New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; most people know these to be major states located in the northeast. However, most Fairfield students know them to be the most common answer to the question, “Where are you from?”
Ironically enough for a school located in Connecticut, there don’t seem to be an overwhelming number of non-commuter students who actually come from the state. So for this reason only, Connecticut will not be involved in this story.
Having lived in Massachusetts my entire life, I became very accustomed to life without the letter “r” and saying the word “wicked.” But when I came to Fairfield, I learned everyone has quirks. In the following analysis, I’ll attempt to be an “unbiased” observer as to how these states and their residents are perceived from an outsider’s perspective.
New Jersey
This is probably the most mocked of all of the states. The residents of “Jersey,” as it is called, typically do not appreciate it when you make fun of their state or attempt to make any summary judgment. Shaped like an armpit and complimented with that off-shore or oil refining emission smell, it’s hard not to know when you’ve entered New Jersey. Ouch.
There isn’t a state in the United States that suffers denial worse than New Jersey. The sports teams that play in New Jersey (the Giants and Jets) won’t admit to playing their home games in the state. Those who live near New York defend their Jersey heritage but will not hesitate to tell you how many minutes (typically fewer than 30) they live from “the city” and those who live in the heart of Jersey will deny any cliché you throw at them. For example, they all despise the “what exit are you off of?” joke, they refuse to accept Bon Jovi as a favorite son and they deny their undying devotion to White Castle hamburgers by claiming that “they’re disgusting.”
“That’s not true. That’s absolutely not true!” said Marc Amadeo ’07 of Bayonne, New Jersey.
However, they can all tell you exactly what exit they are off of, they love Bruce Springsteen and they’re currently keeping a secret within state lines called “Taylor Ham” to replace White Castle. My personal favorite “Jerseyism” is while most people say “Go get ice for the party,” they say “Go get iceferdaparty.”
Pennsylvania
This is probably my favorite state to observe since they manage to encapsulate more unintentional comedy into every day of their lives than most people do in a lifetime. If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation with a male from Pennsylvania without getting into an argument, please stop reading and put that fact on your resume. They’re just a genuinely angry group of people. You can’t take offense to this disrespect because they do it to everyone. It is just their way of giving back.
One incident sums up the welcome mat that is always present in Pennsylvania. At a Philadelphia Eagles football game around Christmas, Santa Claus came out to greet the crowd, wave and be on his merry way before heading to the North Pole. Those Philadelphia fans just couldn’t take it in the spirit of Christmas and let it slide. Oh no, rather than cheer and shout “ho ho ho,” they booed him into submission until he was finally led off the field by security while dodging projectiles from the belligerent crowd. This event is just a microcosm of the misplaced anger that exists in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvanians, like people from most other states, have their own language when it comes to certain terms. The Eagles are commonly referred to as the “iggles,” Pennsylvania is formally known as “P A” (or sometimes “Pensy”) and the word Philadelphia might as well not exist inside state boundaries because the name of the city is “Philly.” Along with their words, Pennsylvania also has its trademark “Rita’s Water Ice,” which residents herald as God’s gift to the East (and 100 percent different and better than Italian ice). Not to mention that they call it “wooter ice.”
New York
New York is a difficult state to characterize because the northern part of the state may as well be a different country when compared to the southern part of the state. For the sake of space and relevancy, we’ll stick to the southern part of the state.
One outstanding characteristic of Fairfield’s New Yorkers is that they don’t have any friends; they only have “buddies” or “boys.” Not only do they have these “buddies” and “boys,” but they have one who lives, works or knows someone in every part of the world. For example, if you were to go vacation in Aruba, someone from New York would say something like ,”Oh you’re going to Aruba? One of my boys, Pauly, he used to work down there…”
This one might be a stretch, but some of the university’s worst dancers, who aren’t aware that they’re terrible dancers, live in New York. Filled with clapping, arm waving and constant yelling, these dancers could easily be mistaken for seizure victims.
My final beef with New Yorkers are the people who live in Westchester County. They will refer to their home county when they are asked where they live. Unlike 98 percent of everyone else in this country who will say their town first and then try to relate it to somewhere notable, Westchester residents skip the middleman and go right to the county. The Westchester state of mind that consists of country clubs, underage drinking and nice cars is amusing and unprecedented.
Massachusetts
This section could take me a day and a half to write. There’s so much to say about the people who live in this state that it’s almost criminal. The hackneyed cliché’s that exist about our 25-letter alphabet, the use of the word “wicked” (for the record, don’t say wicked if you don’t know how to use it properly; this word is abused more than any other word and people from Massachusetts die a little inside every time you say “wicked awesome”) and the outdated “1918” chants, which needed to go even before Curt’s bloodied ankle when the Sox took it home this fall, can be left for another day.
People from Massachusetts are filled with a lot of pride, which is why it’s so easy to start an argument with any one of us (maybe we’re a little like those from “PA”). All you have to do is walk into the middle of a room and say, “I think Larry Bird was overrated,” and you will immediately have a hoard of people trying to get a grab at your jugular. With the exception of sports, there isn’t a whole lot that goes on in Massachusetts and that’s why when something big happens in Massachusetts we typically make too big of a deal out of it or we tend to find a way to mess it up.
The Democratic National Convention took place in Boston this past summer and it was suppose to pump serious revenue into the city. Instead, the authorities scared everyone out of driving into the city because of “brutal traffic” warnings and businesses were left too with too much stock and no business. When the 1999 All-Star Game came to town, Senator Ted Kennedy said he was excited that Boston would have the chance to see “Mike McGwire” (Mark McGwire) and “Sammy Sooser” (Sammy Sosa). There also isn’t anywhere else in the country where people are impressed when they say, “My uncle was an extra in “Summer Catch.”
Isn’t it amazing how so many Fairfield students from Massachusetts live approximately 30 minutes away from Boston? All of those who aren’t from Massachusetts think it’s impossible. But oh, we from the great state know it’s possible. We also know that it’s the worst to get pulled over by a “statie” and there’s nothing like a drink out of a “bubbler.”
Naturally these generalizations don’t apply to everyone but I hope all people affected see the humor in some of these observations and if you don’t, as the people from New York would say, “fo’geddaboudit!”
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