It may just be me, but something very strange is happening here…
Clash of cultures is one thing, and that in itself can be entertaining and enlightening, when applied in the proper location and correct circumstances. But this is just plain weird to me. Here I am in a quiet little town in northeastern Minnesota, known to locals as the Iron Range, surrounded by glacial lakes, towering pines, peeling birch trees, and some of the oldest exposed bedrock in the world. At night you can still hear the wolves howling from the only location in the contiguous U.S. where they’ve never gone extinct. You may imagine me nestled in some cozy little cabin listening to a loon echo across a lake, or on a small fishing boat jigging for walleye, or gripping the handle bars of my ATV while roaring down some backcountry road. You may imagine that, and just a few years ago that would have been correct – but if you imagine it now you are wrong. I am sitting in a fanciful coffee shop listening to contemporary indie pop rock whose male singers sound more feminine than most women I’ve ever known. I’m sipping a mocha latte, chewing on a cappuccino bar, and watching the wildlife shuffling around inside this strange and alien place. The wildlife aren’t of the same species as I remember, in fact even mentioning a moose sighting these days will get you branded as a liar. The moose have been replaced by a new breed of super humans: now there are children no more than ten years of age watching movies on their phones, phones small enough to fit into the front pocket of their snug jeans that came pre-equipped with tears in the knees and flowers on the rears; teenage girls who no longer fill the air with gossip but instead are typing furiously on their laptops through some intangible conduit to friends they have never met; adult women who have never been in a city with a population larger than 50,000 yet are dressed in French caps and Greek skirts and carrying Italian purses, they’ve never been south of the 40th latitudinal meridian yet they have tans like a tropical senorita; and men who spend their days peeling logs or plowing snow or butchering deer yet here they are with creased slacks, black-framed European eyeglasses, and speaking critically of the fruit notes found in their iced coffee. Where am I? Last time I voyaged through this landscape any man who paid more than a buck for a coffee at a gas station would be mocked and ridiculed until he was embarrassed to leave the house. Now it is okay. Not only is it okay but it is the norm. The norm has changed into something far less normal. I am a hypocrite. The temptations are too strong. The technology omnipotent. The simple life is now some place that can only be visited in a DeLorean at speeds above 88 mph. I need to get away. I think I still know of a place where the internet speed coffee culture hasn’t released its influence into the air and smothered the instincts of natural sensations…
