Fighting the Moses Lake complex

I think I've developed a bit of a complex. When I went away to college and moved around the state I made a lot of friends from outside of Central Washington. A lot of my college friends from the west side of the mountains liked to make fun of me for coming from a small town like Moses Lake. Most of them like to poke fun at the size. "Moses Lake, isn't that like a redneck outpost on I-90," they'd say.

I was always so offended, I felt like I had to stand up for myself so I would always try to find a way to compensate. I can't count the times I've boasted about the big things we have around here. I always start with the biggest thing that would come to my mind.

"Yah, you didn't know? Moses Lake has like one of the longest runways on the west coast, dude. They could land the space shuttle there. No, there's no way it would land at SeaTac."

I loved telling my friends about the missile silos around Moses Lake. It's as if I were strapping the nukes to holsters on my hip. I liked to stretch it out, too. "If you had been within 100 yards of them during the Cold War you could have been shot." I think they always respected me more after that one, but I would still get flack from them.

Sometimes I would have to reach for something within the county. I would sometimes talk about the Grand Coulee Dam, but that was pretty far north so I would usually talk about the Gorge Amphitheatre and the rock stars that would stroll through town.

"I saw Tommy Lee at the bowling alley eating pizza once." Then I would add the hearsay. From Ozzy Osborne to Jack Black, even Britney Spears. I think every Moses Lake kid has probably told a friend about a celebrity sighting at Wal-Mart or the bowling alley.

I have a monologue with my best friend that we have memorized by heart about the time we met Zack Wyled and Rob Trujillo (both played with Ozzy Osborne during Ozzfest) who signed autographs for us.

My buddy Andy from Lake Stevens, who I wrestled with in college, would like to make fun of me, but I would just have to bring up how Moses Lake wrestling beat Lake Stevens at duels and the state tournament. That usually would shut him up.

I have caught myself venting my aggression on friends from smaller towns. I have a few friends from Warden who have probably gotten it worse than me their entire lives.

I used to unfairly point out their lack of stoplights, but I am a bigger person nowadays. No longer do I judge a city by the size of their population or the number of fast food restaurants they have. It doesn't bother me that we don't have a mall or 20-story buildings.

There are things that I have come to appreciate about living here, like getting to work in five minutes or that people here are genuinely kind. I think the thing I appreciate most is the flat openness. The only things obstructing my view of the sunset are a few trees.

Joseph Castro is working as an intern for the Columbia Basin Herald this summer. He graduated with a degrees in journalism and political science from Central Washington University this spring.