The strange and wonderful world of Midwestern humor


Although I've spent all of my adult life in Arizona and California, I've never lost that strange sense of humor that I grew up with in Minnesota. But I have learned to try to watch myself, because it can cause some serious confusion with many of my friends here.

The Midwestern sense of humor is sometimes described as "dry", or "dead pan". If you're old enough to remember Johnny Carson, his humor was classic Midwestern. He often referred to his childhood in Nebraska, so it's obviously not limited to Minnesota. His comic delivery was done by saying something outrageous, and silly, without smiling. At all. That's a "dry" delivery. A "dead pan" means a face with no expression. It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder, "Is he kidding?" Yes, he is. And when he cracked up, it was wonderful. Because it's at that moment that even people who didn't get the joke understand that he was joking.

An example of a strange midwestern sense of humor would be if I texted someone that I was visiting my grandmother, and got texted back that I should tell her that she owed my friend 50 bucks, and never returned his Corvette. What? Is he kidding? Well, yes. And sometimes the kidding can be so "close to the vest" (another midwestern term meaning being subtle and kinda secretive) that it can be a bit worrisome. Fifty bucks? My grandmother? When did she borrow fifty bucks from my friend? And when did he lend anyone his Corvette? I thought he drove a Camry?

I've had a tendency towards this type of humor so much that sometimes people can't tell if I'm kidding. And for people who don't understand Midwestern humor, this can be disconcerting. If I tell someone that my dog is bad and sick, they may think that I'm trying to use goofy language from the '80s, or maybe my dog has been bad and is genuinely sick. It's important for me to clarify.

Taken to an extreme, cheerful midwestern humor can be cruel and hurtful sarcasm. I have a Black Belt in sarcasm, but I don't ever attack. If you hang around me, you should be able to tell that I have a quick wit, but I'm not cruel. Sarcasm used against innocent people is bullying. And I would never fight an unarmed opponent. So no. No.

For me, I prefer to be facetious (I had to look up how to spell that). I had a coach in high school describe me as that, which is kinda silly and sarcastic but in a cheerful and good-natured way. And being facetious is a wonderful way to look at some of the absurdities of life, so I will continue to be that way. If I'm in a group of people who are genuinely wondering if I'm kidding, and are concerned, I'll stop it.

There are a lot of Midwestern people in California and Arizona, and those people understand the Midwestern sense of humor right away. For those who don't, I smile and say "just kidding!"

Image at the top of this post: Me in Minne-snowta after a light dusting of snow in 1982. - Smile - no, just kidding, it was a record snowfall. You can Google the Minneapolis blizzard of '82 if you think I'm kidding. I'm serious here. No, really... come on... seriously...
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. If you like Phoenix history and would like to help support my efforts to preserve and share precious digital historic images, please consider becoming a patron. Thank you!

Become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more