How’re ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, once they’ve drank a Starbucks?

I’ve recently been having some pretty interesting discussions by email with a couple of former students. They’ve both excelled academically, I believe, proving the benefits of a small school education. One is a Sociology major at Georgetown University in the Washington D.C. area. The other is working on their Master’s Degree in Communications at a University in London, England.

First of all, this wonderful thing called email is amazing. Without it, I couldn’t write to these kids who are thousands of miles away a couple times a day, before and after school end receive their responses sometimes within minutes.

The student in London can’t wait to finish his degree and return home to Iowa. He doesn’t even want to live in Ames or Des Moines or Omaha, Nebraska, he wants to put his roots back down right here in Crawford County. Score one win against the “brain-drain,” right?

But he seems to be facing quite a bit of opposition on both sides of the Atlantic. Friends and family members here don’t want him to “sell himself short.” They’re very proud of him and want him to see the world while he’s still young.

Friends, colleague and cohorts in London are perplexed that he’d want to return. They assume he should pursue a career in academia, teaching and doing research in college forever. He’s weary of always being in school but never really starting life. He’d just assume be a farmer, sort livestock and mend fences.

The student at Georgetown feels like everyone is staring at her when she walks into the local tavern back home in Dunlap. She wrote a paper for a History course about how differently rural Midwesterners and metropolitan Easterners dress. Midwesterners value physical labor, a strong work-ethic and plan talk, but hate pretentiousness and rampant materialism. And they have a hard time understanding the value of mostly intellectual and abstract labor, like data processing, information technology and excessive reading.

When she comes home, she feels somewhat judged for indulging in exotic coffees, stylish clothing and ethnic cuisine. Yet, this is a kid who is more compassionate and concerned about economic inequality and social justice than most any Midwesterner I know.

The kid in London wrote a thesis on rural Midwestern speech patterns. He’s even applying for a fellowship from some institution to study it for a PhD. He figures it will be at least one way to get back home. He can research, analyze and write at night and be a farm hand for his neighbor or work as a contractor for his cousin during the day. He’s observed that Iowans don’t speak much. And we really don’t speak much about our feelings.

He says we pretty much talk about work, and sometimes about the weather, which of course effects our work, especially for farmers. I think that most Iowans could’ve told you that without a bunch of high-falootin’ academic jargon about linguistics and grammatical construction and what not.

He thinks that most of the people who don’t want him to come home are trying to live vicariously through his adventures. Well, duh. He spent a semester teaching English in a suburb of Shanghi China, he took a road trip to Ireland to tour the Guinness brewery and visit medieval castles. He’s going to art museums in Paris and seeing musicals and dancing at night clubs in London. Of course people are living vicariously through his adventures.

The Washington D.C. kid spent a semester in South Africa, and just happened to check out the art museums in Amsterdam during a layover between fights. She’s making every effort to visit museums in our nations’ capital and in Yew York City whenever she can.

When she’s done with college, she hopes to work for the State Department or some international Non-Government Organization (NGO) helping people in developing nations with urban planning and solving the problems caused by the gap between rich and poor. Yet she has a hard time coming home because people think she’s full of herself because she’s used to dressing up for class or work and looking professional.

The kid in London just wants to hang out with the guys at the local bar and relax with a bud light after a long day of back breaking work that he can be proud of. But I worry about him fitting in. He loves to talk about books and theology and philosophy, and while he likes to wear Carhart overalls as much as the next “regular guy,” he also spikes his hair and wears ear rings.

I get a little stir crazy for a city once in a while myself. So once every month or so I get a chance to make it down to Omaha or up to Sioux City. I make it a point to spend $3 on a cup of fancy chocolate flavored coffee, but 9 times out of ten the traffic and clutter tick me off so much that I’m more than happy to come home to our cozy antique house quiet little hamlet, nestled in the rolling hills of corn and soybean fields.

Those college kids don’t know always how good they have it, but they also don’t know how lucky they are to come from someplace that nurtured them so much. Iowa really is a great place to grow.