Missouri...Southern or Midwestern? (St. Louis, Columbia: settlement, territory, pronounced)

[GunnerTHB]

Originally Posted by Flyover_Country

I couldn't tell you about the dumplings. My parents are from well north of Missouri and weren't really big on cooking anything except desserts. My mother loves to cook pies and cakes and cookies, but not so much main dishes. My dad would occasionally grill but it really wasn't his thing. So if dumplings were something Midwestern, she wouldn't have cooked them anyway. If they were Southern, she would have avoided making them just on principle as my folks were from Up North and refuse to like anything Southern if they knew it's Southern. We all moved to Missouri when I was fairly young, so I really did grow up a Missourian, with the subtle Southern influences and all.

The subtle Southern influences in Missouri really didn't become obvious until I was an adult. I would sometimes do "odd" things like order biscuits and grits at a restaurant for breakfast or be willing to tend to ribs on my offset smoker for 4-6 hours rather than want to cook burgers on the grill because they were done in 15 minutes, unlike my parents. I didn't see anything odd about it, but they did. They are teetotalers so I don't drink in front of them, but my favorite drink is a Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, three good fingers' worth on the rocks. That's not a Northerner's drink by any means; Northerners drink beer, sometimes with crap like tomato juice in it. ("Red beer" is a Nebraska thing and an utter waste of perfectly good beer. The only acceptable thing to do to beer is to put a lemon wedge in a Boulevard Wheat.) It's clearly an environmental thing because one of my brothers who also moved to Missouri when he was young and grew up there also acquired a love of barbecued pork, despite also taking a job up north as an adult. We joke that we're two of the few people Up North that make real barbecue. I wouldn't be too surprised to see us move back to the confused state that can't decide if it's Midwestern or Southern. Pancake-flat treeless lands and sloppy joes being called "barbecue" just doesn't rub me quite right.

lol! I see. Missouri is neat because of all the variety we have. The whole time I was growing up I looked at the things my family did & the things we ate & other stuff and as I got older I started to compare to what others do.

My perception of Missouri, having lived in Cape Girardeau County the whole time I was growing up, was a state that was close (physically & culturally) to Extreme Southern Illinois, Western KY, and NW Tennessee. Whenever people talked about Columbia, Kansas City, or Springfield, those places were far enough away they might as well be in a different state. Subtle things, like how it made more sense to take a trip to Kentucky Lake instead of staying in state & going to Lake of the Ozarks, or how the local TV station covers 5 states, 3 of which are much more southern than midwestern.

The more I got out and went to different places the more I realized that I couldn't possibly be a midwesterner. The way they talked was funny to me, the things they ate weren't things we typically had at our English/Welsh family dinners, and where most of my ancestors moved to Missouri from in the 1800's and early 1900's. Family gatherings are somewhat casual but extremely respectful (especially towards the elders). I simply can't even picture myself having more in common with someone from Iowa or central Illinois (Much less places north of there) than someone from Arkansas or Tennessee.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by onegoalstl

MO has a lot of Waffle Houses, or I like to call them Awful houses.

The farthest north one I know of was on Rangeline and I-70 in Columbia, a couple miles from where I used to live. There are a *lot* of them down South, and yes, I've eaten at them. They are not great but not that bad.

I notice the more south you go in Missouri, the more country and gospel stations. Especially when traveling when you get to near Cape I notice more of them.

Country stations are the majority of stations on the dial no matter where you go in the middle of the country. I've been to most of the states in the Southeast and center part of the country (including many northern states) in the past year and that's been pretty consistent throughout all of them. Maybe the gospel stations are more numerous down South, but I don't listen to gospel and thus don't even search through stations below 90.1 MHz because those are all public access or religious stations. I know most stations are country because my wife listens to country and loves that she has about ten stations to choose from at any time. Ditto with my father, despite his Northern roots. That's true even in very northern states- you have guys with darn near Canadian accents being DJs on country stations- it's hilarious.

I mostly listen to rock and there's unfortunately not much of it on the air any more, unless you like oldies or '80s hair bands. That also seems to be pervasive throughout the central part of the country and the Southeast. You have to be near a fairly large city to even stand a chance of hearing remotely modern rock on the air. I haven't been up to Seattle in a long while, maybe they still have a few stations that play good music since the '90s rock revival started out there.

[onegoalstl]

Originally Posted by GunnerTHB

lol! I see. Missouri is neat because of all the variety we have. The whole time I was growing up I looked at the things my family did & the things we ate & other stuff and as I got older I started to compare to what others do.

