A few words to ponder, by Kurt Vonnegut
My brother sent me this, from a 2006 Stop Smiling interview with Kurt Vonegut:
SS: You and your family long ago gravitated East. What
is your theory about fresh water people versus
salt-water people?
KV: When my ancestors arrived, they were thunderstruck
by all this land. They were right in the middle of it.
Arable land stretched out for hundreds of miles in all
directions. So the land, the continent, was enough to
think about. New York and San Francisco and West Coast
people are oceanic really and feel very close to
Europe or to Asia and the people in the Middle West
are continental. One is not better than the other. It
just happens to be an interesting difference. Where
did you grow up?
SS: Illinois.
KV: All right. You’re a fresh water person.
Antron advised me to start thinking about which I am – saltwater or freshwater. My answer isn’t immediate, not like last week. I think I’m going to hang back and see how I feel in a couple of months. Hindsight is proverbial.
I am salt water, and so far from it. Don’t you just love the sound of the sea? Do you miss the sound of the wind in the corn? Having not grown upon a farm, I can say I pick the ocean, but I can see how you might be torn.
As a Chicago person I tend to think of myself as a green-water person.