Michael Croley - Midland: Reports from Flyover Country

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Copyright 2020 by Jack Shuler and Michael Croley

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First Tiller Press trade paperback edition September 2020

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Interior design by Laura Levatino

Cover design by Patrick Sullivan

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Croley, Michael, author. | Shuler, Jack, author.

Title: Midland : reports from flyover country / [edited by] Michael Croley & Jack Shuler.

Description: Reports from flyover country | New York : Tiller Press, 2020.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020021315 (print) | LCCN 2020021316 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982147778 (paperback) | ISBN 9781982147785 (ebook)

Classification: LCC E913.3 .M53 2020 (print) | LCC E913.3 (ebook) | DDC 977--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021315

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021316

ISBN 978-1-9821-4777-8

ISBN 978-1-9821-4778-5 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to the journalists and writers covering the cities and townsthe communities they live infar too often overlooked in our national coverage.

We thank you.

IN THE SUMMER BEFORE the 2004 presidential election, The Plain Dealer published a deeply reported series titled The Five Ohios. It was conceived as a responseperhaps rebuke is a better wordto decades of journalism by people who dont live here presuming to tell the stories of the eleven million people who do. It could have been subtitled Weve Had It Up to Here.

By 2004, Ohio had picked the winner in every presidential election except two for the previous 104 years. Once again, we were the landing pad for national political reporters swooping in for a quick stereotype or two. You can find someone to say something stupid on any corner in America, and Ohio becomes the promised land for that nonsense every four years. Rent a car, eat in a diner, and find five people to confirm your worst assumptions about us. File the story and off you go. Dont forget to mention how folksy we are.

The problem with this coverage, in Ohio and across the Midwest, is that its a collage of snapshots rather than a mirror that reflects the complex alignments and vulnerabilities unique to each state.

In 2004, for example, part of Ohio was the industrial heartland. Another part was the farm belt, and yet another was Appalachian. In the southwest corner, southern accents and Republicans were prevalent, while in central Ohio, Columbus was already becoming the largest city in the state, and becoming more liberal because of those who were moving there.

Try illustrating that rich diversity of a Midwestern state with a days worth of interviews in a town of your choice. You may laugh, but plenty of reporters did just that.

As a columnist at The Plain Dealer in 2004, I appreciated the hard work of my colleagues, but I wasnt surprised by their findings. I grew up in small-town Ashtabula, about an hours drive east of Cleveland on Interstate 90. When I was younger, I used to joke to people that it was a town you passed on your way to somewhere else. I dont say that anymore because the people of my roots dont deserve to be a punchline. We were a racially diverse, working-class town where a lot of union families could afford to dream big for their kids.

I was the first in my working-class family to go to college, so I learned all about Midwestern stereotypes, one ignorant question at a time. In every year of elementary school, half of my classmates were black. To this day, I can state that single fact and watch the mouths of educated white people fall open like a Lake Erie perch. When I was younger, that reaction used to offend me. Now its a hobby. The only way we break down false narratives about our part of the country is to tell our stories, one clich-crashing tale at a time.

To do this, we must wrestle the narrative away from people who think were all just whats-the-matter-with-Kansas. Thats why this diverse collection of essays is so important. Midland: Reports from Flyover Country doesnt just challenge stereotypes about this part of the country; it grabs you by the shirt collar and yanks you into the world as we know it. The view is beautiful, and often heartbreaking. These writers have not forgotten the people of their roots, but they also dont pretty them up for public consumption. We are messy and complicated, and built layer by layer. Peel those layers back, and you get to the heart of who we are.

A good book surprises you, even catches you off guard, and that was surely true for me as I read these stories, even though Ive lived in the Midwest all of my life. You think you know yourself, but then you find out there are entire parts of your story youve yet to discover. I wish I could share a quote or two from every essay in this book. Instead, Ill mention just one, Bryan Mealers Cant We All Just Get Along? A Road Trip with My Trump-Loving Cousin, because it captures the essence of what this book sets out to do. Life will surprise you, time and again. I started out not wanting to read Bryans essayTrump? No, thanksand now, weeks later, Im still thinking about it.

Frances loves Donald Trump and Bryan doesnt. In the second sentence, we find out Frances has made a crude comment about immigrants. Why, I said out loud, does he want to spend any time with this woman?

The answer comes in layers.

Shes his cousin.

I sigh and nod.

Weve got those in my family, too, including my late brother, a proud Trump supporter even after he lost his job, his car, and his home. Some of my friends, after hearing my account of yet another frustrating conversation with him, would demand to know why I even bothered. My answer was always the same: He was my baby brother, and I loved him before he loved Trump.

Bryans humanity, and his innate curiosity about his cousin, allows him, and us, to see the layers that built Frances, from the broken dreams of her childhood to the unfulfilled promises of her life as a young woman. She pokes and prods him, seemingly eager to ignite their differences, but he remains calm and stays curious as they drive toward the White House for an event where Frances hopes to shake the presidents hand. Bryan has a plan. Along the way, Frances has to meet various groups of people she thought were her collective enemy until they start talking to one another. She is a captive audience in the car as Bryan launches debates about Christianity, LBGTQ rights, Black Lives Matter, and guns, for starters.