
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This Waynesville place is a bit strange, too. All the roads wind like mountain roads should, only the Ozarks, according to Wikipedia, aren't actually mountains. I drove around for a while to get a feel for the town. It's smaller than Hillsdale, but feels like part of civilization because it's right off the Interstate.
Except when you turn the wrong way the "mountain" roads wind around for 15 minutes and you end up at the entrance to a military base.
But I dig. At least I do now. Hopefully they'll show me around more tomorrow.
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But I still haven't determined if Missouri is a Midwestern state. I want to say yes. Springfield, only about 90 miles away, is as wonderfully small and-post industrial as any Midwestern city should be, graffiti-ed buildings and abandoned factories downtown and all. It could be Gary except there are about 21,000 normal, not scared (or scary looking) college kids walking around. They have a Cardinals' farm team and a record shop named "Stick It In Your Ear!" Rolla is much the same, but about 3/4ths the size and 60 miles the other way.
This should be the Midwest, I think to myself, but then I look out the window and see the fuckin' Ozarks, rocks jutting out of hills and weird red plants growing on them. I also hear townsfolk speaking in slight accents...an Arkansas drawl with a bit of nasal action. Real bizarre.
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Interview tomorrow...not exactly sure what to expect. Or where the place is. So no pressure or anything, huh?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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4 comments:
I got contacted as a ref., today. I told them you were basically Jesus.
Good luck, Jack.
I used to believe Nebraska was in the Midwest. Omahans would argue that what most people call the Midwest is actually the Middle East of America. Missouri's pretty close to the middle of it all, really, so maybe it's the Belly Button or something.
I've come to the conclusion that there's a big difference between the Great Plains Midwest and the Great Lakes Midwest. But they share some common elements enough to be considered the same region. Southern Missouri is kinda, well, southern, but I think it shares some commonalities with Southern Illinois and Indiana and the Appalachian parts of Ohio.
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