Like von Drehle I left Aurora for the more “sophisticated” milieu of the East Coast. I’ve lived in lower Manhattan for the last 20+ years. I’ve had some high-profile jobs at major media organizations. But unlike him I haven’t forgotten where I came from and I haven’t developed any self-hating contempt for who my family and I really are.

I am struck mostly by von Drehle’s pretentiousness. He desperately wants to assert his superiority to those “rubes” he encounters on his anthropological expedition to the land of Them, and by doing so distance himself from what he really is but wishes he wasn’t.

Back where both von Drehle and I come from that sort of behavior is readily recognized and summarily dismissed due to its phoniness. In the big sophisticated cities it seems to be encouraged and praised.

Von Drehle’s article ends up saying a lot more about him than it does about the predictably cartoonishly portrayed Red Staters. If only von Drehle coulda been raised in Bonn, or Bern, or Berlin, or anywhere but Aurora–well, then he coulda been a contenda.

Clearly, he ain’t.

One of our Nebraska friends made a point, similar to one made by Ginny. Far from being risk averse and parochial, people who inhabit the plains and make their livelihood from its bounty are gamblers. Every year they bet the farm on the weather, and then face their decision, whether for good or for ill. It might be interesting to note that we were having this discussion in his villa in al-’Ain, Abu Dhabi, right on the border with Oman. We had driven there in our Subaru station wagon, across the edge of the ‘rub al-Khali, from our house in Saudi Arabia. That is what Nebraskans do.

That is what you get when you mix with Nebraskans. They are people who get in a car or a plane and go somewhere new just to see how it’s done there. Our neighbor in Saudi Arabia (a Nebraskan) told a funny story about a trip he made to New Zealand. He found himself in a very remote corner of the country, and wandered into a pub. There were four other patrons there at the time. As they began to talk, they found that all of them were from Nebraska.

I contrast this episode with a discussion I had with a gentleman on a plane. My seatmate was a lawyer from Manhattan, going to visit his sister who lived somewhere out west. He was nervous, because he would have to drive, and he said he didn’t drive very well. Geez! He was at least 45! Where is the sense of adventure? Where I come from (Idaho) you see 10-year-olds manning the wheel of a 20,000 GVW spud truck in the field. What makes the people from there feel that their experience is better than those country hicks?

I have found that people from rural Nebraska may wear plaid and paisley together, but they know what matters. To them, you are fine just because you have a pulse. They are not fools. They just assume you are a good person and treat you in that manner, unless and until you prove otherwise.