Mount Pleasant, a City in Denial. Yet, there is evidence in the name of this hapless community for a far reaching conspiracy that has robbed the Midwest of charisma, bikinis, and tourism dollars. This, of course, is the famous "Mt. Pleasant Theory" which I cannot relate in its entirety since I am only one of many scholars who has offered support to its conclusions. I can only relate the high points, which are as follows.
As is evident to any truck driver that drives through Mt. Pleasant, there is no mountain in Mt. Pleasant. There is a general, vague sort of downward thing on the west side, but that's it. But the entire town persists in calling itself Mt. Pleasant. And it's just a modern day example of the Emperor's new clothes in the making again.
You can just see the Mt. Pleasant executive preparing to go to work, strapping on his climbing helmet and his rappelling gear over his suit, and talking to his wife in a too loud voice, "I'm putting on my helmet and rappelling stuff!" "Yes, dear" she answers. And then he yells, "I'm putting on my mountain boots," with emphasis on the word mountain." And she says, "Yes, dear. Don't forget your crampons, it's icy out." "Tally-ho," he cries, and gets into his Toyota and drives downtown to his office on the square next to the old five and dime.
And someday, some out of town kid visiting relatives is going to laugh loudly at some reference to the local mountain in a Fourth of July celebration and say, "That's not a mountain, that's a hill," and the whole fragile edifice will come tumbling down. The entire city government will be swept away, and most of the people will have to be taken in under observation. Which might seem convenient since the Mental Health (What a joke) Institute is right there in Mt. Pleasant. But it's not convenient because the people that run the MHI live in Mt. Pleasant and for a few days the patients will have to take care of the townspeople. Then we'll see who gets electroshock therapy, won't we?
But it's not their fault. It's really not the fault of the Mt. Pleasantites. They're not at blame for their mass psychosis, hypnosis, or dumbosis, whatever it is.
It's the indians. Yes, at the root of this little anomaly in a small town in Iowa is an enormous conspiracy foisted on the entire Midwest by the American Indian People. Really, they should pay us back for what they did. And they almost got away with it.
As most scholars of the Mt. Pleasant Theory have pointed out (and here I am simply relating the standard theory, with no embellishments or pet angles of my own), there really used to be a mountain in Mt. Pleasant, but the indians took it. It's not that the people in Mt. Pleasant have fabricated a mountain in their town out of thin air. No, they just haven't admitted that they lost it.
Face it, Mt. Pleasant, your mountain is lost, gone, zippo, and no amount of group agreement and climbing gear worn obviously about town is going to bring it back. Give it up and get help.
Because the indians took your mountain out west somewhere. Like they took all of the other mountains when they heard that the white man was coming. Somebody told the indians, "the White Man is Coming," and the chiefs all gathered together and decided that their life of leisure was at an end, that they had to move all of the mountains and ski areas and really neat beaches out west somewhere. Which is what they did.
They knew that no man really wants to be white. They all want to be tan, or ruddy, or red-faced, or full of soul like James Brown, but nobody wants to be lily-colored, pure white, with all of those blue veins showing through when you're out in public. And all of those white men were definitely going to try to come in and get all of the great mountains and ski areas and beaches with all of the major gorgeous indian babes in little bikinis and get themselves a suntan.
So they just decided to wrinkle up the earth and move all of those mountains and ski areas and bikinis farther west. And they did. The only problem is that they didn't get away completely. And now all of those ski areas and beaches are stuck out there in Colorado and California. You see, the white man caught up with them before the indians could work their full magic, get up some momentum and zip all of those natural wonders clean off the planet off to some place called "Happy Hunting Grounds," which most Mt. Pleasant Theorists conclude is a planet near Alpha Centauri. It's hard to tell which star, because older indian informants just say, "big star, that way."
Anyway, despite the fact that the indian leaders didn't get away with it all, and in the traditional Indian way covered most of their tracks, you can still find traces of their perfidy in the language, place names, here and there anyway. Like Mt. Pleasant. Or in the real meaning of the name "Iowa." Iowa means "Beautiful Land," and you can just imagine the rear guard indians, laughing inappropriately while they cough out the name of this place to the first white men here. "Uh, we call this place (laugh, giggle, snort), uh (hack, cough, wipe eyes) Beautiful Land, hah (more laughter, trailing off as they run merrily west to join the real party).
Yeah, Iowa, "Beautiful Land." Just like you say of someone with no other assets, "nice eyes." But the joke was on the indians, after all. Because Iowans do find the gently rolling landscape beautiful. And all of the big beautiful sky provides enormous beauty. And the millions of cloud formations provide new mountains to enjoy. And the plain, black earth that was left after they wrinkled away all of the mountains and resort areas is some of the richest farmland in the world. Especially around Grundy Center, which, despite its prosaic name, is beautiful farmland.
But Mt. Pleasant should drop the mountain stuff and try "Pleasant." Or maybe just "Nice Hill." Either way, it would be living in the present, a milder civic claim, and more believable for the truck drivers.
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