Me and my big mouth, er… fat fingers.
One finely-tuned skill I developed from my many years of growing up in northeast Iowa is the ability to generalize in the most amazing ways. Generalization is a wonderful thing. It helps to homogenize life, so that good days end up being, “not bad,” and bad days end up being—you guessed it—”not bad.” Occasionally, you can throw in a “pretty good” just so people don’t think you’re a complete sop, but the result is basically the same.
This ability of mine to generalize, despite how incredibly stupendous it actually is, drives my wife completely nuts. It also makes most people think I don’t care about anything at all. In some cases, I go overboard and reveal more of my generalizing super power than most people can withstand.
This is what happened today.
All of my many multitude of faithful readers will have seen my comments (read: rant) about Kansas City, which was basically all of my complaints about it. I spent a great deal of effort contrasting it with Summit County, of which I’ve painted this idyllic picture. It’s not quite that, but close. 
I talked with a friend today that lives here in Kansas City, and he happens to really like living here. He ran across my blog this morning, and read my thoughts. I wouldn’t say he was upset about my comments, but he may have taken some of it personally. I don’t blame him.
My intent was not to smear the name of this city that I know many people love. To be honest, I was just rambling on in my saddened state as I try to come to grips with the choice I’ve made to leave somewhere I love for somewhere else I quite honestly don’t. I do admit, however, that some of my comments were inaccurate. Well, not inaccurate, but misdirected.
Kansas City, Missouri, is a very beautiful city. It has its bad areas just like any city, but some of the most revered and wonderful sights of the entire metro area are right in KCMO. It’s where a lot of the cool, old houses are. Many of the museums and unique shops are there. The jazz Kansas City is so famous for is there for the most part, too. There are many really unique areas that are in and out of Kansas City proper, too. Like Westport, Fariway (which is technically Kansas), The Plaza, etc. Our church is right there. I even work right up in the middle of all of that area, at the beautiful campus of the Kansas City Art Institute. That whole area is just brimming with culture.
So I’m sure you’re wondering what I meant with all of that talk last night about lack of culture, and a very two-dimensional community. Well, let me clarify.
Technically, I don’t live in Kansas City. I live in Olathe. Aside from having a name that easily qualifies it in the top ten of worst-named American cities, Olathe is most well-known as a suburb of Kansas City, in illustrious Johnson County. Johnson county is considered the place that houses all of the jet-setting prima-donnas. It’s rife with people busy keeping up with the Jones’, and folks busy getting into debt just to chase after that ever-elusive happiness everyone in America feels they deserve these days. After all, your car defines who you are as a man, and your family could never be happy in anything but the largest, most obscene houses you can find, right?
When I lived in Colorado, it was easier to tell people I was moving to Kansas City than it was to explain that I was moving to Olathe, and then have to explain that Olathe was a suburb in the southwest part of the city, yadda, yadda. After a while, I got the mindset that anywhere in the metro area could be referred to as “Kansas City” even if it’s not. Anyone who has been to or lives in New York could probably verify that Brooklyn is different from Queens is different from Manhattan is different from Long Island. The same principle applies here.
Johnson County != Kansas City.
So, please consider this my official apology. I didn’t mean to insult Kansas City or its residents. And to my buddy, Jake, I hope you didn’t take what I wrote too personally.
To you Johnson County folks.. well, you can go bite a rock.