CITIZENS GRADED ON THE CURVE AROUND THESE PARTS

Are citizens graded in other countries the same as here?

By graded I mean stereotyped, judged, lumped together in broad categories.

If so, let’s see those report cards.

Until then, ours will do.

Class begins now.

The American school has five classrooms: Northeast, Northwest, Midwest, South, and Southwest.

Each class is different, even if the fast food isn’t.

Outsiders don’t see the difference, they see McDonalds.

They see a swampy Northwest, a desert Southwest, a murky South, an urban Northeast, and Midwestern farm land.

And they’re not wrong, at least not all wrong.

1.

The Northwest could be swampy after a few border changes. (Grab your Sharpie and make it happen.)

Start in Seattle and draw a line all the way down to San Francisco, over to the Sierra Nevada’s, and up the western slope of the Cascades to Canada.

That swampy enough for you? Bring a parka. And no complaining. The citizens graded highest never complain.

“It’s cold and raining. Where’s your coat?”

“This isn’t rain.”

2.

The Northeast is more than skyscraper streets leaving narrow strips of sky overhead.

But that’s what you go for, the impossible feeling that people just like you built these overwhelming towers of commerce and living.

And the feeling that you could never move there.

“You go from an elevator shaft to a subway tunnel. That’s your life.”

The citizens graded highest have dined in a Horn and Hardart Automat.

3.

The Southwest is hot, sure, but you know, the dry heat stuff.

Dry or wet, your head will feel like exploding until you get used to the incredible heat.

And you will, if you’re made of the right stuff, pardner.

“You think that’s a lot of guns? I wonder what you’d say about my collection.”

4.

The South, the one over yonder in the bottom right hand corner of the map, is swampier than the Northwest could ever be.

Alligators? Snakes? Plenty. Hurricanes?

One redeeming factor in this sweat-house classroom are the people aware of the bigger world who still choose to live there.

5.

The Midwest is a lot like Hubbell Gardiner in The Way We Were.

“In a way he was like the country he lived in, everything came too easily to him. But at least he knew it.”

Except there’s nothing easy about the Midwest and they all know it. That’s part of the Midwestern charm.

However, not everyone’s a farmer, which is also part of the charm.

Citizens Graded In Other Countries

We hosted a French foreign exchange student, maybe sixteen.

At one of the student events the organizers had games. Our guy watched the German kids chase a ball.

“What’s the point? Those Germans chase anything.”

#

I stood at the information desk inside a Spanish hospital asking about connecting to the internet.

“What is the password to the WiFi?”

“I don’t know WiFi.”

“The internet? The WiFi?”

“Do you mean WeeFee?”

#

We walked the rooms of Versailles listening to a guide through headphones connected to a receiver on a lanyard.

She came in loud and clear above the noise, but one voice cut through.

“I always thought the Hall of Mirrors was bigger. This looks like my wife’s walk-in closet.”

This is why citizens graded on the curve was invented.

What’s your grade?