US geography lessons

It's such a waste of brain to forget things -- especially things you've spent hours and hours learning.

When I was ten years old, I learned to identify all 50 US states on a map. And to color the map neatly at the same time. In retrospect, I think the teacher was actually more concerned with my neatness than whether or not I could remember the names of all 50 blobs. Nevertheless, I did learn the blobs.

Anyway, the reason this comes up is that Tim is a boy scout. That is, Tim used to be a boy scout and now he's a boy scout leader. So tonight, our family got to go to the church for a blue and gold banquet. A blue and gold banquet is like a party for boy scouts and their families. At parties, they have entertainment. For entertainment at the blue and gold banquet, we got maps of the United States, with numbers instead of state names. Our job was to fill in all the state names by the end of the evening.

There is nothing quite as entertaining as a fifth grade project, without the need to color neatly. I totally got into it.

The numbers on the states ran in order of statehood. I was going to start with number one and move down the list numerically, but that would have started me in all those little eastern states that meld into one blob on that coast over there. You know -- the ones that are all so close together that you cross state lines every few minutes or so while driving. And the only reason you know you've crossed state lines is there's a new toll booth up ahead.

Not for me. I started over in the west, where the states are large and distinct and worth spending a whole vacation visiting. I know all my western states. I even know the difference between Wyoming and Colorado. The trick: Colorado is the rectangle further south, populated by skiiers, whereas only grizzly bears and crazy people live in Wyoming. I can say this as an informed citizen because my brother lives in Wyoming with his family. Most of his family are grizzly bears, but the middle son is definitely crazy people.

Anyway, once you get to the plains states the vacations are over. The plains states are pretty much states that you drive through on your way somewhere else. And they take forever to drive through, because they were built extra long in the east-west direction purely for the sake of road trip torture. (Next time fly.) Nebraska is the one with the chunk taken out of it. North and South Dakota form a nice pair on top of that. And then you pause for a moment before you remember that the one left over has to be Kansas.

Now move further east to deal with the states along the Mississippi and the Midwest. The Midwest can be confusing. For example, Ohio and Iowa are both only four letters long and pretty much made up of all vowels. The only reason I can distinguish them at all is the fact that Ohio State has to be close enough to the University of Michigan to be a major rival, so it's only logical that Ohio is the state just south of Michigan, rather than that squat one way over by Wisconsin. Indiana and Illinois, both with too many I's in them, are also pretty tricky to tell apart, but luckily you know that Chicago is in Illinois and there's a song about Gary Indiana. Singing the song doesn't really help with the map, but it makes the time pass quickly as you finish filling in Minnesota and Missouri.

I used to have trouble with Kentucky and Tennessee, and as I was trying to sort them I had the vague memory of eating Frankforts on the Bluegrass in Kentucky. However, the real way to tell these two apart is to remember that Tennessee is the flat state where my brother Bryan lives. Since Bryan occasionally reads this blog, especially when I have sexual harassment- and marathon- themed posts, I can totally find Nashville, all thanks to Google Analytics.

Now let's move into the southern states, picking out Louisiana and Florida first, because they are boot shaped and have nice beaches, respectively. For Georgia, think of peaches, and then get South Carolina out of the way before too many southern states are filled. This gives you North Carolina for free, because duh, it sits on top of South Carolina. And before you know it, you're back into those tiny east coast states again.

OK then, plowing ahead, New York and Pennsylvania are big enough to be identifiable. Massachusetts is only distinguishable from Connecticut because of Cape Cod. Don't try to tell them apart by the people, because everyone who lives there is pretty much the same.

And now hardest part. Which is Vermont and which is New Hampshire? There's no way to remember by shape, since you get one from the other by just a 180 degree rotation. Here's my secret. Vermont is filled with liberals, like those guys who make ice cream, whereas New Hampshire is conservative. Now, I once knew a woman who grew up in Maine, which is easy to find at the top right of the map. She told several stories of all the crazy red necked hicks who lived in Maine. Since hicks are conservative, and they occasionally bleed across state boundaries, you can therefore remember that New Hampshire is the state right next to Maine! So Vermont has to be the upside down one after all. Brilliant, eh?

From there you pretty much just have to remember that you fly into New Jersey to visit New York City, so Maryland is the state next to Virginia. Then you flip a coin to decide which dot is Rhode Island and which is Delaware, and if it comes up heads you win. And then you stand back and admire your work.

And see a big hole in the south-ish midwest-ish there by the Mississippi river. One shapeless state missing.

Dang.

It isn't Missouri -- Missouri has a tail. So does Mississippi and so does Alabama, for that matter. It isn't west enough to be Kansas -- plus, you already used up Kansas to fill in that hole in the plains states. And even though it's pretty shapeless, it isn't Iowa or Ohio because those were sorted out by thinking of Michigan.

Basically stuck.

So you eat some food, listen to bad boy scout jokes, hide the hole under your plate in case Tim looks over, and then, near the end of the meeting... BAM! It's Arkansas! Home of Walmart.

Fifty out of fifty! I am so good.

Stay tuned for our next informative post, in which we will cover trig identities.