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What’s the Biggest Misconception about Your State?
Though no one seemed to notice, I didn’t blog once last week. My cruel taskmasters at Ricochet Global Headquarters allowed me out of my padlocked cubicle for a brief vacation. (Troy Senik made me wear an ankle bracelet; the last staffer granted time off vanished for a few months before reappearing at The Federalist.) After taking my family to a cabin in the cool pines, I posted the following image for my adoring fans on Twitter:
People tried to guess where I was. Colorado? Montana? Some off-the-grid shanty so I could confuse the homing device? No, we were a few miles outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. Highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s, and enough cool streams and mountain trails to make us forget about our hellish summer in Phoenix.
People were incredulous, especially many on the east coast. “I thought Arizona was all desert!” “Where’s the sand and cactus?” “Are you sure you aren’t in Colorado?”
Arizona has a lot of desert, but also offers alpine cabins, ski resorts, and the largest stand of ponderosa pine on the continent. Adjacent to Flagstaff is a mountain that tops 12,500 feet in elevation, so there’s plenty of chilly weather to be found in this very southwestern state.
Every region has a stereotype and most are easily debunked with a visit. Every Texan doesn’t have an oil well in their backyard, plenty of Iowans have never lived on a farm, and Oregon isn’t all rugged coastline. So I open it up to the Ricochetti scattered hither and yon: What is the biggest misconception about your state (or city or country) and why is it a bunch of baloney?
P.S. Private message me if you have any tips on losing an ankle bracelet.
Published in General
People think we are all a bunch of mobsters here in New Jersey. Most locals, however, prefer the term “legitimate businessmen.”
Otherwise it is crowded, expensive, and while we do have an accent, the fake Jersey accents you hear on TV never sound quite right.
Years ago one of my friends moved from NJ to Flagstaff. Whenever one of the guys back East would see Phoenix temps topping 110, they would send him an email going, “Hey, how do like your weather in Arizona?” He would reply back, “It’s really nice but I have to wear a jacket at night.” You would think they would have stopped saying that to him after the first time.
Hoosier (Indiana U.S.A.)
While our behavior can be described as “hick like”, we are no more naive than anyone else in the midwest. Sure, those fast talkers from Gary can attract some interest from time to time, but we don’t fall for everything.
We’re not dumb, we’re just reluctant to be overly demonstrative.
I’m not gay. I don’t know many who have admitted to me that they are gay. The first gay I every knewn was a good friend I worked with in Lafayette Indiana in 1974. He never complained about feeling any more uncomfortable at Purdue than elsewhere. But I not very bohemian and I was too busy in the kkk to see if Indiana was a bad place for gays.
I think Indiana is a very libertarian with regard to their neighbors. I think basketball gave blacks and whites common ground and I give Indiana high marks – again relative to the midwest.
A former governor seems typical Hoosier in that he knows being president is not the thing best suited for him, his family or country.
My wife just attended a training for state licensors (licensing social workers) and came home somewhat appalled. The prevailing attitude is that, to paraphrase, to support the traditional view of marriage presents a safety risk to children. If that can keep you from being licensed as a foster parent, theoretically, I consider it a short logical leap to CPS involvement. That, to me, is scary, especially in a state where government is God.
Judith basin is my home territory. Eastern Montana is very similar to Yakima. Central Montana is a cross, as we still have mountains. Yakima is a bit more on the desert side (akin to the missouri river breaks).
My home state of West Virginia is both as stereotypical as it seems and has changed radically in the past thirty years. Every time I go back there are more rich people from BOS-WASH building mega houses in the mountains.
Missississippi, my home since 2010?
Basically it is not 1965 and Mississippi Burning was a long time ago.
Having just now gotten home from a nine-state driving tour of colleges in the Midwest, where our student was asked to introduce herself on every tour, including where she’s from, the greatest misconception about Colorado is that we’re all pot-heads.
This may be surprising to many, but for those of us who do not partake, life in Colorado hasn’t changed one jot since recreational marijuana was legalized (I’m not sure it’s changed much for partakers either. Colorado has always been pretty libertarian on the matter). No one I know has been affected in any way. No car accidents (thank God), no annoying neighbors (anymore than usual). The main difference is we now have an abundance of dispensaries — seems like at least two at every intersection — but competition will sort that out over the long haul.
Otherwise, winter used to be our best kept secret. Any day above freezing (which is normally most of them) and sunny is comfortable enough for a light jacket (maybe a sweater tied around one’s neck. Kidding!! No one here would be caught dead.)
Of course, when family moved in from back east to help us out, winter made a liar out of me. But, in the 30+ years I’ve lived here, the norm is one week of bitter cold and maybe a couple deep spring snows (not recently), but otherwise still very friendly to an outdoor life.
