Remember This?

Okay, in case you doubted when I said it before (in this blog), you cannot doubt anymore.  It's a statistical FACT.  North Dakotans are nice.

During my 14-hour trip back to CO from ND, a few important things happened to me.  Not life-altering, but important.

• I had a lot of time to think.
• I was carrying 60 pounds of beef in my trunk.

The first one is obvious, right?  I mean, 14 hours, in a car, by myself, in the middle of nowhere.  What else is there to do, aside from lots of texting, phone calls to people one hasn't talked to in a long time, and jamming out to any radio station one can possibly find (because there aren't many out there).

I had a lot to think about.  As you probably read here, I had a lot going on over Christmas break, and was so torn over how to write blogs about my experiences that I even considered not writing the blog anymore at all.  I kept trying to come up with topics to write about and how to phrase them, but no matter what I thought, nothing sounded appropriate. 

Then, I had to stop near Fort Collins to drop off 30 pounds of beef to someone I'd never even met.

Now, you're all asking yourselves, "What in the world?  Why is 60 pounds of beef important?"  My first reply would be, "Well, everyone needs to eat to survive."  My second reply would be, "Because it allowed me to have a very interesting conversation with a man who, like me, values the niceties of North Dakotans.

The man who received half of the beef in my trunk is the nephew of my next-door neighbor.  He grew up in ND and stayed there until he was in his mid-20's.  We had a short discussion (over beef) concerning living in ND vs. CO, and swapped stories of nice North Dakotans and mean Coloradans.  I shouldn't say mean, but let's face it: they aren't as friendly as us North Dakotans.

The conversation was significant enough at the time that I planned on writing a whole blog strictly about it.  I didn't have time, and have lost a lot of the details since, so nothing came of it, obviously.  But that conversation was a topic I could finally find the words for, and it helped me to keep writing.

Then, nearly a week later, a Coloradan surprised me in the simplest manner.  He made my day, actually.  I was walking from my car to campus (I still park off-campus to save money), and passed a construction site.  As I passed this random construction man on the sidewalk, he said good morning.  I returned the greeting and haven't seen him since.

Anyway...  I tell you all that in order to get back to the point of the blog.  If you had doubts about my gross generalization about the character of North Dakotans before, you can't anymore, for this reason: On my way to school this morning, I was listening to a radio station that I don't typically listen to.  One of the female broadcasters had just come back from a cruise to Jamaica.  She said something with what is stereotypically called a "North Dakotan accent."  Her fellow broadcasters made fun of her incessantly for it, and they were making jokes about Fargo.  You know, the usual... 

Then, the lady said something like this, "Well, you know there is something else that makes the Jamaicans and North Dakotans similar."  Her coworkers said, "Oh, yeah?  What's that?"  She replied, "Well, they're just so darn friendly."

So there you have it, folks.  Undeniable proof that North Dakotans are friendly.  In case you didn't already know.