Nate Bukaty

Not that they all want to move here necessarily.

They do great.

But, you know, just that they go back home and say, man, I discovered one of the coolest places I never would have known about is in the middle of America.

You know what, there's a great point there, Curtis, and that was one of my favorite things about researching the book was I felt like I just did like a seven-month therapy session about my hometown and what I think of it, the good and the bad.

And I won't sit here and try to claim that we have a perfect city.

We've got all kinds of problems here, just like every major city does.

And one of the phrases that you hear all the time is what a quintessential American city, Kansas City, is.

And I used to always roll my eyes at that, like what makes one town more American than any other town?

But as I really dived into the city... Or dove.

Or dove, whichever the proper term is.

Whatever works for you.

It just kept kind of occurring to me that this is the crossroads of America, you know, from from literal senses of like I-35 and I-70 to the railroad switching yards and the Transcontinental Railroad to the Oregon Trail and the California Trail and all these things like this is where almost every thought, good and idea comes through.

And I mean...

to the point of the Western front of the civil war to like, it's not, this town's not Northeast, West or South.

It's a little bit of this weird swirling of all of it, which makes this town complicated.

It makes it really full of contradictions.

It's an incredibly divided city from the outset, but also what city unifies better.

And this story is one of them.

Like, how did we get the World Cup?

We came together like we do when we get behind something in this town, nobody comes together like we do.