Supposedly a melting pot, America sometimes seems more like a meltdown of minds on pot.

 

Holidays are when you’re required to join family and friends, to give hearts a warm glow; but sometimes the glow comes from a radioactive facade.

On Thanksgiving, we walk up to the dinner table, bow our heads, and pray:

Just on Mother’s Day, Mom gets off from kitchen work: Dad takes her to dinner. To show appreciation for such generosity, Mom tells the kids to buy him a tie but not strangle him with it until Father’s Day.

On Christmas, we celebrate the universe’s biggest miracle: that Joseph believed his wife when she said she got pregnant from “nobody.” This is a Jewish holiday: Christians pay Jewish merchants to create a holiday that stimulates the economy, while homeless bums wandering in the snow mumble carols such as “Chestnuts roasting on a funeral pyre.”

On Easter, Christ vanished then reappeared as a miraculous bunny who lays eggs tasting like chocolate.

Halloween is the ultimate “wear anything to work” day, when we wear costumes showing bosses and neighbors how we really feel. On this day, you can change your sex without raising an eyebrow: just raise your pitchfork.

February is the shortest month but makes you twice as crazy:

So in February, if you don’t find true love, you get the booby prize of buying a car instead.

Martin Luther King Day was created by people who care about equality of car sales, to let you buy cars even in January, so fewer car salesmen will commit January suicide. It’s the day when car salesmen, happy at not having to wait another month for glory, sing “We shall overcome you today!”

On Saint Patrick’s Day, we dress up as green Martians but when asked “Where are you from?” pretend to be from “Ireland.”

On Memorial Day, we remember the poor creatures who died on our behalf in past years, then barbecue more of them because they taste so good.

On Labor Day, we thank unions for standing up for their rights, so prices go up and economists claim the economy is growing and we get the stock market’s Santa Claus rally at Christmastime.

Independence Day is when we Americans celebrate being independent from England, which is more civilized but too stuffy. Columbus Day is when we honor the man who got lost and dumped us here.

Sinful holidays

Fact:

Just in recent years did Thanksgiving become a celebration of gluttony, which is one of the 7 deadly sins. God granted Americans the inalienable right to create holidays celebrating all 7:

I listed those sins in the order proclaimed by Pope Gregory (and copied by Dante’s Divine Comedy).

Christmas party

Planning a Christmas party can be a challenge, according to these memos on the Internet:

 

We’re always getting older. At a camp where I was a counselor, the staff used to sing:

When you get older, you gain wisdom and lose hair.

“You’re 25”

If a woman asks you how old she looks, Joe Kita says you should answer “25,” because that’s the age all women want to be: women under 25 want to look as wisely mature as 25, while women over 25 want to look as youthfully pretty as 25.

I guess that means women who actually are 25 suffer by being content but bored, since they have nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back to reminisce about.

Though I respect Joe — he’s editor of Men’s Health magazine and author of the Guy Q book — I don’t think his advice is realistic.

If a woman looks 5 years old or 90 years old, saying she looks “25” will just get a laugh. Instead, try this:

That gets you a weighted average between 25 and her appearance. That weighted average will still be ridiculously complimentary; but instead of just laughing, the woman will actually believe you.

But if the woman then asks “Did you take the weighted average by reading the Secret Guide?” you’re in trouble.

Age tests

According to the Internet, here are 11 signs you’re aging and past your college days:

A 25-question test was copied around the Internet, with the help of folks such as Father Dennis McNeil. The test tries to compute when you were born, by asking how much you know about American culture of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Here’s my corrected version. In each blank, try to put the right word or name. The more blanks you can fill, the older you are!

Answers:

Scoring:

Baby boomers

Here’s another insight from the Internet:

 

In different cities, Americans speak with different dialects. In 2003, Bert Vaux (at Harvard University) asked 30,788 Americans, in all 50 states, about their dialects.

Here’s the percentage of Americans using various words:

Each total is less than 100% because, for each question, some Americans use different words instead or make fine distinctions about which words to use when.

Which of those dialects do you use? How about your friends?

Here’s how Americans pronounced words:

Each total is less than 100% because, for each question, some Americans use different pronunciations instead or make fine distinctions about which pronunciations to use when.

How do you pronounce those words? How about your friends?

This Website shows the rest of the 122 questions, with percentages for each state and maps of which dialects are used where:

Using that data, Josh Katz (at North Carolina State University) made fun summary maps at:

More info about his summary maps is at:

Josh Katz & Wilson Andrews made an updated version, using data from 350,000 people in 2013, for the New York Times at:

Try it! It asks you 25 of the 122 questions about how you speak. Then it guesses where in the USA you’re from — if your computer is modern enough to handle that Website.

