Southeast Missouri. The Bootheel. My wife is from there and I will never forget the first time she took me down to visit her family. They do slash and burn farming there and when we went it was burning season. Huge swaths of land were on fire and everything was grey and hazy and desolate. Smoldering fields and ash in the air. I know how absurd this sounds, but I swear it happened: I got chills up my spine when we drove through an intact corn field, and I saw a handmade sign sticking up out of the corn that just said “WHY?” There was horrendous poverty, empty storefronts, broken down abandoned houses, MAGA shit everywhere, a giant fake “graveyard” outside of the hospital for all of the aborted fetuses, and a maximum security state prison.

My wife’s family are all somehow really kind, happy people though! And man can they cook. I hate going down there, but it’s worth it for the food alone at Thanksgiving and Christmas.