My perception of Missouri, having lived in Cape Girardeau County the whole time I was growing up, was a state that was close (physically & culturally) to Extreme Southern Illinois, Western KY, and NW Tennessee. Whenever people talked about Columbia, Kansas City, or Springfield, those places were far enough away they might as well be in a different state. Subtle things, like how it made more sense to take a trip to Kentucky Lake instead of staying in state & going to Lake of the Ozarks, or how the local TV station covers 5 states, 3 of which are much more southern than midwestern.

The more I got out and went to different places the more I realized that I couldn't possibly be a midwesterner. The way they talked was funny to me, the things they ate weren't things we typically had at our English/Welsh family dinners, and where most of my ancestors moved to Missouri from in the 1800's and early 1900's. Family gatherings are somewhat casual but extremely respectful (especially towards the elders). I simply can't even picture myself having more in common with someone from Iowa or central Illinois (Much less places north of there) than someone from Arkansas or Tennessee.

Not to mention, Cape is like just under 3 hours away from the MS State line.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by GunnerTHB

lol! I see. Missouri is neat because of all the variety we have. The whole time I was growing up I looked at the things my family did & the things we ate & other stuff and as I got older I started to compare to what others do.

My perception of Missouri, having lived in Cape Girardeau County the whole time I was growing up, was a state that was close (physically & culturally) to Extreme Southern Illinois, Western KY, and NW Tennessee. Whenever people talked about Columbia, Kansas City, or Springfield, those places were far enough away they might as well be in a different state. Subtle things, like how it made more sense to take a trip to Kentucky Lake instead of staying in state & going to Lake of the Ozarks, or how the local TV station covers 5 states, 3 of which are much more southern than midwestern.

The more I got out and went to different places the more I realized that I couldn't possibly be a midwesterner. The way they talked was funny to me, the things they ate weren't things we typically had at our English/Welsh family dinners, and where most of my ancestors moved to Missouri from in the 1800's and early 1900's. Family gatherings are somewhat casual but extremely respectful (especially towards the elders). I simply can't even picture myself having more in common with someone from Iowa or central Illinois (Much less places north of there) than someone from Arkansas or Tennessee.

My extended family is in that east Iowa/north Illinois area you say you can't picture yourself having much in common with. My immediate family also spent over a decade only a couple hours away from Canada, and that's where I was born and spent my early years. My ancestors came in from Ireland and Germany to there in the mid-1800s, likely around the time of the Irish potato famine and the failed German Revolution of 1848. They were very much Union backers. I lived the large majority of my life in the portions of Missouri you felt like were a different state, and apparently it is halfway between the culturally northern area my family was originally from and the Southern area you grew up in. I also didn't go fishing at The Lake of the Ozarks, I went up to Canada to catch walleye and northern pike as that was my immediate family's tradition. (The Northern tradition is to go north, and there wasn't much more north to go from where we used to live until you were in Canada.) The Lake isn't reputed to be a very good fishing spot due to all of the partying and boat traffic. Kentucky Lake looks to be much better for fishing. I've driven past there on I-24 many times but never stopped to fish.

I thought I had everything in common with Iowans/Illini/Northerners and nothing in common with Southerners until I spent a little time in the Southeast and also in some rural areas around Springfield. I thought that I would fit in about as well there as a square peg in a round hole, given my spending my early years in a far northern state and my folks spending several decades in a northern area. Nope, few suspected I had a Northern lineage. However, just about everybody very quickly noticed I wasn't a local when I took a job in the very southeastern tip of South Dakota. Perhaps Columbia and Springfield don't have a lot in common with Cape, but they sure as heck don't have much in common with places only two hours north of the Missouri border. You'd think I was from Mississippi from their comments...

[onegoalstl]

Originally Posted by Flyover_Country

My extended family is in that east Iowa/north Illinois area you say you can't picture yourself having much in common with. My immediate family also spent over a decade only a couple hours away from Canada, and that's where I was born and spent my early years. My ancestors came in from Ireland and Germany to there in the mid-1800s, likely around the time of the Irish potato famine and the failed German Revolution of 1848. They were very much Union backers. I lived the large majority of my life in the portions of Missouri you felt like were a different state, and apparently it is halfway between the culturally northern area my family was originally from and the Southern area you grew up in. I also didn't go fishing at The Lake of the Ozarks, I went up to Canada to catch walleye and northern pike as that was my immediate family's tradition. (The Northern tradition is to go north, and there wasn't much more north to go from where we used to live until you were in Canada.) The Lake isn't reputed to be a very good fishing spot due to all of the partying and boat traffic. Kentucky Lake looks to be much better for fishing. I've driven past there on I-24 many times but never stopped to fish.