More comments about accents, with video samples, are at:

Southern accents

The “South” is the home of the “sweet mouth.” People there speak so charmingly!

My Alabamian roommate, James, says you can tell a true Southerner from a fake by noticing how the person uses the expression “y’all.”

A naughty TV show, “Candid Camera,” photographed Southerners trying to explain the difference between how they said “all” and “oil.” The Southerners thought they were pronouncing the words differently from each other, but Yankee ears couldn’t hear any difference and thought the Southerners were making fools of themselves.

Texas

The Southern part of the U.S. blooms with many strange accents — and they all converge in Dallas.

One girl in Dallas told me that she “sang behind the pasture.” I wondered why she sang to the cows, until I realized she meant she sang behind the pastor, in church.

When I attended a math class in a Dallas junior-high school, one of the girls talked about “ot,” and all her classmates understood her — except me. Later, I found out what “ot” was: the number that came after 7.

If 20 people gather in a room, how can you spot the Texans? A friend told me to spot them by asking everybody in the room to say “Osborne.” The only people he ever met who say pronounce it “Osburn” instead of “Ozborn” are from Texas.

Here’s how to translate to Texan:

You can find more Texan translations in How to Talk “Texian” (Robert Reinhold’s article in The New York Times on July 22, 1984, section 6, pages 8-10).

Kentucky

When Toyota built a car factory in Kentucky, Toyota’s Japanese employees took a course in how to speak Kentuckian, which is similar to Texan. They were taught that in Kentuckian, “can” is pronounced kin:

More confusingly, in Kentuckian the word “can’t” is pronounced can (since the a is held a long time, in a drawl, and the t is pronounced too quickly and too softly to hear):

So if a Kentuckian says can, the Kentuckian means “can’t.”

The Japanese learned this important lesson: when a Kentuckian says he “can” do a job, the Kentuckian isn’t lying, just drawling.

To challenge your friends, ask these tricky geography questions:

More geography puzzles are in the geography chapter of Peter Winkler’s Mathematical Puzzles. (The other chapters are about advanced math.)

 

Vermont is a bunch of farmers manipulated by outsiders.

Even the name “Vermont” was invented by an outsider, Dr. Thomas Young of Pennsylvania, in 1777. Since the place was full of green mountains and a bunch of radicals called “Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys,” Dr. Young named it “Vermont,” which is archaic French for “Green Mountain.” He named it in French instead of English to make the place sound as high-falutin’ as a French restaurant.

“Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys” tried to keep Vermont independent from the evil colonies of New York and New Hampshire, which wanted to capture it. Vermont stayed an independent republic until 1791, when it became the 14^th state.

For a while, Vermont was full of dairy farms and had more cows than people. During the 1970’s, many hippies from New York moved to Vermont to get away from the city rat race and commune with nature. They tried to become farmers but discovered they were more successful at milking tourists than cows. Many tourists visit Vermont in the fall to see the leaves turn color while the cows moo.

Ben & Jerry

Ben and Jerry were a pair of New York Jewish hippies, both born in Brooklyn, 4 days apart. In 1977 they moved to Vermont, where they started a factory that turned Vermont milk into fattening ice-cream for hoity-toity New Yorkers, who felt less guilty about getting fat because Ben & Jerry gave them just tiny portions and donated part of the profits to liberal causes. In the year 2000, the company became secretly owned by Unilever, a Dutch-English conglomerate.

Farmer talk

Vermont farmers have an amazing gift of language. They talk in a slow drawl that’s very effective at deflating the egos of their natural enemies, such as bureaucrats, academicians, lost drivers, tourists, spendthrifts, New Hampshirites, and Texans.

Vermonter versus the bureaucrat This is a true tale. A Vermonter fell off the roof of a barn and died. The insurance company gave his family a death certificate to fill out. The certificate was long and complicated. At the bottom of the certificate was a space labeled “remarks.” For “remarks,” the family wrote, “He didn’t make none.”

Vermonter versus the academician A Vermonter riding a train struck up a conversation with the passenger next to him, who happened to be a Harvard professor. The Vermonter admired the Harvard professor’s brilliance, and the Harvard professor admired the Vermonter’s common sense.

The professor suggested a contest to see who could “stump” the other person. The person who couldn’t answer the question would have to pay 50¢.

“Okay,” said the Vermonter, “but since you’re so much smarter, I think it would be fairer for you to pay me a dollar.”

