I don't know if it was Petticoat Junction or Green Acres that did it, or if it rests on the fact that there isn't an ocean within a day's drive, but we Midwesterners have learned to accept our yokel status. Some of us have even learned to enjoy it!
My very favorite part of being labeled a yokel is what I call “Bijou-ism”. If you remember, Sam Drucker's General Store and the Shadey Rest Hotel often hosted discussions about whatever Clara Bow or Wallace Reid movie was playing at The Bijou, while the rest of the country was exploring the sexual mores of the 60's with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate and Franco Zeffirelli's bawdy depiction of Romeo and Juliet. Land o' Joshin', those high fallutin', ankle-showin', painted-faced floozies of the silent era were enough to give a good girl from Hooterville the vapors, even though Billie Jo's, Bobbie Jo's, and Betty Jo's hooters were the reason half of their viewers tuned in weekly.
Relocated Midwesterners are similar to reformed smokers. Reformed smokers are frequently more sensitive to the smell and health hazards of secondhand smoke than folks who never smoked at all. The remoteness of past smoking habits causes them to transpose their sensitivity into insensitivity of the smoking rights of others. Yin/Yang on that one, as far as I'm concerned. A reformed smoker having an insensitivity contest with a smoker borders on entertainment.
Relocated Midwesterners, over time, develop Stockholm Syndrome in their non-Midwestern neighborhoods. They begin to adopt the attitudes and stereotypical non sequiturs that have misled residents in other parts of the country for years. Here's an example of a conversation between a non-Midwesterner and me.
(Circa 1995) “Are you on the Internet?”
It's hard to resist milking these situations.
“The what?”
“The Internet. It's a big system where you can connect to other people by electronic mail, and look for information on just about any subject.”
“Get out. What's this called again?”
“The In-ter-net. I-n-t-e-r-n-e-t. Tell your friends about it. You'll probably hear more about it in your area in a few years.”
“How much hay can you fit into the In-ter-net?”
“Very funny.”
“I know. You're funny, too. I was calling because I wanted your e-mail addy. I've done a little cyber-research and have a few things to forward to you.”
You can Google “Bijou”, you know. It comes up as a University of Iowa site that has served as a source for independent, art house, foreign, and classic films since 1972. Of course.
It's sort of eerie, but transplanted Midwesterners and others believe there are special editions of Vogue and Time for Midwesterners. They think we get the ones featuring the latest in pantaloons and gee-gaws, and details of how the Tennessee Valley Authority promises new hope to our remote rural areas. Following this train of thought, we get grainy black and white installments of World News Tonight, with anchors like Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntly keeping us up-to-date on starving children in China and how to stock a fallout shelter. Thank heavens for The Bijou, where for ten cents we can escape the pressures of The Cold War.
When we learned the happy news that The Dot would be added to our nest, we called to tell Hubba's sister Jan the good news. Jan had been living in L.A. for several years by then, and no, we didn't have to yell into the phone like an old Jimmy Stewart movie.
“H-h-h-hello...? Can..can...you hear me?”
We shared our information, breathlessly happy over the event only eight months hence. As she and I exchanged pregnancy symptoms (her daughter was under two at the time), she asked, “Would you like me to send you any books about being pregnant? I can get all sorts of them here.”
“Gee, Jan. Let me check.” (turning away from the phone) “Hubba? When does that Wells Fargo Wagon come through again?”
I didn't need any help with that, anyway. My parents signed the card and put it back in the plain white envelope so I could see the movies they showed in the fourth grade. The ones in high school were a little more explicit. Finger-snapping boys were gathered around a juke box, while the voice-over warned good girls of the possibilities of being picked up by a “hood”. It was Bijou-quality, I tell you.
One of my favorite Bijou-isms occurred during a phone conversation with my own sister, now living in North Carolina. We were discussing possible Christmas gifts for The Barn and The Peg. Being quaint Midwesterners, and with The Barn's Norwegian heritage to boot, she had a no-brainer gift idea for them. Perhaps they would enjoy a copy of Lake Wobegon, and apparently, she felt that needed some 'splainin'.
“Have you ever heard of The..Prarie...Home...Companion?”
They always slow down their speech, elementarizing their enlightenment for the benefit of the inbreeds back home. It was as if Garrison Keillor didn't broadcast from the Midwest, at the former World Theater (now the renovated Fitzgerald Theater), just a three-hour drive from my house. Even some Midwesterners get caught up in the stereotype. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul have been called “The Manhattan of the Midwest.” Pathetic. I sure hope that wasn't Garrison's fault. He briefly lived in New York, and everyone there thought he was, well, hip. Go figure.
On one visit to Decorah, my sister actually asked that we venture into the country so she could photograph pigs and take the photographs back to her friends. I think she was living in Boston at that time. No pigs in Massachusetts, you know. Gotta show 'em how funny it is that the yokels have them in Iowa. Arnold Ziffel would have been embarrassed. It turns out you can Google Arnold Ziffel, too, which brings us back to Hooterville. There is an urban legend that the cast of Green Acres actually roasted Arnold up to celebrate the last episode of the series.
Which reminds me...
Decorah is one fabulous place to eat. Hubba and I prefer foods cooked from fresh, and we have many fresh foods available to us for home preparation. There are numerous organic and good ol' country gardeners who keep us well-stocked, not to mention the size of our local frying hens, the marbled leanness of our angus beef, the juiciness of our pork-the-other-white-meat, the youngness of our veal, and the tenderness of our lamb. We also eat (get this) tofu. Uh-huh. We do.
We have four chef-staffed kitchens in Decorah, where the food is cooked from fresh. There are no stomach aches after one of those meals, and the proportions belie the fact that there's plenty more where that came from. My brother from the Pacific Northwest was here over Thanksgiving, and we took him to La Rana for dinner. La Rana, a chef-staffed Mediterranean bistro, serving up small plates of quality fresh ingredients at decent prices. If he would have been able to stay longer, we would have had lunch at Hart's Tea & Tarts or The Dayton House, and another dinner at The Victorian Rose in The Hotel Winneshiek (http://www.hotelwinn.com/). Yum E.
My brother didn't have any incredulous quotes to add to my list, but he conceded that none of the diners there were concerned with the volume of hay we could fit into La Rana.
At the table next to us sat Ellen Dolan, the soap opera actress who plays Margo Hughes on As The World Turns. Ellen was visiting her hometown of Decorah for the Thanksgiving holiday with her husband and daughter. Her brother Kerry moved back here about ten years ago and married his high school sweetheart (and my bosom buddy) Pat. I betcha Ellen could haul 'em in down at the local Bijou, as she did in New York when she appeared in Graceland while simultaneously bringing Margo to life on the small screen.
We could just as well have eaten at Ruby's Country Kitchen or The Family Table Restaurant. Both of them specialize in the comfort foods of the Midwest, which usually means mashed potatoes and gravy and, of course, pie. I know how to guarantee that The Barn will say, “Yes”. All I do is ask him:
“Do you want ice cream or whipped cream on your pie?”
"Yes."
See? Some yokel behaviors serve us well. They are the habits of our region, and they distinguish us as being level-headed and unconcerned with putting on airs. Even those Midwesterners who put on airs are accepted in spite their foolishness -- everyone sees them sneak in for a piece of pie at The Family Table, anyway. They may think the Joneses are judging them for their less than down-home habits, so we pretend not to notice their clandestine behavior. We don't want to embarrass them if they ever come to their senses. After all, everyone here stands in the same line down at The Bijou.
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