Anyone who has made the coast-to-coast journey across America, whether by train or car, has probably passed through Garden City, but it is reasonable to assume that few travelers remember the event. It seems another fair-sized town in the middle—almost the exact middle—of the continental United States. Not that the inhabitants would tolerate such an opinion—perhaps rightly. Though they might overstate the case … the newcomer to Garden City, once has adjusted to the nightly after-eight silence of Main Street, discovers much to support the defensive boastings of the citizenry: a well-run public library, a competent daily newspaper, green-lawned and shady squares here and there, placid residential streets where animals and children are safe to run free, a big, rumbling park with a small menagerie … .
Without exception, Garden Citians deny that the population of the town can be socially graded (No, sir. Nothing like that here. All equal, regardless of wealth, color, or creed. Everything the way it ought to be in a democracy; that’s us), but, of course, class distinctions are as clearly observable, as in any other human hive. A hundred miles west and one would be out of the “Bible Belt,” that gospel-haunted strip of American territory …
From “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote
I like Truman Capote. His writings get down to the point without beating around the bush. Isn’t it masterful the way he describes Middle America as an oasis of quiet existence, dull happiness, and Republican conservatism? He makes me feel as if I were watching life unfold before my very eyes in this country town. Of course, this area of the US no longer represents the core of America; the scale has tilted toward the big cities where a great number of new immigrants from many nations have settled down. Many have given their lives or their children’s for this country and have won this distinction with their blood, hard work, and sacrifice.