“Okay,” agreed the Harvard professor. “You go first.”

“Well,” said the Vermonter, “What has three legs and flies?”

“I give up,” said the Harvard professor. “Here’s your dollar. What’s the answer?”

“Darned if I know,” replied the Vermonter. “Here’s your fifty cents!”

Vermonter versus the lost driver Walter Piston (a famous Harvard music professor) was driving through Vermont, got to a fork in the road, and asked a Vermonter, “Does it make any difference which road I take?” The Vermonter replied, “Not to me, it doesn’t.”

Vermonter versus the tourist Many tourists visit Vermont in the summer. One of them told a Vermonter, “You have a lot of peculiar people around here.” The Vermonter replied, “Yep, but most are gone by mid-September.”

Vermonter versus the spendthrift Vermonters don’t like to spend money. Vermont legislators say, “When in doubt, vote no. Let’s not get something we don’t need and pay for it with money we don’t have.”

Vermonter versus New Hampshire Robert Frost wrote a long poem called New Hampshire, which proclaimed page after page of praise for New Hampshire’s beauty. But to understand the poem’s true meaning, you must read the last line, which says simply and proudly, “I live in Vermont.”

Vermonter versus the Texan A Vermonter was chatting with a Texan, whose drawling wisdom was no match for the Vermonter’s.

Recorded tales Those tales were collected by Al Foley, a Dartmouth College history professor who became a member of the Vermont legislature and president of the Vermont Historical Society. Hear him speak on a 33 RPM record called A Vermont Heritage.

 

Like most Americans seeking adventurous fun, I moved to New Hampshire, the laughable state nicknamed “New Ha-ha.”

Laws

New Hampshire’s the most libertarian state. It believes in the fewest laws. The state’s motto is “Live free or die,” uttered by General Stark centuries ago and interpreted by modern New Hampshirites to mean “Get the government off our backs.”

Taxes New Hampshire brags that it has no sales tax, no income tax, and no other “broad-based tax,” which meaning “no tax affecting everybody.”

That sounds great and makes many idiots move here. After moving, we discover that the Machiavellis who run the government created many “little” taxes that affect “just a few” people. Here are little examples:

So in New Hampshire, you can “live free of taxes” just if you hide under a rock.

No restrictions In New Hampshire, you can do whatever you want, if you don’t get dangerously huffy about it.

For example, you can drive a car without getting a driver’s license. I was really surprised about that. When my stepdaughter wanted to learn how to drive, I asked the Department of Motor Vehicles about how to get her a “learner’s permit,” so she could practice; but the Department said she didn’t need one: she could just go ahead and drive. The only restriction is that a licensed driver must be next to her in the front seat and she has to say she’s “learning.”

In New Hampshire, you don’t need car insurance — unless you’re such a dangerous driver that the state declares you an exception. So I don’t have car insurance. I don’t have home insurance or general health insurance either. If my car hits you, or you trip on my lawn, just take me to court and take my house. Then I’ll have the pleasure of sitting outside and not having to pay the property tax.

New Hampshire is the only state where you don’t need to wear a seat belt if you’re an adult, even if you’re the driver. New Hampshire believes you have the God-given right to kill yourself on the highway. Seatbelts are required just for kids under 18, who are too young to appreciate the finer pleasures of suicide.

If you want to ride a motorcycle dangerously, go ahead:
you don’t need to wear a helmet. Massachusetts bikers love to come to New Hampshire and discard their helmets when they reach our border, so they can feel the wind blowing in their hair — and later feel their heads bobbling on the asphalt. As a result, New Hampshire is the state that has the most motorcycles per 1000 people.

Want to buy a gun? No problem. Just go to a store, say you want to buy a gun, and in less than half an hour you’ve got it. You don’t need a license: just wait the half hour for the store’s computer to check you’re not a felon.

You can carry a gun with you, loaded, practically anywhere you wish, without a license — even into your local bank or convenience store. The only restriction is you can’t take it onto a plane or into certain government buildings. If you carry a loaded gun, just make sure it’s visible, so everybody can see it and get properly scared and nervous: don’t hide it! (If you want to hide it, you must remove the bullets first, so you don’t get arrested for carrying a “concealed loaded weapon.”) But if you’re stupid enough to carry a loaded visible gun into a bank or convenience store, be prepared to get tackled by a nervous rookie policeman — who’ll then apologize to you for having impinged on your New Hampshire rights.

If you don’t want to pay a highway toll, you don’t have to. That’s because New Hampshire lawmakers made a mistake when writing the highway-toll law, and they’re too lazy to fix it. The law accidentally says it’s illegal for New Hampshire to arrest you for not throwing coins into the toll basket.

