Ninatoka Iowa

*In kiswahili that means "I come from Iowa"

I read a great article on Relevant yesterday about someone from the Northwest, and it got me thinking - I'm really proud to be a Midwesterner.

Some background for those of you that haven't been following along:

I was born in Lincoln Nebraska, lived there until just before kindergarten when we moved to Des Moines, Iowa. I'm still a hardcore Cornhusker fan, go to a few games each season, and my Grandma Donaldson still lives in Husker-ville.

I grew up in Des Moines (NOT the middle of a corn-field, but an actual-factual city with about 400,000 people) and went to Valley High School in West Des Moines. Great school, but really rich, white and not terribly diverse. I had a blast, and didn't realize what I was missing until I got the heck outta dodge.

After I went off to college in Cedar Falls, Iowa at the University of Northern Iowa, my parents moved to the great white north, and now live in Minneapolis...but will be relocating shortly to Iowa City, Iowa, home of the craptastic Iowa Hawkeyes. (I will cry when I go to visit, but am thankful that they're not in the Big 12.)

You know the rest. I ended up in Kansas City which is partially Midwestern, but definitely more southern than the way I was raised, and I miss certain Iowa traditions.

In the divine words of Olympia Dukakis, "I was brought up right."

1. I love corn on the cob, and one of my first home kitchen purchases were little corn on the cob skewers (The man that invented them was a freaking genius). Some of the best memories with my Dad are as a child, sitting on our front porch steps, husking corn before dinner. We always went outside, paper sack in hand, and he'd teach me how to clean of every bit of silk off the ear.

2. Hanging at the pool during the summer is a simply fantastic thing. After a few mediocre years of swim team, I realized that wasn't for me, but laying out and eating frozen snickers bars...now that's some great sh*t. On the real.

3. I decided to go to UNI when on my campus tour, EVERY person I passed said "hi" to me. This is not atypical. For instance, Iowans wave while driving (most common on two-lane roads). On my routine treks between Des Moines and Cedar Falls, most drivers would make eye contact, lift their pointer finger off the steering wheel and nod. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

4. I'm an avid proponent of local food and organic farming. I especially discovered these in Cedar Falls where the campus was surrounded by so many farms. Although we didn't have many markets, there was a great Mexican restaurant in Waterloo that served almost exclusively local food, and noted the percentage of each product at the tables. When farms are being collected by big conglomerates, the impact of just one restaurant supporting the economy is huge. I'm happy to see this trend continue around Kansas City at places like Blue Bird Bistro and Local Burger in Lawrence.

5. The scenery in the Midwest is exquisite. There's nothing more beautiful than an Iowa afternoon in July where the corn fields are emerald green and the breeze blows across the top, rippling the plants like an ocean wave.

Oppositely, I miss snow. There's precious little of it down here, and sledding is the deal. Good, appropriately overcrowded sledding on a golf course was our favorite pastime during a snow day in Des Moines. The governor even got in on it one year and got hit by a kid when they intersected at the bottom of a hill. How badass is that?

6. I love bike rides, and I'm not sure if that's to my father's credit or following RAGBRAI's annual trek. We used bike rides to "go exploring," one of our favorite pastimes. We'd get onto a bike path and go through new subdivisions, walking through houses and plotting which room would've been ours. It was simple and fun.

7. The 4th of July. Fireworks weren't as readily available as they are in Missouri, but the cities always had great displays. We'd haul lawn chairs and blankets and get eaten up by mosquitoes underneath the pyrotechnic display in the sky. I also have a special affinity for this holiday as I seem to recall kissing a boyfriend under the fireworks display...a majestic thing, indeed.

"And that's why I, Ally Moore, am proud to be an Iowan."

So, if any of my homies from back in the day are actually reading this, shout out some love in the comments. I wish I was sitting on the patio with you guys tonight, maybe somewhere like Jimmy's or Drink, kicking back, checking out the drink specials, and recognizing how the best part of an Iowa year is yet to come.