I grew up in a very rural area right on the Louisiana/Texas border. People on both sides of the border co-mingled completely. We even had the only bi-state public high school that I have ever encountered. However, when it came right down to it, we were Louisianans and they were Texans. We learned about Louisiana history and culture even though our area didn’t fit into that well and they took great pride in Texas just like all good Texans do. The border was definitely important for us.
I like within 20 minutes of the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border now and many of my coworkers are from Rhode Island. That is a strong mental border as well. The Massachusetts/New Hampshire border is even stronger and more sharp.
Several of you have mentioned the “mental border” notion and I have posted other threads in the past where the issues of boundaries and borders and cutoff points have been addressed.
I’d like your feedback on the likelihood that a thread with a title like
I don’t know if we have any Dopers from Ontario, Oregon, but I can imagine the folks that live there don’t feel like they’re treated as true Oregonians and are closer to being Idahoans. Much of Oregon consists of tall stands of Douglas firs and has the Pacific Ocean, The Cascades, Crater Lake, Mt. Hood and other scenic wonders to its credit. Ontario has a nice view of the Snake River but there isn’t much else to see around the area and it isn’t exactly “Oregon” by most people’s perceptions. Before Idaho got a lottery of its own in 1989 Ontario enjoyed an influx of us tater-staters vying for a chance at the Megabucks lottery. At least we can still take advantage of sales-tax-free shopping over there, but back home at least we can still pump our own gas.
My village is in the exact center of Bulgaria, so I’m not close to any borders, but I had a short break about a week and a half ago, so I went to Bucharest, just to check it out for a couple days. I’ve crossed land borders before, but they were all in the middle of nowhere, so it was hard to see any kind of immediate change. However, the BG/RO border crossing point (it’s the ONLY bridge over the Danube connecting them - in other places you have to take a ferry) is between two actual cities, Russe in Bulgaria and Giurgiu in Romania.
I found it to be a surreal experience. The two cities have the same crap communist architecture, are at the same level of development, the kids on the streets were dressed in the same styles of clothing, etc. It did not at all feel like I had gone anywhere new - except that everyone was speaking a different language, and the signs everywhere were in Latin and not Cyrillic. All you have to do is cross a single river and suddenly everything is incomprehensible! It was a little bizarre.
(Also, Giurgiu has a big statue of Vlad Tepes in a plaza. That’s what makes Romania cooler than Bulgaria - we don’t have any monuments to Dracula.)
2)There are times I feel like an outsider. There is a little backlash against the Marylanders who have moved into the York area from the people who have been here a while.
3)I’m right about at the borderline for that, I think. South of me you still get a lot of Maryland-centric people and north of me there are very few.
N/A.
A little history: I lived in Maryland for most of my life (0-18, 20-26) with the early part being in Southern Maryland (D.C. and south) followed by a brief stint in Virginia, before landing a real job in the Baltimore area. I moved to Pennsylvania because of cheaper housing and a better school district for my kids.