Want to kill your mom? Well, that’s against the law. We New Hampshirites need to have some limits! But it’s okay to strangle a squirrel.

Politics New Hampshire is run mainly by Republicans who tote guns. But they’re kind enough to donate shelters to Democrats who escaped from Boston when Boston’s real estate got too expensive for normal folks to live in.

For a while, the Republicans were kind enough to let a Democrat lady become governor. She was a kind lady who believed in education. When she had trouble balancing her budget, she decided the fairest solution was to add a sales tax and income tax. The voters decided the fairest solution was to get rid of her. They did. So we still have no sales tax and no income tax. We also got a new governor —Republican, of course — who still couldn’t balance the budget, so he got voted out too. The next governor was a Democrat who succeeded — for 4 terms — by being quiet, so nobody could object to him. Finally came the current governor, a Democrat woman whose husband runs a prestigious prep school. Republicans don’t worry, since the Republican legislature won’t let her do anything.

Since I’m a Democrat, I’m morally required by the Democrat religion to believe the fairest tax is an income tax, since it taxes the rich more than the poor. But I admit I secretly enjoy the evil pleasure of being in New Hampshire, since it’s sure nice to avoid the bureaucratic hassles of figuring sales tax and income tax and filling those stupid forms all you Non-Hampshirites must fill each year.

My friends back in Massachusetts love to taunt me by reminding me that “New Hampshire is great place to live, as long as you don’t have a handicapped kid or break a leg or need any other kind of social service.” New Hampshire ain’t keen on offering such services. Remember the New Hampshire motto: “Live free or die,” which means:

Snow

In New Hampshire, God is a frustrated artist: He keeps trying to draw out the perfect snowstorm. He keeps dumping his efforts on us in His attempt to create the perfect snow landscape but never quite gets it right. Finally, one day, the frustrated Deity of Dramatic Weather gives up, smiles, and breaks out singing:

Then He creates — for His finale — one final gigantic snowstorm, called “The Oy’s of March.”

Afterwards, he takes His bow. That’s called “spring.” The flowers come up and applaud his past achievements but are secretly relieved to see the concert’s over.

Oops! I said the forbidden word “spring”! I shouldn’t have said that. In New Hampshire, we’re not allowed to say “spring.” Natives say instead, “It’s the mud season,” because that’s when the snow starts melting and all the shit is sopping wet. Each “yard” becomes a series of rivers and waterfalls running under the snow — until finally old man Sun gets really hot and angry and lets the birds chirp. But then “The Old Man in the Mountain” (New Hampshire’s godlike mountain stone face, still alive in spirit) gets grumpy, tells the birds to shut up, and throws snow on them — for many days in a row — in April or May. That’s called “Whitey’s surprise party.”

In New Hampshire each year, the weatherman admits again that “March came in like a lion and went out like a moose: a big, lumbering surprise whose journey was unpredictable.”

In other states, pixies sing “April showers bring May flowers.” In New Hampshire, we sing “April crud brings May mud.”

But if life here weren’t an adventurous challenge, why would anyone come?

During what month does snow here start? The answer is: “Whenever you don’t expect it.” For example, on a bright, sunny day in mid-October, I was foolish enough to ask my neighbor Tom (a policeman who’s lived here for many years) when snow would start. He said, “December or late November, but never before November 15^th.” I shouldn’t have asked. Just asking the question sealed my fate: the very week I asked, it snowed many times, to drive home the point that newbies shouldn’t ask such stupid questions. It also reminded me that to find out what goes on here, don’t ask a policeman.

While other states have a storm that “rains cats and dogs,” in New Hampshire it “snows bears and moose.”

Since our gigantic storms hit us unpredictably, here’s how we New Hampshirites chat with our next-door neighbors:

During winters, New Hampshire farmers don’t say “Have a nice day.” Instead they say:

That sounds the same but is more realistic, since you can never have a “nice day” during a New Hampshire winter.

Dartmouth College

New Hampshire’s most famous college is Dartmouth. It was started centuries ago as a missionary school to teach Indians about religion and English. None of the Indians got to speak English real well, but the best of the bunch was sent to England to try to raise donations. His pitch was, basically, “Me Indian. Me speak English. You want more Indians to speak English? Give money.” Nobody gave very much. The idiot who gave the most was the Earl of Dartmouth, so they decided to name the college after him, in the hopes he’d give more. He never gave another cent.

