We just returned from a tromp through the Midwest paying visits to friends and relatives sorely missed. Our final evening treated us with a fierce thunderstorm — blowing down trees and knocking out power lines — that put the fireworks displays to shame.

The trip was a reminder of how distant I am from the place I grew up, from the thick humidity and stifling temperature extremes, ridiculously large trucks, smeared fireflies on windshields and the constant chirping of locusts that you forget are there until they’re not. Also, the ham that comes on a “vegetarian” pizza (how charming), the mass dumping of perfectly good drinking water on imported grass to keep it green, chatty waitressing, and especially, the wide open landscapes of the great plains that make you feel claustrophobic when you return to the Northwest, where there’s a tree sticking in your face every time you turn around. I miss it all, but would never want it back.