Home is Where the Carharts Are

Since it's my first day home for Christmas, and since it's 10am and no one else is awake in the house, and since I've already made a trip into the booming metropolis of Ada, Ohio and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic, I've decided to blog. About my trip to McDonalds.

Not a McDonalds in some remote, exotic location. The one in Ada, Ohio. That's Hardin County, for those who are a little rusty on their Ohio geography.

I flew in from Quito last night. This morning I was awake at 7:20, even though my alarm was set for 9am. It was still dark out. This threw me off. I had forgotten how late it gets light in the winter, after two years of living on the equator. Anyway, I had promised to mail some documents for a friend via express mail, so I got up and got ready to go out.

I stepped outside in my winter coat (which I hadn't seen for two years) and reveled in the crispy, almost-hurty feel of breathing in air which has been chilled to about 10 degrees Farenheit. Somehow air that cold seems fresh and clean; as if just breathing it might have some sort of ancient medicinal purpose.

Ok, in all honesty, breathing cold air is only romantic for about 2 or 3 days. Then it returns to just breathing cold air. But we may as well appreciate the romance while it lasts, right?

Anywho, I hopped in the trusty old Pontiac Aztec and headed for Ada. After an uneventful and quite pleasant experience at the Ada Post Office, I got back in the car to drive, quite literally, across the street into the McDonald's parking lot. After several years of walking most places, this seemed very silly to me. But it seemed rude to continue taking a "post office parking space" (of which there are only 3) instead of driving into Ronald's (quite spacious and mostly empty) lot. So I moved. But I digress. What I actually wanted to say came after I had seated myself in a booth with my sausage biscuit with egg and cheese, my delicious-and-horribly-bad-for-you hashbrown, and my orange juice.

[sidenote: they forgot to put the cheese on my biscuit, so when I pointed it out and asked if they would mind fixing it for me, the lady was polite and apologized TWO TIMES for the mistake!! I almost fainted. God bless America's somewhat over-inflated value of the customer always being right.]

There I was in my booth. Daylight had finally arrived for us in the far northern arctic regions. The sun was shining with all its might, and though it was succeeding in making the day sparkle, it wasn't really warming things up much. From my booth I had a view of the post office and a church across the street. An American flag snapped in the cold winter wind. Greenery and bows decked the church. I watched pickup after pickup drive past on Ada's main drag.

Back in the warmth of the restaurant, I eavesdropped on the conversation of an older man with his son and grandson. The older two men were wearing baseball caps (as were literally ever other adult man I saw while I was there) and they were chatting and enjoying their three-generational breakfast together.

Approximately 50% of the people I saw this morning were wearing at least one item of clothing made by Carhart. This is noteworthy to me, because just last week in the lunchroom at school, I had a conversation with some of my friends about Carharts. There was much confusion in the largely non-agrarian crew.

Just like the time I had to explain to friends what 4-H is; or the time when I struggled to convince a friend that I wasn't actually from a town or city (she insisted that EVERYONE had to be from SOMEWHERE; and her perspective of "somewhere" was within some city limit); or the time when I guessed "volunteer crop" instead of "weed" as the answer for the clue "a plant that grows where you didn't want it to be" in a game of CatchPhrase, I again found myself thankful for my rural upbringing.

People call us lots of things: hicks, rednecks, hayseeds, provincial, to mention some of the kinder ones. But I'll tell you what; farmers are some of the best, hardest working people you'll ever meet anywhere. I know- I've been looking.