If the plumber is more than 15 minutes late, he apologizes profusely. The dollar goes about twice as far as it does in Boston. I live on a pretty, tree-lined street. My child walks four blocks to public school. The public library is breathtaking.
People are nice.
It is every clich you have ever heard of, except it is true. Iowans are, in a word, civilized, in part because the state is a civilized place. It has no wild outbacks, as Wisconsin and Minnesota have. It has no wild tradition, unless you count the hollers at the women's basketball games at the University of Iowa. As a professor, I'm dependent upon the state's economy.