As I hit the road this weekend to visit my mom (Happy Mother’s Day!), I have all kinds of negative comments swirling in my head. Not about the wonderful Debbie Quam, of course, but about my home state. I take a lot of teasing because I come from North Dakota. Rock County natives apparently think their prairie is vastly superior to the one on which I was raised.I get questioned as to whether I had computers in my classrooms and whether I heard rock ’n roll on the radio stations that broadcast in my neck of the woods. These comments and questions don’t irritate me; they make me laugh, mostly. Somehow I feel like an ambassador from North Dakota. I tell people the Badlands are much more beautiful than the Black Hills. I tell people the eastern plains offer ocean-like views (waves of grain) without the cost of airfare or the trouble of crowds. I came here for the job seven years ago, and this place grew on me. I love my homeland (which I talk about as if it’s a foreign country) just as much as I love where I live now. The people from North Dakota are also at the top of my list. Nobody can craft a funny story like the people in North Dakota — from Bismarck to Tolna. They are truly warm, whether I’m related to them or not. (I sometimes think the western North Dakotans aren’t quite as friendly or open-minded, but I will not put a firm judgment on them right now.)Somehow, nobody believes in the merits of North Dakota as much as they should.Just this week, I was interviewing a source and he told me this joke: "A man was at his doctor’s office and the doctor said he had just six months to live. The man thought of all the things he wanted to accomplish in his life and how fast that last six months would go. The doctor said the terminally ill man should marry a Swedish woman and move to North Dakota and those final six months would crawl by."Someone else sent me a story of a North Dakota State Trooper who found a drunk driver stalled on the side of the road. The driver actually thought he was still in motion. The trooper ran in place and the "driver" was amazed at his ability to keep up with his vehicle. To make a long story short, the man was arrested, still believing the trooper outran his car. This week in North Dakota news, I read an article about students from the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, developing a space suit for NASA to use in missions to Mars. Instead of praising the geniuses educated in North Dakota schools, the article started out with the lead, "Fabio Sau says moving from his native Italy to attend the University of North Dakota was like coming to another planet — and now he’s using the state’s wildest terrain for a simulated mission to Mars."The space suit saved NASA about $22 million in development costs, and three newly invented components are now under patent application.But all of that doesn’t mean I still won’t hear the slams against North Dakota, and probably laugh with them.… Like when people ask, "Were you proud when you made the national news for being the coldest place in the country 50 days last year?"Or "At least you can still have a conversation with someone when you dial the wrong number if you’re from North Dakota."And "Why does everybody install motion detector security lights if they leave their doors unlocked?"I’ll admit it. To me, a southern accent is anything below Nebraska and I measure distance in hours traveled. So, I’ll drive 5 1/2 hours north this weekend to see dear Mother, and I’ll watch my rear view mirror for all the snickering Rock Countians looking down on this North Dakotan. (All in good fun, I’m sure.)