EX-MIDS REVISITED.

EX-MIDS REVISITED. In the first six weeks of this blog I posted here on Calvin Trillin’s analysis of Expatriate Midwesterners—or Ex-Mids. I could not find the article, but now I have. It was in the New York Times for September 9, 1974. Trillin contrasted Gerald Ford and Thomas Dewey, both born in Michigan with distinguished national political careers. As Trillin says, Ford (“call me Jerry”) was an Ex-Mid and Thomas E. Dewey (“call me Governor”) was not. Trillin says that an Ex-Mids is terrified that somebody from his hometown will say that he has become too big for his britches. Trillin, who is from Kansas City, says he refers to his wife’s “fancy Eastern ways”; his wife refers to his “Kansas City act.” I am an Ex-Mid. Like Trillin, I have spent many years in the East and still refer to myself as being from Chicago.