ONLY THOSE IN LOVE WITH THE PRAIRIE WILL UNDERSTAND THIS

It was soon after crossing into Iowa, coming south from Minnesota, that I gradually became conscious of the wind.

I don't know whether you know that long, sad wind that blows so steadily across the hundreds of miles of Midwest flat lands in the summertime. If you don't, it will be hard for you to understand the feeling I have about it. Even if you know it, you may not understand.

To me the summer wind in the Midwest is one of the most melancholy things in all life. It comes from so far, and it blows so gently and yet so relentlessly; it rustles the leaves and the branches of the maple trees in a sort of symphony of sadness, and it doesn't pass on and leave them still. It just keep coming, like the infinite flow of Old Man River.

You could—and you do—wear out your lifetime on the dusty plains with that wind of futility blowing in your face. And when you are worn out and gone, the wind, still saying nothing, still so gentle and sad and timeless, is still blowing across the prairies, and will blow in the faces of the little men who follow you, forever.

--Ernie Pyle, 1935, in Nichols: Ernie's America