I thought I had everything in common with Iowans/Illini/Northerners and nothing in common with Southerners until I spent a little time in the Southeast and also in some rural areas around Springfield. I thought that I would fit in about as well there as a square peg in a round hole, given my spending my early years in a far northern state and my folks spending several decades in a northern area. Nope, few suspected I had a Northern lineage. However, just about everybody very quickly noticed I wasn't a local when I took a job in the very southeastern tip of South Dakota. Perhaps Columbia and Springfield don't have a lot in common with Cape, but they sure as heck don't have much in common with places only two hours north of the Missouri border. You'd think I was from Mississippi from their comments...

Interesting. My philosophy teacher I had for a summer class was from Iowa. He stated Missouri is totally different when he crosses the border and especially as you head south in the state. He says even the people sound different in Missouri, and how Iowa doesn't feel like the bible belt at all, but that Missouri is the bible belt.

It is amazing to this day though if you look at the religion map how there is a sharp divide at the MO, IA, NE, KS, IL border of protestants in MO. Same thing with Oklahoma and the KS border a sharp divide. Amazing how over 150 years the boundaries are still basically the same.

While Nothern MO today is basically Midwester, traces of its southern heritage still remain to this day.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by onegoalstl

Interesting. My philosophy teacher I had for a summer class was from Iowa. He stated Missouri is totally different when he crosses the border and especially as you head south in the state. He says even the people sound different in Missouri, and how Iowa doesn't feel like the bible belt at all, but that Missouri is the bible belt.

It is amazing to this day though if you look at the religion map how there is a sharp divide at the MO, IA, NE, KS, IL border of protestants in MO. Same thing with Oklahoma and the KS border a sharp divide. Amazing how over 150 years the boundaries are still basically the same.

While Nothern MO today is basically Midwester, traces of its southern heritage still remain to this day.

This is such nonsense. The bible thumpers in Iowa are a big part of the reason that the Iowa straw poll has become pretty meaningless. They're far more right than the majority of conservatives in this country.

[onegoalstl]

Originally Posted by aragx6

This is such nonsense. The bible thumpers in Iowa are a big part of the reason that the Iowa straw poll has become pretty meaningless. They're far more right than the majority of conservatives in this country.

Really? Iowa seems to be more moderate than other states such as KS, MO, OK, TN ect. At the state level Iowa is more moderate.

Also all because one is Republican doesn't mean they are right wing. You have Mitt Romney who is a libtard.

Obama won IA too. Even though MO has two major cities, McCain was still able to win unlike Iowa that does not have very large urban areas.

[MoNative34]

Iowa is sort of politically split in half between the eastern part of the state and the western part.

[onegoalstl]

Originally Posted by MoNative34

Iowa is sort of politically split in half between the eastern part of the state and the western part.

True. Also I think farming is a factor too. A lot of farmers vote Democrat because they get more subsidies for their crops.

In Missouri the cotton areas of Southeast MO many still vote dixiecratish. However I think that is from being raised to vote Democrat due to the war of Northern Agression. Peter Kinder once said thats the reason why in SE MO some areas still vote democrat. Remember SE MO was the most pro secession area of the state.

However northern MO and areas like that tend to lean heavily Republican.
Can you imagine if North St. Louis county, and north St. Louis didn't exist how RED this state would be?

Most of the remaining Democrats in the Missouri House and Senate are from the St. Louis area. Democrats are a dying breed in the MO Senate. Assuming Obummer continues to struggle and a large Republican turnout next year expect those numbers to get smaller possibly. Plus if we can knock off Jay Nixon and get Kinder in the mansion with Republican domination, Missouri will get a lot of progress made!

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by onegoalstl

True. Also I think farming is a factor too. A lot of farmers vote Democrat because they get more subsidies for their crops.

In Missouri the cotton areas of Southeast MO many still vote dixiecratish. However I think that is from being raised to vote Democrat due to the war of Northern Agression. Peter Kinder once said thats the reason why in SE MO some areas still vote democrat. Remember SE MO was the most pro secession area of the state.

However northern MO and areas like that tend to lean heavily Republican.
Can you imagine if North St. Louis county, and north St. Louis didn't exist how RED this state would be?

Most of the remaining Democrats in the Missouri House and Senate are from the St. Louis area. Democrats are a dying breed in the MO Senate. Assuming Obummer continues to struggle and a large Republican turnout next year expect those numbers to get smaller possibly. Plus if we can knock off Jay Nixon and get Kinder in the mansion with Republican domination, Missouri will get a lot of progress made!

Blame it on the blacks.

Your final graph is entirely political and completely outside the bounds of this forum. I think we're about done here, no?