Thanks, Napoleon

On a whim, I watched Napoleon Dynamite tonight. Made it a double-feature day, paired with Peter Weir's Master and Commander, which I watched earlier. (I know you don't care. Bear with me. But you do have to admit that's probably as mismatched a double feature as you've ever heard of.)

Napoleon Dynamite is just sooooo Eastern Idaho. Laid back nerds with delusions of grandeur. But like Uncle Rico and Kip (and, to a lesser extent, Napoleon) we find our own screwy, misfitted and, above all, local ways to pull ourselves out of the commonality and excel, even if it's only as the best Crapperware salesman in Preston.

I'm sure there are many who might regard living in a city like Preston -- a collection of just a few thousand souls, frankly, out in the middle of nowhere, even for Idaho. But I'd live there. I've lived in similar communities. Rexburg, for one, but i get the feeling that Preston is just a little bit more on the humble side than good ol' Rexburg. Idaho Falls has kind of that Preston vibe, even with it being a bigger city. But Preston. Good ol' Preston. Love driving through there now on the way to and from Logan, just to catch a glimpse of Big J's and the Pop'n'Pins Lanes.

Then there are those landscapes -- rolling hills, fields. Yeah, that's about it. Plus the juniper scrub and the doofy little forests in the folds of those hills, where the north wind can't get to. It just says home to me.