The State University of New York: University at Buffalo supposedly has among the highest percentage of international students of any major university in the US. On campus, there’s an urban legend that the number of internationals students is so high because they thought Buffalo was a suburb of New York City, if not an hour or two away. While Buffalo is relatively close to Toronto (about 150 km; it’s a 90 minute drive away), it’s about a seven to eight hour drive to NYC.
Owww… so that’s another state capital I’ve been to… though I didn’t know it was the capital of Massachusetts at the time. 
Been there too – only for a week – back when we used to do business with… err… Enron.
::Waves aaaalll the way back::
What I’m trying to work out is why do I know about Akron? And what do I know about it?
Most other places that I can name in America are either obviously famous (Detroit, Miami, Pittsburg) or have some sort of pop-culture association (Boulder, Colorado = Mork and Mindy). Akron’s just sort of rattling around loose in my head.
Dayton’s in there too, for some reason.
Well, there’s something called the Dayton Accords, an international agreement – er, maybe about the Middle East, I’m too lazy to Google it. The Wright brothers are from Dayton, and there are some historical things related to air travel associated with it.
Akron? Tougher. It is, or was, associated with tire manufacturing and rubber. I think Devo is from Akron – I dunno, are you a fan of theirs? That’s all I can come up with about Akron.
Akron? Here’s my first encounter with it…
Akron is not that obscure, is it? Looking through the list of US cities by population, it’s at number 95. Cities of that size do tend to get mentions in various contexts. I have to go down to about 140 in that list before there are lots of places I haven’t heard of. Highest entry I didn’t recognise is Virginia Beach at 41, followed by Santa Ana, CA and Aurora, CO. And many of the less familiar entries turn out to be suburbs of internationally known cities, such as Mesa or Tempe - not too well known outside the US, but Phoenix certainly is (I recognised Tempe though - the Gin Blossoms came from there!)
Devo rings a bell – Devo is a possibility.
Truth is, though, I might very well be aware of Akron (and, for that matter Dayton) from two or three sightings in entirely inconsequential circumstances. For example: I know of Pahrump, Nevada, because a couple of years ago there was a news story about the city banning people from flying flags of other nations. I might have forgotten about it, but shortly afterwards, Pahrump was mentioned in CSI and then in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Thanks to watching Law and Order last night, I now know that there’s a place in New Jersey called Teaneck (and thanks to checking the spelling on the web, I also know that the State Shell of New Jersey is the Knobbed Whelk – a fact I may never be able to forget).
Akron is the home of the All-American Soap Box Derby, going on right now!
Well, this is probably it, yes. Like I say, it only takes a couple of passing mentions for something to lodge in the memory. It just seemed a little odd, when I came to think about it, to have a whole city in there without some sort of peg to hang it on.
Oh, that’s it! :smack: How could that slip my mind?
Isn’t Akron the home of Goodyear? Or is that Dayton?
Stupid Ohio.
Yugoslavia.
Tires are from Akron. Scales are from Toledo. Cash registers, brakes, and car radios are from Dayton. (Of course, most of this is no longer true.)