And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed, Gus? Pure Eastern Iowa. What's your father, dear? Is he a bean farmer? Does he stink of the land? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the U of I.
Not just Eastern. Rural Southeastern. The far inferior EI quadrant. My dad was a social worker, his dad was a farmer.
From fairly early grade school (3rd or 4th grade), I knew the world I grew up in was very small...in its mindset, thinking, and culture...and that there was no way I wasn’t going to leave it. And at the earliest possible moment I packed up my few earthly belongings
into the back of my shitty S-10 and drove off to a college far away. I hadn’t even applied to a single in state school.
Some distant relatives have commented to me over the years that, like my uncle, they could just tell from the time I was a kid that I’d never stay there. His mind has since been poisoned by Rush, but he’ll still never move back. He’s seen and experienced too much of the rest of the world.