Wednesday, 8/7

I wonder if I owe the people of New Jersey an apology?

As you may recall, yesterday I was commenting on the plethora of license plates I've seen in Marquette the past week from the state of New Jersey. I also may have made a crack that the UP is a big change from their usual scenery of warehouses and toxic waste dumps. After a day of reflection, I'm starting to wonder if, just perhaps, I played a little too much on the stereotypes surrounding one of America's 13 original colonies.

Either that, or the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa got to me

(See? There I go again).

Whatever guilt I felt at making the cracks would probably be assuaged had I ever actually visited New Jersey and had viewed for myself the glorious warehouses and the scenic toxic waste dumps. But I haven't. I'm only relying on tropes passed down by comedians and sitcoms. I mean, for all I know, those stereotypes might be true, but before I use them I should probably, one day, check them out for myself, right.

After all, I wouldn't want to end up buried in the end zone of whatever stadium they'll next be building.

It's funny; there's a whole swath of the US, from Maryland up north to New York City, where I've never actually been. Yet because of all the TV shows and movies set in that part of the country I actually DO feel like I know them. But that also means that I know the TV & movie version of them; in New Jersey's case, the cartoonishly accented Tony Soprano version of the state. And yet I know there's much more to the state than that, especially in the southern part of it. From pictures I've seen, the landscape is actually quite beautiful.

So maybe, just maybe, I should actually visit "Joisey" before I make jokes at its expense. And who knows--if I'm lucky, maybe the day I visit they'll actually be opening another toxic waste dump. After all, I hear they're quite spectacular in the fall.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com), probably still owing people from the Garden State one huge apology.