Small Town Thinking

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Much being made in today's media about Bill Clinton's "small town" tour to drum up votes for Hillary.

I'll save for another day deconstructing the mindset in small towns...is it "bitter," or "set in its ways" or that other b-word, "bigoted...."? [Answer: none of the above...depending on who's doing the framing...or twisting it for their own advantage.]

Instead--from the perspective of small city living in Fargo, and weekending in such exotic locales as Park Rapids and Walker, Minnesota, and considering that our wee cabin in the woods was one of the first in the country to have satellite teevee...

And from the perspective of listening over time to people like Russet, and Tweety, and Snuffy, and Cokie, and Wolfie, and ... well, you get the idea. I've come to the conclusion that the "small town" most in need of exposure to the great big world outside the bubble and the cocktail wienie circuit and the incestuous revolving doors that are K Street and Congress and Big Media and Congress and Military Contractors and Congress and political consultants and.... is the rarified and isolated little burg of DeeCee.

The posturing portion of the population of DeeCee probably adds up to the size of yer everyday small town out in the boonies. The kind of small town where the satellite trucks are clustering these days breathlessly touting "once in a lifetime" visits. But at least we, in the boonies, actually check out what's going on in the rest of the world instead just pontificating for the mirror or the teevee camera... oh, wait, that's pretty much the same thing, these days, now isn't it.

And when the satellite trucks pack up and follow the parade of candidates and the very important pundits and "journalists" who follow in their wake, we'll consider how it's just like the good ol' days when the circus came to town, and there was a lot of hoopla and folderol and then the wagons headed on down the road and all that was left was a few pleasant memories and a whole lotta dung to clean up.

We're looking to clean up this election year...now if we can just get those big city folk to stop thinking that we're rubes for backdrops and tellin' tales to, "once in a lifetime," before they all pack up and head back to their cozy salons in DeeCee.