Damn Yankees

East is East and West is West ....

Photo by Pedro Lastra on Unsplash

I grew up in the “second city.”  A cub fan, and sort of a White Sox fan, I hated the Yankees.  I went East to college.  I never ceased being proud of my mid-west high school background.  Even if they were some of the least productive years of my life. 

One can go back any number of years in American history and view the East-West tension.  The backwoods and the coast.  Washington’s westward vision.  Lincoln as man of the people.  The Eastern effete establishment and the true American of the West.

We need not be dismissive of cultural themes that have survived the years.  Instead let’s dig in.  Of course, the West coast has now join the East as the enemy.  Still it’s “outland” against, well the “center,” even though the center isn’t really the center.  And Marjorie Taylor Green wants a divorce of sorts.  There can be a lot of partisan attention and media circus about our divisions without serious discussion. 

I am still a Cub fan.  I am still a Midwesterner.  I still like Chicago style theater over against New York.  I still recite Sandberg and Vachel Lindsay. I don’t mind the fact that the owner of the Cubs belongs to a different political party.  He’s one of us, unless his investments are in Eastern banks. 

Is it all inconsistent.  Sure.  “City of the big shoulder.”  “Stormy, husky, brawling.”  Neighborhoods. 

And race riots and ethnic hostility and housing deeds with racial discriminatory covenants.  Mayor Daley at the 1980 Democratic convention.  I get it, we are one country and the good and the bad run through us like a blood stream. 

But, for thought on long walks, here is a simple take.  We need, have always needed, renewal.  We need to distance ourselves from home and comfort.  That is what America has meant.  The New risking the life of the Old.  The challenge.  “Don’t crucify mankind on a cross of gold.”

“Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.”