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I hail from New Mexico. No, I didn’t just realize that. But I am thoroughly a New Mexican. Not to be confused with an old Mexican, although there are plenty of those around. I proclaim that with the requisite amount of pride. Coming from me that’s saying a lot, since I’m one of those people who find borders rather arbitrary and usually inconveniently placed things. I don’t like much in the way of nationalistic pride if you will.
This is not a new thing, the pride thing that is. I recall a quite similar sensation when I hailed from Connecticut. One swaggered as a Connectican, or the East Coast equivalent of that. We were here first ya know. I recall being rather amazed to see street names and town names that were familiar to me as a Michigander in Connecticut and realizing that they named theirs first. Those that went West did had a certain courage, but not a lot of creativity.
I was born and raised in Michigan, and lived a goodly long time in Iowa. Yet, I have zero pride in either one, although I’d be the first to say, that by and large they are mighty okay places to hail from. I mean Michigan can be quite pretty with its lakes and lakeshores. Iowa can bedazzle with its long expanses of waving corn fields.
So, I consider myself quite lucky, for I’ve never been embarrassed by where I lived. A place or two within my be embarrassing. Detroit, once a great city, rough and tough, is ugly and bloodied now after years of a perfect storm of dropping car sales, and racial bias that resulted in the famous “white flight.” All has left the city a mere shell of its former self, clinging to life, and trying to re-invent itself.
When you said you were from Detroit, people got “that look” and you could hear, “how unfortunate for you” ringing in your ears. But I’m not here to eulogize Detroit. Hopefully it will resurrect into something leaner and meaner.
I am here to mostly poke fun at places that one should never hail from, not because of their misfortune but for obvious wrongs that are just because. Such as Schenectady. One should not come from Schenectady. See, you can hear the word before you even say it. It sounds like some sort of snot glob in one’s throat. And quite frankly, if you don’t hail from NYC, then living in New York is, well, “how unfortunate for you” comes to mind.
I mean think of it. Someone says, “where are you from?” You say, “New York”, and they say, “oh you must love the theatre and the museums! Do you work in Manhattan?” You are then forced to mumble in utter embarrassment that you live somewhere in the rest of the state, places that NO ONE cares about. The average person could sooner find Turkey on a world map than Schenectady for God’s sake!
Similarly, one should not hail from Florida, after a certain age. To hail from Florida once past sixty, signifies that you have given up and are prepared to wear garish nail polish, too much jewelry, gaudy-blue or bright red hair attached to a head that is starting to wrinkle even across the skull. It is a public announcement that you have succumbed to being Aunt Tilly with those annoyingly yappy lap dogs trailing her and her walker everywhere.
One should not hail from Montana either. I mean yes, it has Big Skies, but it also has BIG F**KING EXPANSES OF LAND WITH NO PEOPLE, JUST HORSES. You tell the world that you are not fit for real society, can’t get along with others in the sandbox of life, and deserve to live an ignominious life in a log cabin trapping beaver for a living. You whack your hair off with a bowie knife once a year whether it needs it or not, and have a freezer full of moose burgers.
You should never live in Arizona. I’m sure I need go no further. But I will.
First, you live in a state whose initial settlers were so dull that the best name they could come up with for the most amazing canyons in the entire world is “GRAND”. That should tell you something. Second, it, like Florida, is a retirement haven, so it’s a place where old people go to die, while complaining about their ailments and their thankless children until they do.
Third, it has a state government run by crosses between roadrunners and horned toads, and they are all much cuter to look at, the toads that is. Living in such a mean-hearted state means you are callous, indifferent to the suffering of your fellow man, and stingy.
Don’t even think of hailing from Missouri. I drove through that place once. Nastiest people in the world, and I can tell you that their homes must be something else on the inside. How do I know? There is nothing but a parade of gaudy roadside signs accompanying you the entire way through. Anybody who thinks that is attractive, well, they probably put plastic over their sofas.
And seriously, a state that today can’t decide whether it is Ma-zoo-ri, or Ma-zoo-ah, is well, Ma-Stupid. It’s darn near in the middle of the country and that means that people going North, South, East or West, chose to KEEP GOING!
Living in most anywhere in the South denotes you aren’t really bright, since we all know that low IQ’s sink.
Hailing from Texas, well what I can I say? There is so much wrong with Texas that it would take half the state, papered to tell it all. Texas is proof that big is not better–a lesson Alaska failed to learn obviously. I travel into Texas from time to time, and the PAVEMENT CHANGES FROM GOOD TO CRUMMY UPON ENTERING THE LONE STAR STATE. Have you ever asked you why they are a “lone star”? Think about it. Most of what fills a ten-gallon hat is AIR.
So, that’s my take on some parts of America. I’m sure you are all in total agreement, but don’t get the idea that you’ve just been invited to New Mexico because of that. We are pretty darn selective about who we let in. ¿Comprendes?