Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover.
I lived in Chicago for a few years and got a sense of - kind of that broad-shouldered, windy, um, stern, Midwestern, warm-slash-passive aggressive, wonderful - every adjective I can think of, very cold.
I love Ohio.
I don't think people have ever cast me for anything too traditional or midwestern or housewifey.
When I think of Kansas, I think of family.
I'm making fun of midwestern homophobia [in the joke], but I'm still saying faggot. And almost every month as I'm doing that joke it gets five percent less of a laugh.
Kansans are resilient. We look out for one another - it's part of our Midwestern DNA.
The most surprising thing, honestly, is that so few Americans know about the orphan trains. I was also surprised at the resilience and fortitude of the riders I met, their pragmatism and grace. I don't know whether this is a Midwestern trait or simply a human one.
I grew up in Indianapolis, Ind., then a conservative, provincial city. Anglophilia was the first foreign language I was exposed to. Or maybe it was a way of one-upping the local white people. Or maybe it was an early manifestation of homohood.
When I'm back home in Chicago, since 'Roseanne' was such a Midwestern, blue-collar show, that's what sticks out in people's minds.
I am Minnesotan.
I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America in the middle of the last century.
I'm from Michigan and a down-home girl.