Like New Hampshire weather, Dartmouth College is full of extremes: a hotbed of liberals peppered with silly arch-conservatives. For example, the arch-conservative student who lived down the hall from me hung a Confederate flag on one wall, hung a Rhodesian flag on the other, and wore an upside-down peace button showing a bomber and the words “Drop it!”

When Democrats vying to be U.S. president visit New Hampshire, they love to give speeches at Dartmouth College, so the college liberals will cheer them and make them feel good. The rest of the state, which is mainly Republican, ignores them.

Manchester

I live in New Hampshire’s biggest city, which is spelled “Manchester” but pronounced “Manch has duh.” That pronunciation summarizes the city: Manch has, duh, stupid people. When I lived in Boston, I had the pleasure of chatting with advanced Harvard and M.I.T. students about the meaning of life; but now I’m stuck in Manchester, where the main intellectual question is:

At first glance, Manchester is just a dying mill town, full of abandoned boarded-up textile mills along the river. But at second glance, Manchester is… still an abandoned mill town. Not until you take a third glance do you realize Manchester is full of secrets, such as:

 

Manchester contains many cultures:

Manchester is where you’ll find the hotel on which this poem is based:

Okay, I confess I exaggerated a bit: not all the rooms have blood in the drains.

 

Years ago, I moved to Boston and made it my home town. Here’s why.

Who lives in Boston?

Boston is America’s most intellectual city. It bulges with about 100 wonderful colleges, and its suburbs contain others that are even more prestigious, such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Wellesley College, and Tufts University.

M.I.T. is New England’s top engineering school. Most students at M.I.T. are tops in engineering (and science & math) but weak in humanities. Many students at Harvard are the opposite: bright in humanities but weak in science & math. Hence this incident:

Boston subways are packed with students. The main subway station treats you to free music by student musicians.

In Boston subways, the image is “students” — unlike New York subways, where the image is “drunks.” I’ll never forget when I returned from a trip to Europe and found myself on a New York subway, where I saw a charming young couple cuddle. Behind them, out of their view, an old drunk woman was cursing them and pointing her finger at them. Her finger finally touched the back of the young woman’s neck. The young woman jumped out of her chair and yelled out a fearful scream. Then the old woman vomited all over the subway car.

That could happen just in New York, not Europe, not Boston.

Many Bostonians are escapees from New Jersey. As youngsters, they lived in New Jersey, graduated from fine high schools there, and got admitted to prestigious Boston-area universities. When they graduated from the universities, they’d fallen so in love with Boston that they didn’t want to leave — and certainly didn’t want to return to New Jersey! So they decided to live in Boston permanently. On the walls of their Boston apartments, they hang Kliban’s cartoon showing a man running away from a smokestack and entitled “Houdini escaping from New Jersey.”

Though Boston can charm you awhile, many Bostonians eventually move beyond it, to Maine’s countryside, just a few hours away. Maine is populated mainly by escapees from Boston, just as Boston is populated by escapees from New Jersey. Ornithologists call that the “migration pattern of creative humans.”

Before escaping to Maine, intellectual students are torn between a love of Boston and a love of San Francisco, whose suburbs include the great universities of Berkeley and Stanford. But San Francisco is worse than Boston in three ways: its monotonously foggy climate denies you the thrill of seeing golden sunshine and snowstorms; its steep hills, like warts, prevent you from jogging across the city smoothly; and it lacks Boston’s old-world charm. On the other hand, Bostonians visiting San Francisco are forced to confess that compared to San Francisco, Boston is a third-world country, technologically and socially 3 years behind.

Visitors

Boston is a magnet that draws visitors from all over the world. We get to shake hands with proud parents (of Harvard students), French Canadians (coming “south” to Boston to spend an enjoyable day), history buffs (gaping at the birthplace of the American Revolution with its Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s ride, and Battle of Bunker Hill), engineers (analyzing the high-tech companies encircling Boston), and nature lovers (wandering through Boston while searching for beautiful fall foliage).

Yes, they come from all over. On the sideway leading up to my Boston apartment, I even found a matchbook saying, “Toot’n Totum is the only home-owned chain of convenience food stores in Amarillo.” I feel proud that my sidewalk’s magnanimous enough to receive litter from Amarillo, Texas.

What Europe gave Boston

Boston is America’s most European city. The street I’ve lived on is so pretty and quaint that my visitors believe they’ve been magically transported to an English fairy tale.

Boston has a history of being loads of fun, beginning with how the city got its name. Centuries ago, England had a saint called “Saint Botolph,” who started a town called “Botolph’s town,” which got shortened to “Bo’s town,” then further shortened to “Boston.” That’s how the English city of Boston got its name. America’s Boston was named after England’s.

