Looking Down to See Which Way is Up

I am learning that Geography is not studied much anymore. Once I was wearing a Texas flag pin and was asked what it was like being from Puerto Rico. At least that mistake is a little understandable because the Texas and Puerto Rico flags are so…OK, so that are not at all alike. But the mistake at least was of an educated guess variety.

I was in Minnesota once and was speaking to a librarian (again, keep in mind this was an educated librarian) who asked where I was from. At the time I was from Connecticut, so I responded with “Connecticut”. She then asked me “what state is that in?”

Recently, while in Seattle, an educated state government researcher told me I speak English well. I was not certain what that meant. I had heard that twice before, both times from Generals who spotted my Pennsylvania flag pin and mistakenly thought it was a pin of a foreign country who then proceeded to tell me that my English was quite good. But, this was a person who KNEW I was from Pennsylvania. It turns out, she thought Pennsylvania was a foreign country.

We Pennsylvanians do teach English in our schools and we hope that someday our children will grow up conversant in the English language.