The Walker has held a panel discussion to decide whether Minnesota should be considered "North" or "Midwest." I have no idea why this came up, or why the Walker cares; it's like a society of mapmakers holding a meeting on whether Andy Warhol was an innovator or a plagiarist. But they did raise an interesting question.
Who the heck do we think we are?
We know what Northeast means: flinty Yankees who smell of crabs and squint with suspicion at out-of-towners who've come to buy maple syrup. People in the Northeast are romantically gloomy and spongy as mushrooms from all the rain. Westerners are rugged and self-reliant and can shoot the cigarette out of your mouth from three miles away. And so on.
North? People swaddled in parkas with six square inches of their face showing, tripping over a pickax left by someone who died looking for gold in 1867.
If we're North, what does it mean to go Up North to the top of the state? Going Northier? What do people from Duluth say when they go to Rochester? We're heading down to South North.
North is a geographical distinction. Midwest is a cultural distinction. It means people who have certain decent values, like … decency, I suppose. Hot dish! Decent hot dish. Hardworking, sensible, down-to-earth, particularly when we slip on the icy sidewalk. A place where simple American virtues are valued and preserved so future generations of New Yorkers will have something to sneer at.
There's something peculiar about the term "Midwestern" anyway. The middle of the west would be down by southwestern Wyoming, when you think about it. (The left half of Kansas would be Eastwestern.) We could combine Middle and America into, say, Midica, but that sounds like a health plan.
No matter what, we'll continue to think of ourselves as just plain Minnesotans first, and Midwesterners second. The last time one of us answered to "hey, Northerner" he was being taunted by a guy in a gray uniform at Gettysburg. He got shot for saying "what?" and that's not a mistake we'll soon make again.