Neighbors

Boston’s a patchwork of hundreds of tiny neighborhoods, each 4 blocks long and a fascinating microcosm of society.

The most famous neighborhoods are:

But those neighborhoods are just the obvious ones. Walk 4 blocks in any direction, and you’ll discover yet another neighborhood!

Moreover, in Boston, every single block has its own character — and its inhabitants are proud of it. Whenever a Bostonian reveals his address, he gives it with pride.

My own neighborhood I lived in Boston on Saint Botolph Street, which years ago became famous for its prostitutes. One of my elderly readers sent me a letter admitting that while a student back in the 1940’s, he flunked his freshman year at M.I.T. because he spent too much time on Saint Botolph Street.

The prostitutes eventually left Saint Botolph Street and moved to lusher pastures, but the street’s reputation lives on, and it’s attracted a strange bunch of folks — such as me!

My own neighbors My neighbors on Saint Botolph Street were lots of fun.

Down the hall from me was a pair of bedrooms whose occupants shared my kitchen and bath. That pair of bedrooms became home to many of Boston’s finest citizens:

Those characters living down the hall can’t compare to the neighbors in the adjacent buildings.

But before that latest fire, I got a real kick out of the people who lived in that building:

In that building, the main source of income was drugs and fencing stolen goods. Truly an outstanding tribe of entrepreneurs!

But in that building, my favorite family was the one where mom and dad would disappear each day and leave their two 5-year-old girls alone in the apartment.

Edwin Arlington Robinson When I was hunting for a room to live in, I happened to wind up at “92 Saint Botolph Street,” because it was fine but cheap. After moving in, I discovered that one of my neighbors was one of my heroes: the famous poet Edwin Arlington Robinson lived just a few doors away, at 99 Saint Botolph Street. Years earlier, when I was a high-school kid in New Jersey, I loved reading his poems, so I was thrilled to discover he lived just a few doors away. Unfortunately, I never met him, since he died 22 years before I was born. We were both tortured writers.

In case you don’t remember who he was and can’t spend much time to learn, here are my abridged versions of poems he wrote in 1897, as part of his book called The Children of the Night.…

Recite this poem when you’re jealous of a rich person or think of killing yourself:

Recite this villanelle (poem with repeated lines) when you move out of your home (or the White House’s occupant changes at the end of the 4-year term, or the House of Representatives goes on vacation):

Give this retort if your friends complain you waste too much time writing poetry instead of making big bucks:

Boston’s old-world charm keeps getting struck by lightning thoughts from its professors and students:

Street people

As you walk down Boston streets, you’ll meet the Dickensian characters who give Boston its special charm.

Friendliness

Boston is friendlier than New York. In New York, everybody is distrustful, expects to get ripped off or mugged, and lives in fear. In Boston, muggings are equally popular and prices are even higher — but nobody minds, because Boston’s crooks all smile.

Boston is more manageable than New York. New York is too big: it overwhelms. Boston’s buildings are shorter and its neighborhoods are tinier, so a brief walk through Boston lets you feel you’ve mastered it all. In Boston, you feel you own the city; in New York, you feel the city owns you.

Fantasyland

My dad called Boston a “toy city” because of its tiny buildings, tiny neighborhoods, and tiny inhabitants (mainly kids who are students). He was a serious German who preferred New York, which he called the “real” city. (Cynics call New York the “real” mess!)

I love Boston, because I love to live in fantasyland.

Boston’s in Massachusetts, whose biggest fantasy was George McGovern. In the 1972 Presidential election, Massachusetts was the only state that voted for McGovern instead of Richard Nixon. After Nixon won, botched Watergate, and had to resign, Massachusetts cars sported proud bumper stickers saying, “Don’t blame me — I’m from Massachusetts!”

 

Weather

Boston is the 3^rd windiest city in the United States. It’s much windier than Chicago. According to our beloved government, the only cities windier than Boston are Oklahoma City and Butte Montana (if you don’t count Washington D.C.’s windbag politicians).

Boston’s average wind speed is 12½ miles per hour. But that “average” is misleading. Sometimes, the air is perfectly still. At many other times, the wind whips by at 100 miles per hour — especially near Boston’s Hancock Tower.

Boston’s in New England, where the weather continually changes, quickly and unpredictably. Back in the 1800’s, Mark Twain said, “If you don’t like New England’s weather, wait a minute.” He also said:

Everywhere else, the weather is created by God. But in Boston, the weather is created by God’s son, “J.C.,” who’s a student at M.I.T. For his student project, J.C. launches the most daring weather experiments, using Bostonians as his guinea pigs. Whenever Boston’s passionate suffering excites him sufficiently, he exports the weather to the rest of New England and finally to the rest of the world.

