Based on this thread, where there seems to be a lot of them.
It doesn’t have to be something you yourself believed, it can be things that other people are certain are unique to the area, but you know they really aren’t. I’ll start with a couple:
The phrase “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, it’ll change.” Usually preceeded by “We have a saying around here…” Around here, and over there, and that other place, too. They say this everywhere.
They probably say it in Phoenix and San Diego.
When I first moved to Colorado, Boulder had a Halloween Mall Crawl. Thousands of people in costume hanging out on the pedestrian mall getting stoned. People were convinced this was a “Boulder” thing and it was a sign of how cool the community was. I barely had the heart to tell them that Madison, Wisconsin had the same thing, and it was older and about ten times larger than Boulder’s.
Every place I have lived I’ve encountered someone who tells a story about a local
<a> lake
<b> psychiatric hospital
that involved
<a> giant catfish the size of pickup trucks living at the bottom of the dam
<b> a story about a guy changing a flat at the gates and lost all the lug nuts, only to have a crazy guy tell him to use one nut off all the other tires, so three were on each tire, usually ending with “I’m crazy, not stupid”
In addition, almost every place has local ghost stories and sad accidents that led to the ghost stories which are the same, or very nearly so. The big ones that come to mind are Cry Baby Bridge, The Lady in White and who can forget the Vanishing Hitchhiker.
I guess almost all of the well-known urban legends fall into this category. They all happened every single place that I have ever lived (and the teller always knew someone involved, so of course that locality was where the real incident took place).
I have lived all over the place (first a military brat then a military wife) and can confidently say that very few things are unique and local to any one place. Some have local variations that are unique(er) but mostly it’s been done before.
Anywhere I’ve ever lived someone, usually a college student, has insisted that their city has the most bars/booze/drinking/partying “per capita” in the United States. Often Las Vegas is cited as second. Uh huh. Great. :rolleyes:
Not in my home town. There it’s “this place sucks if you don’t like wind, but if you can put up with it, we have the best climate ever.” And over on the Northern Spanish Coast, it’s “hope you like wet weather, cos that’s all we’ve got.”
[QUOTE=Morbo;12098252<b> a story about a guy changing a flat at the gates and lost all the lug nuts, only to have a crazy guy tell him to use one nut off all the other tires, so three were on each tire, usually ending with “I’m crazy, not stupid”[/QUOTE]
When I lived in NYC, this meant New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. But there are a whole lot of other “tri-state areas” in the country. I have seen, on these very boards, people listing “tri-state area” as their location, as if it’s self-explanatory.
There is a nice burrito shop in Isla Vista, Ca that makes one of the best burritos that I have ever had. Every time I’m down in Santa Barbara I swing buy to pick one up. For the locals on the board I’m talking about Freebird’s any how I was talking to a buddy of mine about how great these burritos were and he disagreed and said there was a chain in Lubbock, Tx that was the best in the world which by a weird coincidence was also called Freebird’s.
We did a little googleing and discovered that the original shop was in Isla Vista and the owners split with one taking all of the naming rights with him to Texas. He’s started a chain of them in Lubbock. So what I grew up thinking was a local burrito shop was actually a chain.
Years ago I was trying some new local places to go to lunch. I found one place that was fantastic. They specialized in fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and buttermilk biscuits. The biscuits were fantastic! I loved that place. I really hoped that they’d be able to stay in business for a while. I even commented to the “waiter” behind the counter to please give my compliments to the chef. He looked at me like a rooster looks at a joke.
Alas, my beloved Popeye’s did not stay in business.
Back in the late '80s, before the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, a friend of mine humorously observed that everybody everywhere believed that the place they lived was one of the top five priority targets in the U.S. if nuclear war broke out.
When bad things happen, we can rely on the “community.” Because our “community” cares. We look out for one another. This sure is a special “community” we have here. There’s no “community” like ours. The “community” sure pulled together on this one. Good thing we live in this caring “community.”
Nah. Never mind. I’m probably the only one who’s heard that.
Do college rumors belong here? Like the guy who complained of ass pain, and the doctor told him his roommate had been knocking him out with ether and anally raping him all semester? And the girl who got automatic A’s because her roommate committed suicide in the room?
Both of those really happened at my college. Dude, seriously.
When I was younger, I used to think that my city was the only city that had all those chain restaurants. I thought they all started in my city and if another city had an IHOP, it was because they stole the idea from my city.
