Culture shocked

Two days of work seemed like an entire week as I'm still reeling from a week in Indiana. Things were so much sadder and browner than I remember, being accustomed to the green northwest.

Tonight a friend mentioned that she didn't know her childhood home's state song, or flower, or tree, or rock, or any of these things that I always took for granted that everyone just knew.

As I flew from O'Hare I had a whole row to myself, so for 32 minutes I was able to slouch, but just couldn't resist the window seat, having driven that same route we were flying enough times that I can spell "Rensselaer" without a second thought, and know all about the "dogleg" (which I see has been renamed I-865 after 32 years confusion.)

From above, I picked out the Wabash River, and thought about Indiana's state song, On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away. The goddamn state song is about having left the state...
What does this say about us?

'Round my Indiana homesteads wave the cornfields,
In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool.
Oftentimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood,
Where I first received my lessons, nature's school.
But one thing there is missing in the picture,
Without her face it seems so incomplete.
I long to see my mother in the doorway,
As she stood there years ago, her boy to greet.

Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

Sorry to get all cheesy and Garrison on ya'll, but this year's trip home was long weird one.