An East Coast Guy Living In The Middle Of The Continent

I am reminded that I am living in The Middle Of The Continent every time I watch the nightly news on television, every time I am outside on a summer afternoon, and every time I drive on a road with a lane closure.

Back on the East Coast, the Eleven O'Clock News comes on at eleven o'clock.  Here in the Midwest, the Eleven O'Clock news comes on at ten o'clock.  One channel even does the Eleven O'Clock news at nine o'clock.

Since the trend is for people to go to bed right after the news, that means that St. Louisans go to bed earlier that East Coast people.  And get up earlier.  That suits my metabolism just fine, but it was not my pattern back East.

Back on the East Coast, you would swelter on a summer morning, but around 1:30 PM, the temperature would start to fall.  You could feel the sea breeze.  The Sun would heat up the land and by 1:30 PM the land would be warmer than the sea.  The land air would rise, and be replaced by cooler air from the sea.  So, the temperature would fall. 

When I am standing outside and sweltering on a summer day in St. Louis and I notice that the time is 1:30 PM, I do not expect the temperature to fall.  I expect the St. Louis temperature to keep rising into the late afternoon.  There is no sea nearby for the Sun to heat up.  The only relief the Midwest can look forward to is watching the Sun drop below the horizon.  That’s when the Midwest temperature will start to fall.

Back on the East Coast, the drivers know how to merge when a highway has a lane closure.  When East Coast drivers see a sign saying “Right lane ends – 2 miles”, they wait 2 miles and then the two lanes merge.  There is a common merge point.  A driver from the left lane lets in one driver from the right lane; the next left-lane driver lets in the next right-lane driver, and so on.

This means that an East Coast merge is expected, measured, co-operative, and safe.

Midwesterners see the “Right lane ends – 2 miles” sign and the right lane drivers start to merge immediately.  They do not wait; each right-hand driver darts over into the left-hand lane whenever they spot an opportunity.  This creates hundreds of merge points.  This means that a Midwest merge is unexpected, erratic, individual, and unsafe.

I have to follow this pattern because Midwesterners consider it arrogant to continue driving in the lane that will end.  I do not want to be the object of road rage if I wait until the merge point and try to get in the left-hand lane.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a regular column about traffic, highway construction, and transportation news.  A former New Yorker wrote a letter to the columnist, describing how East Coast people merge at a common merge point.  The St. Louis columnist could find only one response when faced with such a sane, safe, and common-sense way to merge.

The columnist, who lives in The Middle Of The Continent,  responded: “This is not New York.”

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Here is a newspaper report on the famous 1996 U. S. Geographic Survey Expeditionary Force, whose goal was to discover if the land between New York and California was inhabited: 

http://www.theonion.com/articles/midwest-discovered-between-east-west-coasts,1686/

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com