If you care about the members of your family, have never robbed a bank and regularly put in an 8-hour day without complaining – you are obviously of Midwestern stock.
I say obviously because these attributes are so widely recognized as inherent in the good hearty people of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio that the very word "Midwestern" is shorthand for such virtues.
If you spend any time at all in the Midwest, you cannot escape the conclusion that these humble, trustworthy, family-loving, down-to-earth people are simply the country’s best.
Did I mention that they are humble?
I know this because humility is always on the list when Midwesterners describe their special qualities. It is one of the key qualifications of the quintessential Midwestern enterprise.
"Our humble, highly-educated professionals emulate Midwestern values…" says one Midwestern firm under the home page headline "Our DNA."
You can’t acquire Midwestern values; they are either in your genes or they are not.
But if they are, you can use them to promotional advantage.
"There are a lot of correspondent clearing firms out there (who knew?) – so why would you choose ABC Clearing Firm?" asks one solidly Midwestern company. It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is "Midwestern Service Culture."
Duh.
"ABC lives up to its Midwestern values such as honesty, integrity, responsibility and a strong work ethic."
Successful food chain executives in particular, exemplify the Midwestern man, according to the website of a Midwestern executive search firm that specializes in food chain executives. They "exhibit a solid, quiet integrity. They are not flashy. They have a work ethic second-to-none and recognize the value of putting a shoulder to the wheel for the long haul."
You’d have to be an idiot to send your business to one of those flashy, dishonest, irresponsible, lazy outfits from one of the "destination states."
I am tempted here to use the words "Archer Daniels Midland," but that is no doubt because I am from one of those cynical, argumentative coastal states.
That could be a hurdle in my Midwestern job search, because, according to one search firm "in the job market, Midwestern Values Always Count!"
Here is their description of a guy who got the job: "What put him over the top was his quiet, self-effacing but firm presence. From top management down, people sensed this was a man of strong core values, who could be counted upon through thick or thin to do his best. From any point on the business or personal compass he epitomized Midwestern Values."
Can’t you just picture him? Exuding competence and humility as he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his team of other middle-aged, mostly white men. They are wearing off-the-rack business suits and their hands are all crossed over their…
Wait, that is just the picture in my head. No one is saying you have to be white, or male or middle-aged to "epitomize" Midwestern values.
Though it does help, apparently, if you went to a university that has "a barn somewhere on campus."
That's the outside-of-the-box criterion used by one company to find job candidates who share its "small town Midwestern values," according to a post on the web site of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It goes without saying really, but the company’s employees are all "very bright" but "modest about their achievements."
For some Midwestern institutions, such inherent modesty poses a marketing challenge.
"Out of Midwestern humility, we are sometimes reluctant to talk about our achievements," the University of Iowa avers bashfully on its web site.
At least it is not seen as "tooting your own horn" to tout your Midwestern modesty.
(Unlike those sneering coastal types, Midwesterners do not shy away from the use of folksy cliches.)
My husband for example, a Midwesterner who humbly embraces the concept of Midwestern superiority, recently used this expression to recommend a job candidate to his editor. "He’s a real Midwestern, salt of the earth kind of guy…"
I overheard this. It wasn’t calculated to irritate me, unlike this recent exchange over the morning newspaper:
Humble, Yet Superior Midwestern Husband: "Who said , "If I had to choose between government without newspapers and …."
Sneering Coastal Wife: "Thomas Jefferson. Who was not, by the way, a Midwesterner."
Humble, Yet Superior Midwestern Husband: "But he would be, if he were alive today."
He was attempting to ratchet up my irritation at the fact that the 2008 presidential race is already teeming with candidates eager to brandish their Midwestern credentials.
"Here they come," writes (warns?) Chicago Tribune national correspondent Tim Jones. "…corn-fed, solid citizens from the Midwest, bursting with heartland values and Main Street common sense…"
(Herbert Who-ver?)
But why not?
There is no political capital in being a sushi-fed, latte-drinking politician from the coast. After six years of Karl Rove, everyone knows you can’t like sushi and share heartland values.
Sushi is the food of those pretentious crybabies who live along the coast whining into their lattes about their Volvos and….
Anyway, it’s a safe bet that Shonda Rhimes does not like sushi.
Rhimes, creator of the television show "Grey’s Anatomy", has "an appetite for hard work" according to a Chicago Tribune story that makes it perfectly clear that Chicago-born Rhimes owes her success to a string of "very Midwestern qualities."
They include:
A "no-nonsense" attitude
Ability to learn fast
No diva behavior
A "grit your teeth" mentality
"Less snooty"
with "more normal tastes" than someone who grew up in New York or Los Angeles
(Can I just say "Jeffrey Dahmer" here?)
Tribune theater critic Chris Jones also subscribes to the idea of the Midwest as a giant swath of normal people even as he dismisses the movie "Borat" for playing to stereotype.
(Humility, yes. Irony, no.)
As Jones sees it, it is no coincidence that the Cambridge-educated comedian Sacha Baron Cohen "predictably bypasses the Midwest … that great swath of workaday America."
By leaving all the normal people (read: Midwesterners) out, the movie "functions very nicely as a smug celluloid confirmation of the cheap and ignorant Western European view of a homogeneously ugly America."
If only more Western Europeans could be dragged into the Royal George Theater Cabaret to see "Leaving Iowa!"
Chicago Tribune Theater Critic Chris Jones: "If Midwestern values mean family, nostalgia, good humor and a general lack of pretension, then the on-going run of the sweet comedy "Leaving Iowa" is surely a better bet for your out-of-state guests than those darn Untouchable Tours."
(For the record, he said "Untouchables." Not me. I have not mentioned the Midwest’s "family business" once. I could have done it. Right after "quintessential Midwestern enterprise." But that would have been a cheap shot, don’t you think? )
Anyway, go see "Leaving Iowa" and bring all your snobby Western European friends with you.
Thursday is Rice Krispie Treat night.
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