On a cross country trip, against the westerly teeth of winter on the great plains, Jack wears a new argyle sweater. Like boy scouts, we are prepared to slide off any two lane highway…and you should be also.

Staring through the windshield, that soft edge trapezoid that resembles wide screen HDTV, the majority of billboards on I-70 are advertising casinos and strip clubs and mega-churches. Not for us, as it is a sure bet we won’t remove our sweaters in Sunday School, so we opt for Missouri 36, the high road. Now the outdoor ads are soliciting our interest in the sterile, homogenous housing tracts starting at $ 219,000, or as my daughter described them, the scrubdivisions.

Glamorous names like Hunter’s Run or Prairie Walk at Riverstone threaten credulity. Really now, can you imagine gun-toting, camo-dressed, pheasant bashers trotting around your cul-de-sac ? With flourescent orange Stormy Kromer hunting hats ? Yes, yes, we are in Missouri, where, unlike Tennessee, the trailers have tires and anything is possible.

Traveling east to west, I’ve often wondered where the fulcrum is located that divides our grand country into a teeter-totter, the west coast from the left coast. Perhaps Greensburg, Ks. (pop.1500), until it was destroyed by a tornado in May 2007, eight lives lost and a community leveled. Maybe it is now Hutchinson, Ks., covered in rime (hoarfrost), a result of thick fog and 24F this morning, the landscape is surreal.

For years I observe an early morning tradition: to always notate the first out-of-state license plate I see. This A.M. it was a New Hampshire, Disabled Veteran plate. What are the odds ?