Monday, February 21, 2005

No sense of place: petty gripe du jour

Regardless of where you live, someone who's not from there has probably asked you an irksome question predicated on a trite assumption, even a false assumption, about the place. For example, I live in Wisconsin, and when people find this out they sometimes ask, "Do you like cheese?" As a matter of fact, I love cheese. But is this important? And more than once someone has learned I am from Nashville and asked, "Have you been to Graceland?" That's sort of like asking someone from Dallas if they've been to the Alamo.

And yes, I have been to the Alamo. I lived in Chicago, didn't I?

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