Thursday, March 29, 2012

MIDWEST PRIDE

or, how to deal with all your friends moving to the coasts and Chicago.

“My ol’ friends are so far away” –Red Tail Ring


In the fall of 2010, some friends and I decided to go on what was, for us, no less than an Epic Cycle Trip. Thirty-five miles or so each way, it began at the co-op where many of them lived and ended at Friends Lake, where the groundskeeper had graciously offered us camping in exchange for some invasive species removal (Quaker murmur of approval, anyone?). As none of us had ever biked this distance, much less with tents strapped to our racks, and one in the company was a completely inexperienced cyclist riding a borrowed single-gear contraption, it was impossible to say how it would turn out. Would we be eaten by the perils of lower Michigan traffic? Collapse of exhaustion along North Territorial? Arrive only to find that the groundskeeper was really a mad scientist searching for guinea pig victims, cleverly disguised as a Quaker?

No. Here’s what we encountered: cows. Railroad tracks. Hills that took it all out of us. About a billion people honking at Joel’s state flag, asking us if we were doing a trans-Michigan trip, if we were running for office, if we were crazy, etc. Apples and doughnuts at Jennie’s Farm Market. Exclusive communities along gorgeous country roads that we scoffed at in the most hooliganish, dirty liberal cyclist way we could manage. Belting out “John Brown's body lies a moulderin’ in the grave” to the passing cars. Tire swings and a sauna we figured out how to fire up and a peaceful lake. Chirping crickets from inside tents at night.



Things like this happen in other places. But maybe in not quite the same way. In this mitten, buffered from other parts of the country by really big lakes and bigger rifts in culture, we’re something else. Nowhere I’ve been is there quite the same combination of stubbornness, openness, tradition and spontaneity. Every time I go to some more cosmopolitan place I realize that something is missing. There’s this peculiar Midwestern warmth that makes me try to strike up conversations on the streets on New York City. My friends from the City, by the way, are still not convinced that I’m actually in the same time zone as them (“Good lord! With all those wild boars and Paul Bunyans roaming about!”).


Since that legendary bike trip, I’ve taken a couple jaunts around the state and collected more reasons to adore my home state. In the UP there is, you know, a roadside steel sculpture park called Lakenenland whose owner has been fighting with the local government to remain for years. When my fellow traveler and I arrived, there was an impromptu bluegrass concert taking place on the constructed stage. A man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth turned around, nodded, and drawled, “Have a seat. Or if you play something, get on up there.”
Maybe that’s the Michigan style.



I can’t blame my friends for moving to the coasts, or even for moving to Chicago or Milwaukee. I’m well acquainted with the need to make a living, and the mitten’s not the hottest spot for that these days. In addition, we lack two big things that most of my peers find important: functional public transit, and the freedom to marry who you’d like. So go, friends! Go off to New York City and San Francisco, to places where people actually share your values and lifestyle, where there’s money to be had and maybe nice weather to be enjoyed. In fact, maybe someday I’ll join you.

But for now, I’m quite content to be a Michigander. There are times when I’ve had it to my eyelids with the close-minded comments, but then these crazy Michigan people turn right back around and surprise me with the most lucid expressions of acceptance and humanity. And this summer, the bike trips will be unbeatable.

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