Upon coming to the United States (or what a lot of United Staters like to call, “America”, and as a result the Staters prefer to call themselves “Americans” even though I’m pretty sure America is a whole continent that just a portion of which is the United States, or some consider it to be two continents because the United Staters separated it with their Panama Canal to make two continents: North and South) I was surprised to learn just how big the “Middle West” was. The Middle West begins in the eastern side of the country just past the mountains and stops in the middle of the country before you even get to the western half! The part of the country that starts in the middle and continues on into the western half is called the “Great Plains” or as people from this area seem to call it “Tornado Alley” because of all of the quick land cyclones that pass through. Here, on the edge of the Great Plains and at the end of the Middle West is Raytown, Missouri. Raytown is a suburb of Kansas City, (even though it is surrounded by Kansas City from all sides and I thought suburbs needed to be on the outer edges of a city, not on the inner edges of a city to count as suburban. However from what I witnessed most of Kansas City looks like what I would call a suburb: Single-family individual houses each with their own driveway and garage and their own green grass lawn to maintain and a side-walk to keep clean) and Missouri is one of the 50 states of the United States. I was told that Missouri was so average and “in the middle” that for 80 years a person could predict who was going to win the election for president of all of the states by referring to whomever won the presidential election in Missouri. I don’t think it’s that way anymore.
I think Raytown was started by a blacksmith, because the city sign that I saw featured an image of a blacksmith at an anvil declaring “Welcome to Raytown”. I assume the blacksmith’s name was Ray. When I asked people about Ray and his town’s history, most people didn’t want to talk about the past. Not the distant past. People seemed to want to talk about the recent past and how much things have changed recently since “they could recall”. Some things have changed for good and some things have changed for bad, depending upon who you ask. The older people who tended to be “white” (what they call people from a European descent. Or rather they call them Caucasian even though they mean many more different people than those that just come from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. I read somewhere that the U.S. census now considers anyone whose heritage comes from Iran and northward and towards the west into Europe and across North Africa to be Caucasian. Which is surprising to me because the people I met in the Middle West of America like to refer to the places from Iran westward across to Africa as the Middle East. Which is even bigger than the size of the Middle West! It’s twice the distance from Tehran to Cairo as it is from Pittsburgh to Kansas City!) remember when all of the businesses were local and family owned and you couldn’t drive so fast through town. They also remember there was a movie theater(cinema) and a rollerskating rink(wheels on your shoes!) and a pool hall(like billiards but different) in the downtown strip next to Fox’s Drugs. I didn’t need drugs but I was told Fox’s Drugs have the best milkshakes around. I’m lactose intolerant and so I didn’t go inside. The newer people who tended to be “black” (what they call people from African descent [but not usually North African descent], or what is considered more “politely” as African-American even though they don’t call white people European-American, they usually call them by their immigrant country or language of origin: Irish-American, German-American, Italian-American for examples. The President of the United States could be accurately called African-American because his father was from the African country of Kenya and thus Barak Obama was the child of an African immigrant in America. I believe his wife Michelle would be considered just “black” because her parents weren’t from Africa, they were from America which should make Michelle Obama an American-American, but people here insist that that isn’t how it works.) remember how the dangerous bridge over the train tracks was removed and the local schools have been renovated and the public park behind the elementary school has been redesigned to make it more safe and accessible for people in wheelchairs. The black people seem to be happy to live in Raytown and to send their children to highly regarded public schools. The white people don’t seem to be so happy that there are quite so many black people living in Raytown.
image courtesy of kctv: http://www.kctv5.com/story/29392667/raytown-police-warn-of-robbers-preying-on-craigslist-sellers
Nerdfighterfication's Welcome to Raytown Youtube video:
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