Out-take: Home from the
Land of the Bland
Commentary by Edd Merritt,
October 7, 2010, page 16.....

We went to Chicago last week to witness our grandson’s baptism. Now, don’t get me wrong – Chicago is not bland.
Use the city’s trademark music, its blues, as an example. What could be bland about artists named Howlin’ Wolf, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy? It was home of the double entendre.

But if you see my rooster
Please run him on back home
I haven’t found any eggs in my basket
Since my rooster been gone.

-Memphis Minnie
If you see My Rooster

And the blues still live in the Windy City, horn tones bouncing off a big polished silver bean near the Loop, not far from the river that glows green on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Then, there are Chicago Hot Dogs. One guy near my son’s house took sausage to the limit and makes it out of everything from snakes to alligators – calls his restaurant Hot Dougs. No bland “dish-ments” there.
However, you don’t have to travel too far north and west across the mighty Mississippi to find yourself smack dab in the Bland Belt.
Growing up there I didn’t realize how boring the upper Midwest was.
Minnesota bills itself the “Land of Ten Thousand Lakes,” as if water could imbue the region with zest.
And what’s really awful is that its capitol has a twin. Like real twins they argue, each city claiming to be the “hot spot” that the other isn’t. Then they turn around and promote their kinship through a baseball team called – what else, the Twins.
Well, not having been home in a number of years and my nerve ends still on constant alert from Vermont’s high wattage lifestyle, I found myself looking hard at the landscape as I drove through suburbia toward Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
The area prides itself as the home of “Mall of America,” the world’s largest, claiming it as somewhat akin to New York’s “World Trade Towers,” (and we know what happened to them). While Mall of America would amply serve the full needs of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, both Dakotas, Nebraska -- plus Dubai -- it seemed to me as though everyone living there with a full-sized backyard wanted to plant yet another mall in it.
You can never have one too close to home.
And the stores are the same, mall to mall. Don’t get me wrong. Many are those we see on Church Street or Dorset, but here in Vermont, at least, planning commissions and selectboards and organized groups of neighbors know enough to march and “holler,” NO MORE MALLDOM. HOW MANY WILLIAM SONOMAS CAN ONE STATE STAND?
Out there, though, I believe they actually promote sameness and duplication. Directions to various relatives’ houses listed interstate highways and strip malls. Although my two cousins live in nice residential neighborhoods, neither is far from ”The Mall.”
In New England our fall colors contribute their effervescence to our language. I used to think that Midwest speech didn’t have an accent. Well it does, don’tcha know?
I admire my cousin-in-law, a retired college English professor who uses these family occasions to deliver blasts of profanity. As he does, he inwardly giggles as his audience cringes, several gaze at the ceiling, one howls in agony, “Geeze Bill, you bet they’ll hear you in church.” Eventually, all heads bow in pseudo reverie, hoping he’s gotten it out of his system – but knowing him well enough to realize that his awakening calls come as sure as the loon’s flight south.
Others pray to return to the bland blend of food and weather talk, the mashed potatoes and gravy of conversation. Often their prayers are answered.
And if profanity doesn’t do it, then the cousin who can’t accept things at face value, who questions your every word, sends people scattering from the table like a tornado. Kitchens, I discovered, are places to hide as well as cook. And regularly this week I found one of my more interesting relatives stretched on a chaise lounge deliberately placed at the end of the porch farthest from the dining room.
Now, as I age, I’m questioning the wisdom of what I learned as a youngster on similar occasions. My dad laughed at my uncle’s stale jokes year after year. Naively, I assumed they retained their humor. What I really wanted to hear was more dirt about the Merritt clan. I know my relatives left muddy footprints. Expulsion from family gatherings awaited the person who trod that conversational path, though.
Nowadays I would be interested in learning what my sons say about my family teachings. I’d accept a C+.
Despite the shortcomings of the land of the bland, Minnesota was a healthy destination if, for no other reason than to confirm my comfort in living in Vermont. I still prefer soda to pop, Rock Art beer to Leinenkügel, a pretty good lake like Champlain to a great one like Superior.
And the news from Lake Wobegone? Well, um, I guess there just isn’t that much to say.