The East PA Experience
- towns being arbitrarily divided into "the nice part of [x]" and "the bad part of [x]" even if both parts look exactly the same
- every store that's not a chain closes at 10PM
- everything is closed on Sunday
- "so do you speak German?"
- Confederate flags in a Union state
- everyone mispronouncing everyone else's last name
- actual people named Billy Bob
- Mexican restaurants owned by white people
- towns that are just a restaurant, a church, and a block of houses
- towns with >10 churches in them
- towns that are named after two other, nearby towns
- schizophrenic weather
- bumper stickers endorsing whoever the farthest-right candidate in a given election is
- school council meetings about the prevalence of black magic
- "the queers" being blamed for something
- "the immigrants" being blamed for something
- bonus: by second-generation Americans
- high school sports teams named after major league sports teams, but in the wrong sport (eg. "The Eagles of Hockey")
- really fucking great soft pretzels
- schufly / shoo-fly / shoeflie pie
- LOTS AND LOTS OF TRAINS
- graffiti on highway walls older than you are
- people being nostalgic for big-box stores that don't exist anymore
- The Amish
- being stuck behind The Amish in traffic
- people being unreasonably cruel to The Amish
- getting arrested at a completely tame house party that had alcohol at it because the cops have nothing better to do
- knowing at least two separate people who, on separate occasions, stole a lawnmower
- knowing everyone in your county and absolutely no one from the next county over
- really bizarre inter-town rivalries that occasionally escalate to dangerous levels
- bonfires
- bonfires
- bonfires
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We're not like those other immigrants, we're white, as god and christ intended man to be.
oh no Hispanics also totally blame things on immigrants.
That is sad.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
a not evil walmart
Specifically Swiss and Bavarian, which are pretty distinctive.
As an aside, I come from, or came from, a very liberal, suburban part of eastern Pennsylvania, and most of those still apply, particularly the zillion churches thing. God, do we have a lot of churches.
I have a few others I would specifically add for the southeast, though.
2. Pizza places run by non-Italian immigrants, often ambiguously Slavic or Greek.
3. The pronunciation of "bad" as two syllables.
4. Halal food carts.
5. Asian supermarkets that are basically tiny malls.
6. Twin houses, row houses, everywhere.
7. "[Revolutionary War figure] had brunch here."
8. Burnt-out fiftysomething motorcyclists who may or may not have sold meth for the Warlocks.
9. Everyone, race and religion irrelevant, has gone to a bar or bat mitzvah.
10. Lutheran-owned banks and insurance companies, everywhere.
11. Weird cuisine-combo restaurants, particularly pan-Asian buffets and Italian-plus (as noted above).
12. Street musicians. Generally a Philly thing. Bonus: Classical instrument, played eccentrically; alternately, saxophone.
13. Onion domes.
14. Jewish people of highly unusual ethnicities.
15. Russian Eurobeat, played loudly.
16. Cooooooooonnnnnnnshohocken! Less common now.
17. The buses go everywhere and you have always just missed one.
18. The hoagie/grinder distinction.
19. Jimmies.
20. The appropriate use of "yo."
21. Hipster radio.
22. The abrupt transition between insufferably bourgie gentrified spaces and terrifying urban wasteland.
23. Herbs and miscellanea of an obscure nature labelled in Chinese and sold for reasonable prices.
24. McMansions with no windows on one side.
(The other Jane)
(The other Jane)
This happens in the suburbs up here too