If you’ve read the book, or walked/drove around last week (this week not so much), you already know that the Midwest is God’s gift to Planet Earth. But, in a region spanning from the Badlands to Appalachian Ohio, how can we tell the MOST Midwestern place of them all?
Well, the Washington Post has statistically(ish) proven that it is none other than the Hawkeye State, based on having the most Airbnb entries that include the term “Midwest”.
Three of the “most Midwestern things on the planet”, according to the analysis, are fish-related, and the tenth is “supper”, as is right and proper. “Blacktop” is also in there, and while there is a technical difference from asphalt, especially south of IA 92 in Iowa and on nearly any lettered road in Missouri, it’s often simply a synonym for a non-concrete/non-gravel road. As for “rehabbed” I think that’s more a watched-too-much-HGTV thing than a Midwest thing.
But it’s clear the Post has never been to Kalona, or Cantril, or Hazleton:
“Amish” may seem surprising, given their deep roots in Pennsylvania, but the Midwestern states of Indiana and Ohio have some of the country’s largest Amish populations, with smaller groups of the old-school Anabaptists spread throughout the Midwest Farm Belt.
Cantril is home to the Dutchman’s Store, after the Pennsylvania Dutch.
On a recent Sunday drive I happened to go through the Kalona area and saw more buggies than ever before — at one point, three in the rearview mirror and one in front of me. The buggy riders and I shared the same feeling: We knew it was a day the Lord had made, and we would rejoice and be glad in it — and wave when we passed each other on the road.