Papa: Whew, finally got some sleep last night, a long day. The drive today is quite long, over 700 miles. But there is not much we are going to do today except drive. We cross another time zone which makes it seem like a longer day.
When I was a wee one, because I did wee quite a bit, I used tolove to eat a Hostess cupcake. Actually, I like the cupcake with a Penrose sausage and a quart of chocolate milk. And we’re worried about 32 ounce colas? Well, gourmet cupcakes have become the big in thing in many places. And I must say I still love them. Every so often I sneak a package of cupcakes after work…will my wife read this? Ahhhaha! In trouble now. I guess the thing I liked about my Hostess with the moistess was getting down to that filling in the middle. I would eat around the filling until there was nothing holding it together anymore, popping it into my mouth before it could goosh all over my fingers. A few licks and it was gone.
Middles are important though not always the best. Middle earth, middle age, the equator, staying in the middle of the road. That’s something we deal with a lot right now, especially if we get a little sleepy in the afternoon. Another middle we like is The Middle. The TV show. It seems pretty spot on most of the time. As we traveled across the southern tips of Indiana and Illinois and across rural Missouri into the Great Plains I remembered my social studies in elementary. The Corn Belt. Principle products, umm, corn. I thought how atypical it was for a show to be set there in rural Indiana. And it does a good job of not expending all of its humor making fun or denigrating those that live there and who often tend not to vote the same as those on the East and Left Coast. Only a week ago I heard a comedian doing just that on Sirius radio. It was brutal. Basically, everyone in between the coasts is a moron.
Distant cornfields in the south of Indiana.
Believe me, I don’t see it that way. The other night Anthony Bourdain was reminding people not to make eye contact on the subways in New York. Few people have much contact with their neighbors in those urban centers and people can die in their apartments with weeks going by before anyone notices. And even then the reason is, well, olfactory. People there often do not have a clue where their food comes from. There are exceptions of course and it would be just as unfair for me to stereotype the bi-coastals as to do the same to the Middlers. But the more rural people, or those that live in towns and cities that are tied to these people economically, know their neighbors, are there in times of need, give more to charity, know exactly where their bread, butter and meat come from and have respect for the land and animals involved. Where did most of the volunteers and money come from into Joplin, New Orleans, Tuscaloosa? Look it up. They don’t usually spend $5 dollars on coffee but dobecome a little anxious when politicians start talking about limiting or impeding food choices, getting into the minutiae of their lives.
So while I’m just passing through to Vancouver, I just want those I pass to know I don’t just see them as irrelevancies beyond the Interstate. The land and the fields are beautiful. I appreciate and respect what they do. I think as life passes by, for those that earn a living ridiculing The Middle, the joke is on them. To me, the middle was always the best part.
Papa and Nana On the Go 
Leave a Reply