Wyoming may be the rudest state
in America.
I grew up in upstate New York, where it was
rude not to introduce strangers to each other. If you neglected to
do this, you found yourself apologizing to the accidentally
slighted person.
Nothing in the preceding paragraph
applies to daily life in Wyoming. Even New York City, for all its
perceived urban boorishness, is probably light years ahead of the
Cowboy State in terms of manners.
Maybe Wyoming’s
determined rudeness is rooted in a taciturnity born of hardship, of
trying to make a go of life in an unforgiving place, thanks to the
vagaries of isolation, boom-bust economics, harsh weather and few
people. It may be a case of no opportunity for manners, as compared
to deliberate bad manners.
Unlike in some large cities,
this incivility shows itself not as an in-your-face or threatening
demeanor, but as a quiet and easygoing one. It’s one that says: I
don’t know you, and I’m going to ignore you.
I cannot
count the times I’ve had to introduce myself to people because our
host didn’t bother to do it, or the people I introduced myself to
failed to notice the overture. The latter situation many times
leads to the ‘one-sided’ introduction, where you approach a person,
introduce yourself, and then wait for them to tell you who they
are. They don’t. In the meantime, there might be chatty
conversation with this person, yet you will never learn their name.
I was hitchhiking locally once, and an old rancher picked
me up. He drove an ancient rattling blue pickup truck that was a
mess inside. As I sat surrounded by a clutter of beer cans,
fast-food wrappers and empty plastic motor-oil bottles, an
affectionate little border collie licked my face. I immediately
introduced myself to break the ice. The old-timer just turned to
me, nodded and smiled, but did not tell me who he was. In the
course of a few miles of small talk I tried once more, stating my
name and where I lived. Again, I got the same nod and smile. But
that was it. The paradox is that most Wyoming folks never hesitate
to pick up hitchhikers in the first place, and they’ll assist
motorists stranded out on a lonely stretch of highway in a
blizzard. But, when it comes to social interaction, they’re just
rude, that’s all. At least the dog was friendly.
Many
Wyomingites also seem surprisingly unfamiliar with the word
‘please.’ When I first moved to Cody in 1994, I was a waiter at the
legendary Irma Hotel, built by Buffalo Bill Cody in 1902, and named
for one of his daughters. Today, it’s the town’s most prominent
landmark. As locals perused the menu, I heard a lot of ‘I’m
wantin” and ‘Get me,’ as in: ‘I’m wantin’ a steak,’ and ‘Get me a
prime rib. OK?’ they would ask-say as they handed back the menu.
‘OK,’ I would dutifully repeat. No please-and-thank-you from these
old cowboys. ‘I’m wantin’….Get me….OK?’ And they were
chintzy tippers. In fact, there was a group of Chamber of Commerce
types that I secretly labeled ‘The 8 percent Club,’ but that’s
another story.
The curious thing is that Wyoming folks
are notorious for falling all over themselves to be nice to
tourists. These temporary visitors, particularly in Cody, are
fawned over and left with the impression that the Wyoming populace
is exceedingly hospitable and polite. The tourists have to actually
move here — many do, of course — to discover the truth.
Much of our homespun rudeness is a function of an endlessly
fascinating class system common to the rural West. The ‘buckaroo
aristocracy’ — a neat phrase coined by the late Bernard DeVoto,
once dean of Western historians — has always treated its inferiors
with kind of a jovial contempt: ‘You are lucky to live here;
therefore, know your place. Play the social and economic game our
way, or go down the road, cowboy.’ These fourth-and
fifth-generation scions of legendary ranchers and lawyers and
lawmen may now sell insurance or cars or real estate, though in
extreme cases they have been known to serve in the U.S. Congress.
There is a popular bumper sticker seen around here,
courtesy of folks who’d like the Endangered Species Act and its
federal agents to disappear. It reads: ‘Thanks for visiting
Wyoming. Now take a wolf home.’ As usual, they left out ‘please.’
Bill Croke is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado
(hcn.org). He is a writer and curmudgeon in Cody,
Wyoming.
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