GERALD FORD–EX-MID

December 30, 2006 at 9:24 AM · Uncategorized

GERALD FORD—EX-MID. Calvin Trillin once wrote an article about two kinds of transplanted Midwesterners and used Gerald Ford and Thomas Dewey to illustrate the difference. Both were from Michigan, had spent a lot of time in the East and were very successful. Trillin called them both “ex-Mids”, short for “ex–Mid westerners.” The difference for Trillin was that Dewey was the kind of ex-Mid that preferred to be thought of as an Easterner while Ford would have been embarrassed if anybody thought he had gone Eastern. I am the Gerald Ford kind of Ex-Mid.

3 comments

Griff January 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm

I’ve searched high and low for that Trillin piece for years now. A friend sent it to me when it came out (I suppose in the 70’s), but I lost it and web searches don’t help. Any idea where it might be found?

Philip January 4th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

I responded by e mail, but I should take this opportunity to use this reply feature for the first time. I recall the Trillin article as being in a New York Times op ed in the seventies, but I don’t have a copy. I can’t find it with Google either.

Pater Familias » T.S. ELIOT— EX-MID February 8th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

[…] belongs to American or to English literature: “Under which flag should his fame fly?” I wrote previously about how Calvin Trillin classified Thomas Dewey as the kind of ex-Midwesterner who didn’t want […]