Roethlisberger: "He was raised with old-fashioned, middle-America values."

To quote the great Fabulous Thunderbirds song:

"How do you spell love? M-O-N-E-Y..."

 

Add a flag decal in your window and you're pretty much the walking, talking definition of old-fashioned, middle-American values.

 

Drive a Chevy, eat at Dairy Queen and you are a member for life.

 

Example?

 

One of my good friends went to Miami and used to play pickup basketball with Ben and said all of the same things ... that the dude was golden, had little in the way of ego, etc. And that's honestly why he became a Steelers fan when Ben got into the league, because he wanted to follow and root for him. Even he's questioning that now ...

 

I meant a specific value that's not held elsewhere. Thrift? Modesty? Bravery?

 

they only exist in John Cougar Mellencamp's mind

 

I'm pretty sure the doors in Chicago aren't all unlocked. Or St. Louis.

Pretty sure too, that bakers and fisherman get up before farmers, and work with bare hands. And that a twenty hour workday is a twenty hour workday whether you're in a field east of Moline or a bodega in Liberty City or the Bronx.

Values unique to the midwest?

 

Yeah, but Midwesterners have other things to worry about, like meth lab explosions.

Every place has its good and bad. Nicest guy I dated in college was from Alaska, so I was kind of predisposed to think Alaskan guys were nice. That piece of shit Levi Johnston put the kibosh on that notion, didn't he?

I've said many times here one of my favorite stories I've ever done is when my East Coast self was covering a game in Kansas City. My photographer and I decided to rent a car and drive 3 hours west into Kansas. We stopped in a random town and just started talking to people.

The overwhelming majority of people expressed to us, "I just wanna get the hell out of here."

 

Even in the best parts of Chicago, people lock their doors.

Your post has provided a good laugh because I'm trying to picture a baker bailing hay or digging post holes.

 

I'll try to picture a farmer shouldering a 100lb bag of flour, or kneading enough dough by hand to make 2400 rolls.

 

Or a bag of fertilizer on his way to make a bomb.