Midwest Greeting

One nice thing about growing up in the Midwest is relationships. My east coast-reared husband reminds me that our connections and relationships are a special thing and in some way unique to the Midwest.

As an example, this evening, our church played host to the Houghton College Choir. As I read about the Brandon Johnson in the program, I learned that he had completed his undergraduate work at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. Like my alma mater Luther College, Concordia is one of the five Norwegian-founded, private, four-year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

After the concert, I introduced myself by saying I needed to greet a fellow-Midwesterner and that I had attended Luther. Before I could even realize it, he was giving me the Midwestern greeting, which is almost always a hug, even if you don't know the person. We exchanged a few college notes, he told me that he and Luther's Nordic Choir's conductor, Craig Arnold grew up in the same town. I told him that I was recently at Augustana College and that their choir conductor is a Luther grad. And, then we said mean things about St. Olaf. Kidding!