Driving

Here’s mankind’s biggest challenge: driving through Boston.

For example, suppose you’re trying to visit a friend who says he lives on “A Street.” If you look at a map, you’ll find that Boston contains three streets called “A Street.” There’s an A Street in the part of Boston called “Charlestown”; but 2½ miles southeast of that, you’ll find another A Street, in the part of Boston called “South Boston”; and 6 miles southwest of that second A Street, you’ll find a third A Street, in the part of Boston called “Hyde Park.”

Similarly, Boston contains three B Streets. Boston also contains five Lincoln Streets, five Pleasant Streets, and six Park Streets.

After figuring out which A Street to go to, your next problem is to figure out which streets will take you there. That’s a major challenge, since practically every street in Boston is curved.

Boston was planned by meandering cows: each old street was a cow path, curved to avoid hills and ditches. When Boston city planners lopped off the hills to fill the ditches, they forgot to straighten the cow paths, so Boston’s streets are still curved, to avoid the hills and ditches that no longer exist. In Boston’s intellectual suburb (Cambridge), Massachusetts Avenue curves so sharply that the natives describe Harvard University as being “at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue.”

Traffic signs To make Boston driving a challenge, most of the popular streets are marked “One Way,” usually in the opposite direction from where you want to go, and with no obvious alternative route in sight. Those signs were put up at the request of neighbors who don’t want to deal with folks like you. To increase your challenge, Boston city planners consider street signs to be optional, so that you’re never quite sure which street you’re on. The few street signs that remain are often wrong.

My favorite signpost is on the outskirts of Boston. At the top of the post, a sign says you’re going south; underneath it is a sign that says you’re going north. Altogether, the signs say you’re going south on route 93 and north on route 128. Which direction are you really going in: south or north? The correct answer is neither: you’re really going west!

But suppose you’re nerdy enough to bring a map that even shows which streets are one-way. Your troubles aren’t over yet: you’re just about to turn left onto the street you wish, which even goes in the direction you wish, when all of a sudden you’re confronted by a sign saying “No Left Turn.” To be legal, you try to somehow drive around the block, but you get a surprise: each side of the block has a combination of “One Way” and “No Left Turn” signs designed so that you can’t reach your destination. “You can’t get there from here” is a popular saying in Boston. Every taxi driver knows the only solution: interpret the “No Left Turn” sign to mean “Turn left as fast as possible, before anybody notices.”

Traffic lights You can always tell a newcomer to Boston by the way he reacts to traffic lights. He’s under the mistaken impression that a red light means “stop.” In Boston, a red light does not mean “stop”; instead, it means “think about it, slow down a little, stare at the other cars, honk your horn at them, then continue straight through.”

A yellow light means “drive faster, before it turns red.” A green light means “wait for the cars in the other direction to finish going through their red light; then race.”

Rotaries Boston city planners suffer from one major fetish: rotaries. Maybe it’s because Boston’s run by Irish Catholics, who misspell “rosaries”?

Driving experts have discovered that Boston and China are the only places in the whole world that have so many rotaries.

Driving into a Boston rotary is like jumping into a washing machine, filled with live sharks during the “spin” cycle: coming out is either miraculous or bloody.

Jams Boston traffic is so heavy that you’re guaranteed to find yourself in a massive traffic jam before you reach your destination.

Three of Boston’s main arteries are Storrow Drive, the Southeast Expressway, and the Mystic River Bridge. Because they’re the sites of so many traffic jams, they’re called “Sorrow Drive, the Southeast Distressway, and the Misery River Bridge.”

Parking To park, seasoned Boston drivers use the “Braille method,” which consists of bumping the cars surrounding you until you finally nestle into the space between them.

When you come back the next day to retrieve your car, don’t be surprised if it’s gone. Boston’s become famous as the car-theft capital of America. If you park your car, and it’s still there the next day, you’ll pat yourself on your back for being lucky — until you burst out in tears when you see the parking ticket. Nearly every parking space in Boston is marked “illegal.” A parking ticket can cost you $100 or more, depending on how cleverly you found an illegal place to park.

Jargon Instead of saying “turn left,” Bostonians say “bang a left.” Instead of saying “U-turn,” Bostonians say “U-ey” (pronounced “yoo-ee”). Instead of saying “make a U-turn,” Bostonians say “bang a U-ey.”

