Why Joplin? (Editorial)

by Mark Neuenschwander

“So how’d you end up here?”

This is a question I often hear one resident ask another. Sometimes, I’ve asked it that way myself. And it’s kind of funny, that we say it the same way a prison inmate asks of another,  “whatcha in for?”

Referring to our city as a prison is a great way to make it feel like one.

While I didn’t grow up IN Joplin, I’ve lived near it all my life. And I too once had the thought “I gotta get out of here.” So, like many others, I did. I went to a bigger city. There was more to do. It felt more relevant, culturally updated, artsy. Everything was, technically speaking, bigger and better.

But the truth is, I couldn’t bring myself to feel at home there. An unexpected thing began to happen; I started to see the good in Joplin. Joplin visits felt increasingly more like a homecoming. Every thing that annoyed me about the city became easier to overlook.