The Istoriaphile’s Corner

The mercury’s dropping tonight and most Southerners I know hate the cold.  We’re starting school later, turning on space-heaters, taping shut doors and doing every last thing we can think of to avoid exposure to frost.   Well, some Southerners can’t handle cold.  We can tolerate endless heat, corrupt politicians and bad manners from visiting outsiders but our homes and our lives aren’t made for frigid temps and sub-zero windchills.  So we check our weather apps and complain about the artic blasts because most Southerns prefer not to suffer in silence.   For cold tolerance and stoic behavior you have to travel to the plains where I grew up.   Kansans have made an art form out of endurance.   Maybe that’s why William Inge’s prairie characters work so well in his plays, especially “Bus Stop”.  These folk know how to deal with a cold, dark night. If you’ve seen the movie Bus Stop (and if you haven’t, don’t bother) you may think this is another Marilyn Monroe vehicle but the play is not.  Bus Stop is really about feeling cold and lonely  and there are few places as cold and lonely at a diner in the middle of Kansas.  Some of the characters…