|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| HEARTLAND POWER | |
 April 9, 2001 
|
|
|
|
|
JIM FISHER: The coal trains seem almost endless: 130 cars, vexing drivers held at crossings, car after car... [ Train whistle blows ] ...Each hopper carrying 80,000 pounds of the low-sulfur fuel. One train means 12 more hours of power for one the several big coal-fired electrical generators around Kansas City and, for that matter, throughout most of the Middle West. After this long winter and cold early spring, those waiting at the crossbars have seemed more patient than in past years. The coal trains mean the lights will stay on. If you want to bring a smile to somebody's face these days in the vast middle part of the country, say "electricity" or "California." Midwesterners these days are a little smug. They've got plentiful electricity, albeit expensive; ditto natural gas, also high, but no shortages. Call it conceit born of insularity or unhealthy regionalism, perhaps a residual inferiority complex brought about by years of gazing at movies and television. Like children with their noses pressed against a windowpane, the lights of California have always fascinated Midwesterners, lights that seem never-ending; palm trees and warm weather; movie stars; jobs'; Chevy 409s; and surfboards; tanned youth; and emerging societal trends we here in the so-called fly-over country wouldn't see for years. Why the attraction of the lights? Simple. Drive through the high plains or amid the Ozark hills on a dark night still and there are only occasional pinpricks of illumination: A lonely farmstead, a solitary gas station, darkness on an empty land, a world away from the kaleidoscopic, illuminated panorama of the L.A. Basin or the Bay Area. Now from resplendent California we hear news of brownouts and rolling blackouts, of traffic lights, which don't work, of useless ATMs, service by flashlight, darkened computer screens, and worse to come when hot weather kicks the air conditioners on. So folks here are taking a certain gratification in the long coal trains. It's not about the discomfiture of those on the West Coast. Lord knows, most of us here have relatives out there. JUDY GARLAND SINGING: Somewhere over the rainbow... JIM FISHER: Reporter: Some of it, frankly, goes to all the comedic barbs about the Midwest, plus there's "The Wizard of Oz," the dust bowl, Carry Nation, the gothic black-and-white images of the movie "In Cold Blood," even the recent flapdoodle over the teaching of evolution in Kansas-- payback time for all those times our noses have been against the windowpane, yearning perhaps for that edginess the West Coast life seems to offer: Occasional earthquakes, not-so- occasional car chases, mudslides, criminal trials of the century. But power shortages? No, not that edgy. Call it Midwestern stoicism, but flipping a switch and knowing the lights will come is a valued constant in our flatland existence. Now we hear the latest news. The prestigious Los Angeles Times has announced that dreaded nuclear power may not be so bad after all, even for California. Hey, we've got that. In fact, there are two other nuclear plants, much like this one, within 120 miles of Kansas City, just humming along, generating plenty of power, keeping the lights on. [Train whistle blows ] One has to wonder, could we, despite being rustics living in what one writer called that "ugly, barren space from which people come, but do not return," could we have stumbled onto a trend? [ Train whistle blows ] I'm Jim Fisher. |
 |
        |
|
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | ||
| ||
| PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. | ||
| ||
