I live in flyover country. At least that’s what it’s called by some Beltway politicians and cultural elites who have no real understanding of that vast swath of our nation that is between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. There is a richness here as well as a toughness no doubt born out of necessity that most of America could take a lesson from.

Originally from the South, my first experience with “flyover country” was in South Dakota in 1984. Through several fortuitous and now lifelong relationships, I was invited to spend a week in north-central South Dakota with a family that has now become, well, family.

Our first day, upon arrival, we were invited to the evening dinner table. The time period was in the late part of October and thus, for this region, the heart of the corn harvest. Late in the evening, long past the meal, the patriarch of the family came through the door after spending 18 hours in an Allis Chalmers Combine harvesting corn and immediately asked the then-strangers sitting at his dinner table, “What can I get for you?” “What can I do for you?”

And that embodies the spirit of “flyover country.”

In flyover country, we don’t drive past a stalled or stranded vehicle on the road.

Ever.

We stop to give whatever aid we can muster. We pull together as a community and help our neighbors. If the spring snow melt happens too quickly and threatens to flood the rivers, you don’t have to look for volunteers to fill sand bags. They just show up.

There is a general tolerance here that simply does not exist in most big cities. It is born out of mutual dependance and honed by what can be some truly brutal and life-challenging weather events.

My first few months of living in North Dakota saw us hit by a massive spring blizzard that over a 12-hour period left us with record amounts of snowfall. The wind and the direction it blew in from created some impassible drifts. The interstate closed for several hundred miles in all directions early in the evening, which left many travelers stranded in very threatening conditions. The local snowmobile club was mobilized to help rescue stranded motorists on the interstate and bring them to safety.

City and county snow removal equipment begins moving as soon as the last snowflake falls, so by daylight the emergency routes were at least clear, but the rest of the city was in bad shape.

I witnessed groups of teenage boys in 4-wheel-drive trucks stopping to dig out or push out people stuck in the snow.

Teenage boys in big cities approaching strangers’ cars that are stopped are generally up to no good. Not here…

By the following morning, the snowmobile club had been out all night and were still giving aid well into the noon hour. Emergency service, dispatchers, and fire and police were all doubleshifting.

The only thing I had ever witnessed like this across America in general in the last few decades was in the days following 9/11, when people all over the nation were putting differences aside and coming together. They were being nice to each other. They were being helpful. A common enemy had brought us together, although in the early days following 9/11, most weren’t even sure who that enemy was. We just knew we had been attacked and we were standing together.

You might be surprised to know that mindset is virtually every day here in flyover country. Perhaps the “common enemy” is the weather. It certainly can be life threatening when a day dawns and brings 40-below-zero temps accompanied with 50 MPH winds. But then again, we get a few months of summer that is virtually perfect in every sense, and there is no Jekyll-Hyde transformation. My neighbors don’t become psychopaths and go on murderous rampages or kick the dog. If anything, things get even more congenial with outdoor cookouts and neighborhood parties and fairs and glorious holiday celebrations.

Having experienced this, it would be anathematic for me to rejoin life in a big city.

I happen to like flyover country very much.

I love culture, art, fine dining, Broadway plays, and unique places, but I can travel to that. Living in flyover country reminds me of a gentler time in America. One that I miss, although I was only born to what some consider the shoulder of its best days.

I always believed that I perhaps entered the world a bit late. Maybe I was better suited to an earlier time. I don’t want to predate the invention of penicillin, mind you, but possibly just return to a more civil time.

How hard could that be?

It certainly doesn’t seem hard in flyover country…