That everyone from Maine speaks with thick “Ya can’t get heah from thah!” accent and wears LL Bean barn jackets, all while traveling roadways thick with moose and boating in coves abundant with red crustaceans.
Nope, it’s better!
Standoffish? You mean like when they were yelling at a suicidal woman to jump off the bridge? Beautiful city — until you see the people. They’re often as ugly on the inside as they are on the outside.
Come on! It’s not for nothing that the lobster is your state bird.
A lot of people, when they think of New York State, think of New York City. But most of NY is dairy farms and forests. I live in NY but I’m almost 400 miles from NYC.
Having lived successively in ME, metro-NY, metro-VA, metro-NY again, CT, OH, Phx AZ, PA, CT, DE and MA, I will answer about Massachusetts and Connecticut. There are few misconceptions about MA. It is as leftist, corrupt and unfriendly towards working people (especially small medical practitioners) as any state can be. CT, however, is worse.
Speaking of geography and beauty, both states shine in the west, in the small hills of the Berkshires.
I’m not aware of any misconception that Seattle people are nice. I’ve mentioned many times that in 2008, The Stranger actually published pictures of houses – with addresses! – that had McCain signs and openly called for vandalism. Seattle is easily the least tolerant city I’ve ever lived in. But then, I’ve never lived in San Francisco or New York. So who knows?
Well. Yeah. But we are talking misconceptions.
Seawriter
I was living in Seattle when that happened. I also remember about a year or two before that traffic was slowed down when a trans-gender fire-breather was blowing flames while standing on top of an electrical tower next to I-5.
I also remember my 5′ 2″ wife coming home one day and telling me that there was a drunk guy on the bus harassing a woman in the back of the bus to the point where the woman was in tears. “What happened?” I asked.
“I told him to cut it out, and he did” she said.
“Weren’t there any men on the bus?”
“Yeah, but they all looked away and pretended they didn’t notice.”
That little story give a glimpse of the attitude I saw from many of the men I met in Seattle.
I’m happy to see Jersey represent. As a westerner, I had assumed it was all mafia dons and smoke-belching factories. In 2000, I spent a week outside of Princeton and several years later a week in Red Bank. Both areas were beautiful and the people were incredibly nice. I’d love to visit NJ anytime.
There are a lot of nice places in Jersey, but if you drive through it on the Turnpike you will see/smell several landfills and oil refineries, so I can understand the bad impression that view of the state can give.
Native Iowan (but haven’t lived there since the 80’s) – biggest misconception is that everyone is a farming evangelical who is semi-illiterate about popular culture, is generally a little less intelligent than coastal folks, but goes nuts for the Iowa caucuses in any case.
Also, for some reason people get it mixed up with Ohio.
Most of what everyone knows about Jersey comes from riding the Pike. That is the single worst stretch of driving in the country. Ugly, stinks, awful. Not representative of the rest of Jersey though.
So is there like a prize for recognizing that Hipshot was a character in the Stan Lynde comic Rick O’Shay ? Also one of the two decent comics ever in the SF Chronicle, Dan O’Neill’s Odds Bodkins being the other. Which I guess is my State’s best kept secret: San Francisco is a provincial backwater.
That Kansas is flat and completely covered with grass, sunflowers, &/or wheat. I have 7 foot corn on the other side of my driveway. There are so many trees in the old pasture out back the deer have trouble making paths. We grow really big rocks in Kansas, just ask any farmer. We have amazing vistas, with blue/purple haze, rolling hills covered with trees, rock-bottomed streams everywhere—even a few waterfalls. I wouldn’t live in any other state…
I find that a lot of people believe the eastern half of Pennsylvania has professional sports teams. That’s ludicrous.
What is the conception of Pennsylvania anyway? I think people think of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia but not PA.
Nothing you hear about California is true. But in all deference to DAN MATHEWSON, everything here is like relative. So I mean you know, like whose to say really?
Not everyone in VA has a horse farm.
Myth: New Jersey is a hellhole of refineries, landfills, swamps, and people named Snooki.
Growing up in Connecticut, I was quite snobbish about New Jersey. Now that I have lived in the Garden State for a decade, I have become appreciative of its charms.
I live in a fairly idyllic, small, suburban community about 20 miles from NYC. Driving a couple of miles further west, you find yourself in horse country, with rolling hills and grand homes. True, there is a swamp near my house – the Great Swamp, to be precise – but it is a beautiful, wild, marshy place and a National Wildlife Refuge with red-tailed hawks and nary a Snooki-bird in sight.
There are some serious negatives about living in NJ: It is illegal to pump your own gas, own a gun, or turn left. I’m kidding about the last two, but just barely.
Four letter names with too many vowels.
The cat, of course. I’m not salty enough to be Hipshot.