March 30, 2007
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Washington
A while back, I was talking to a guy who was new to Seattle. He grew up in Mississippi and lived in Michigan for a while. Then he came out here a couple months back.
He pointed across Lake Washington to the east. “What’s that mountain range?” “That’s the Cascade range.” “How far does it go?” “Well, it goes north into Canada, and south through Oregon and into California.” “No, I mean how far east does it go?” “Oh, not far. Maybe seventy-five miles or something, depending on where you’re crossing.”
And then he asked me: “How far is it to Washington, DC?”
And I answered: “Oh, about three thousand miles I guess,” I smiled and pointed, “Straight that way.”
“Three thousand? How big is Washington state?”
The obvious hadn’t occurred to me yet…. “A few hundred miles.”
“That way?” He pointed the same way I had just pointed when I was joking.
“Yeah.”
“What state is Washington, DC, in?”
All became clear. I explained.
How can someone grow up in the US and not know the difference between Washington, DC, and Washington state?
Comments (5)
Whoa. That’s wild. Especially coming from someone who’d lived around a bit. It’s not like he’d stayed in his podunk trailer park all of his life. He is clearly somewhat well-traveled. WOW.
The answer is the fourth word in the second sentence of this entry.
All too easily, unfortunately. This is coming from someone who is geographically challenged, but I learn quickly. Doesn’t matter where you grew up, in my experience. I grew up in a huge city, and still can be pretty ignorant when it comes to where things are relative to me.
60% of high-schoolers tested thought New York was the capital of the US. Of those, 70% could not say what state New York is in. 80% of Americans cannot tell you which is the only country that has ever used atomic weapons against civilians during wartime.
The mistake of Washington State vs. DC is quite common, I’ve heard adults fuck that one up… And it makes sense when you look at the state of education in this country. A starting garbage collector makes more money than a teacher. And they don’t have to put up with gun-totin’ gangsters jacked up on puberty.
(Or insert your own pet theory here)
I think it has to do with a complete disinterest in the world. You and I can’t imagine being that ignorant, but clearly this guy grew up in an environment where curiosity was not rewarded. Unfortunately, I think that can be said of school environments just as much as podunk trailer parks.