No Republicans

Boston’s a Democrat city. In Boston, calling somebody a “Republican” is equivalent to calling the person an “ass.” The Phoenix (Boston’s underground newspaper) has run many personal ads where women say they want to date a man, any nice man, but “no Republicans.”

In Cambridge (the town containing Harvard and M.I.T.), Democrat Al Gore beat George W. Bush during the year 2000 elections, of course. But here’s the shocker: during that election, even Ralph Nader beat Bush. Yes, Bush came in 3^rd.

Little peculiarities

Boston’s peculiar.

Charles River The Charles River separates Boston from its intellectual suburb, Cambridge (home of Harvard and M.I.T.). Three major bridges cross the Charles River: one bridge goes to Harvard; one goes to M.I.T.; and the middle bridge comes from Boston University and goes to nowhere.

The bridge that comes from Boston University is called the “Boston University Bridge.” But the bridge that goes to M.I.T. is not called the “M.I.T. Bridge”; instead it’s called the Harvard Bridge, because Harvard owns it.

As you walk across the Harvard Bridge, from Boston to M.I.T., look down near your feet: you’ll see a surprise! Painted onto the sidewalk is a marker saying “10 Smoots.” As you continue walking, you come to a marker saying “20 Smoots,” then markers saying “30 Smoots,” “40 Smoots,” etc., until you reach bridge’s far end, where the final marker says “364.4 Smoots, plus one ear.” Here’s why:

The Charles River is beautiful, especially during the spring, when it’s dotted with sailboats. But its beauty is just on the surface: underneath, it’s polluted. One hot summer day, the water’s surface evaporated, to let the polluted water underneath reached the air and give off such a strong sulfurous stench that the drivers on Storrow Drive were overcome by the fumes, lost control of their cars, and crashed into each other!

Scrod Boston is famous for a fish dish called scrod (young Atlantic cod & halibut, split for cooking) and for intellectual cab drivers (often foreign students), which combine in this tale:

Wednesday Boston’s the only city where “Wednesday” has a special meaning. In fact, the best way to determine how long a person’s lived in Boston is to ask, “What’s Wednesday?” If the person can’t answer the question correctly, the person isn’t a true Bostonian.

John Hancock Tower The John Hancock Tower is Boston’s tallest building, but you can make it disappear! Here’s how.…

Stand on Boylston Street, on the block between Clarendon Street and Dartmouth Street. Stand directly under the “R” of the green “STATE STREET BANK” sign.

From that position, the entire John Hancock Tower seems to “disappear.” Specifically, the building’s longest sides (which are a whole city block long) hide from your view (because they sit at a peculiar angle), so the entire Tower seems to be just a narrow, fragile, tall wall of unsupported glass.

Street performers The best street performers are the ones you find each summery day in front of Quincy Market. One group, called the “Shakespeare Brothers,” has an amazing way with words. The other group, called the “Dueling Bozos,” juggles on unicycles. Both groups include magic, audience participation, and practical jokes; they give you the best laughs to be had in Boston.

I remember the first time I saw the Shakespeare Brothers; I’ll never forget their act, which consisted of fake magic.

And that’s why we all love Boston. Boston isn’t a city: it’s a joke. It’s the world’s best-kept zoo. And we love it.

 

New York City is divided into 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

Manhattan

Some folks say the Indians named the main borough “Manhatton” when they saw it get overrun by European men wearing stupid hats.

Staten Island

Some folks say “Staten Island” got its name when Henry Hudson first saw it and asked his crew:

Some say it should be spelled “Statin Island” because its residents love to pop pills that are statins (such as Lipitor).

The Bronx

This is the only borough that requires you to say “the” before it: you must say “the Bronx.” Here’s the true reason why:

Queens

This borough was probably named after Queen Catherine of England in 1683, though historians aren’t sure. In 1988, the government of Queens decided to erect a huge statue of her, 35 feet high, facing the United Nations (which is across the river in Manhattan), with encouragement from Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter. But when statue was built, Queens citizens refused to let it stay in Queens, because of these objections:

Queen Catherine quickly became the most disliked woman in Queens. Now her statue hides in upstate New York, where her face got mutilated by Mother Nature and poorly reconstructed by an apprentice sculptor.

Brooklyn

In Brooklyn, old Jewish residents speak English with a strange accent:

The most famous example of a Brooklyn accent is this poem:

In that poem, “goil” means “girl,” “Goity” means “Gertie,” “boid” means “bird,” “toity” means “thirty,” and “toid” means “third,” so the girl lives on 32^nd Street.