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STRANGE CITY: BOSTON PRIDE

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Strange City is a column depicting the odd idiosyncrasies that make Boston Boston, through the eyes of a total stranger.

I’ve been scrounging around the internet for random facts and figures, weird things about Boston (my most recent Google history reads “Weird things about Boston,” “Boston idiosyncrasies,” and “Boston + Weird”) and essentially things to write about here. I appear to have stopped noticing them—maybe I should have taken notes on the numerous things that seemed bizarre when I first came here, but now I seem unable to notice much ‘weird’ in Boston. I suppose nearly two months in a city will do that to you.

Maybe I’m assimilating.

Now there’s a thought.

Anyway, through my numerous Google searches and StumbleUpons, and Twitterings, I found some really funny Buzzfeed lists related to MA and New England and what makes you guys just a little bit quirky. To my bemusement, it turns out I’m not the only one who thinks the Dunkin Donuts craze is a little strange, or that the chowder obsession is somewhat odd. But on top of the things I’ve already written about, I made a few surprising discoveries- some of which I probably would never have found out on my own.

Massachusetts has an official state polka. And six other state songs.

Yes. There. I said it.

You also have an official state: cat, dog, bird, game bird, horse, mammal, fish, reptile, flower, tree, soil (SOIL?!), insect, mineral, fossil, gem, four state rocks, doughnut, dessert, bean, berry, cookie, muffin, beverage, flag, seal, motto, color, name, nickname, seven songs (including the polka), dance, poem, author (IT’S DR SEUSS!), book, hero, heroine, inventor, sport, tartan, vessel and quarter.

If I can count properly,

that’s a whopping 50 state symbols.

I am no longer confused about the whole State Sandwich thing.

It was upon reading this list that the realization struck. All those things, all those weird, crazy Boston things that I wrote about, can be related to one thing—a certain kind of

Boston Pride that I consider so specific and particular to Bostonians.

Why the Dunkin Donuts craze? Because Dunkin Donuts is an MA chain: the first one ever opened was in Quincy. Why the chowder obsession? Because New York makes their chowder with tomatoes, and therefore Boston/New England must distinguish themselves and hold their creamy, non-tomatoe’d chowder up proudly on a pedestal, as the only right way to make chowder. Why the strange interest in the fluffernutter and it becoming a state sandwich? Marshmallow fluff was first created in Massachusetts. Why the crazed following of sport? Because it’s such a visceral way to support the state and Boston itself, and all that it encompasses

(it doesn’t hurt that your sports teams aren’t terrible).

Why the hating on the T but the endearing defense of it when outsiders insult it? It’s the first subway station in the US and therefore represents all kinds of Boston Pride.

People from Boston are so proud of Boston and of being from this major city or its surroundings (let’s face it, if you’re from Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville … you basically tell everyone on the outside that you’re from Boston) that for all your Strange City appearance, I have kind of fallen in love with this place, and how easy it is to learn how to get around, and pretend I’m from here.

I’m a little proud.

And I have nothing to be proud of, nothing to claim to be mine or mine own. But hey, I spent a summer in the city of Dunkin Donuts, fluffernutters, chowder and

a crazy hopped-up-on-sports population.

I won’t claim any of it to be mine, but I’ll claim to have a foothold in the area.

Suddenly the oddities of Boston make sense.

Too bad that now that I kinda, sorta, maybe a little bit get you now, it’s my last week. I suppose I’ll be back.

Strange City; you’ve been good to me.



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