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I was sent a nifty email earlier this week, entitled “you know your [sic] from delaware when . . .” I figured it might be fun to deconstruct it a bit, based on my own personal Delawarean experiences. LET’S KICK IT.

You know you’re a Delawarean when:

• You know where, what and when the Hummers Parade is held.
  To be honest, I’m only dimly aware of the Hummers. I know it’s basically a Mummers ripoff, and everybody gets pretty drunk, but I couldn’t tell you where it occurs. Does it go down on New Year’s? Not being a saxophonist, I just don’t follow this topic much.
• “Vacation” means going to Rehoboth or Cape “Cantaloupe” Henlopen.
  Rehoboth is a good time, I’ll grant you, although I do tend to roll to other places on vacation. Like, say, Lewes. Har! Just playin’!
• You know the best subs come from Capriotti’s.
  Capriotti’s jaun is admittedly hell of good, although I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this whole franchising in Vegas and Florida thing. I keep getting visions of this guy getting shot in the head in a boat.
• You used to play in the wooder in the crick, and caught fraugs.
  I remember growing up that my neighbor buddy Craig used to say “crick” when he meant “creek.” It really weirded me out. Somehow, I have avoided getting a weird Delaware accent, although I’m sure my friends would tell me otherwise. Also, the crick by our house was sadly deficient of frogs, so Craig and I usually would have “rock fights.” Whaddaya want? We were idiots.
• Your school classes were canceled because of 3 snowflakes.
  That’s only downstate; all the stuff in northern New Castle County would usually stay open unless we got more than a couple of inches. One odd, glaring exception: the weather guys spent two or three days saying that a monstrous storm was coming and we could expect 8-10 inches. The night before the storm was due, they took the precaution of cancelling school for the following day. The next day, we got a light dusting of maybe a half-inch of snow, which melted by 2pm.
• The whole state panics and uses all of their road salt for those 3 snowflakes.
  Maybe that’s a downstate thing again. (They call it Slower Lower for a reason, you know.) I vaguely remember hearing about how we were running low on salt and sand during the winter of aught-four, but that was also the year that the entire state shut down for a week because we got two feet of snow (on a day I was hoping to fly back from Texas, no less). So I think we can be forgiven.
• You love the beach but hate the tourists.
  God, do I hate tourists so much. THEY BLEED ME OF MY WILL TO LIVE. And they talk funny.
• You know about punkin-chunkin and you have your favorite chunker.
  Punkin Chunkin’ is a Sussex County tradition, involving the engineering of massive catapaults and crane-mounted airguns used to fling pumpkins over great distances. It’s pretty freaking righteous. Read more here. I do not, sadly, have a favorite chunker. That would be like having a favorite bowler.
• You know someone who went to school with one of the Capano’s [sic].
  Probably. Who that might be, I dunno. I assume they all went to Catholic school; I know some Catholic school peepz but haven’t yet broached the subject of Capano classmates.
• You’ve eaten scrapple sandwiches.
  I’ve eaten scrapple many times, although not in sandwich form. Usually we just fry it and cover it in maple syrup. Good times.
• You can identify all the major types of manure by smell (especially chicken!)
  Any idiot can identify chicken manure. It’s simple: think of the worst smell ever to erupt explosively from a baby’s diaper, and then imagine the smell that would come of concentrating and then BURNING it.
• If it takes more than an hour to drive to, you’re not going.
  Yeah, that’s pretty much true. I have friends who think nothing of a two hour drive to come up and hang out for a few hours and then drive home. But I remember distinctly thinking, on many occasions, “If I’m going to drive four hours out of my way we’re gonna stay there at least 3 days and really get our money’s worth.”
• You know what a “slippery” dumpling is.
  I have no idea what this means. Aren’t all dumplings slippery? I think somebody was high when they wrote this.
• You know who YouDee is.
  
  YoUDee is my HOMESKILLET.
• Somebody in your family has worked for the DuPont Company.
  My father-in-law. And in fact, the company I work for maintains Dupont’s computers and handles all the IT stuff. So I work on Dupont stuff all the time.
• You think the “Apple Scrapple Festival” is perfectly normal, except for all those granola types running in the 5K race.
  I have never heard of this, but I’d like to be a part of it.
• You think, maybe, just maybe, you might get a White Christmas. Then it rains.
  Every #&*@ing year, in fact.
• The highest point in the state is a rise on the golf course.
  It’s not entirely clear what golf course they mean, since there are like a metric buttload of them in the state. Based on a little research, I think they might mean Biderman Golf Course, which I think is attached to Vic Mead Hunt Club. It’s the nearest golf club that I can find to Centerville, which according to this Geological Survery page was long rumored to contain the highest spot in the state. In the end it doesn’t really matter, since the highest point in Delaware is in a trailer park just off Ebright Road, close to the PA/DE border. Altitude: measurement at Ebright Road is 447.85 feet, and the trailer park is believed to be one or two feet above that.
• The state has one hill. You’ve been sledding on it.
  I bet they mean a rather sizeable hill in Brandywine Creek State Park. A lot of sledding occurs on it, although I’ve never done it, myself. I would usually go over to my boy Josh’s house because his neighborhood had better hills than mine, and in DE the roads usually just freeze so you can actually use a Radio Flyer (an actual “sled,” as opposed to a toboggan; sleds are useless in snow because the runners just sink in and the wood that you sit on just rests on the top of the drifts) and get up a rather sizeable head of speed if the hill is long and graded.
• You remember WAMS and WCAU (BARSKY in the morning!).
  Neither of those stations ring a bell. I do remember Barsky, but not the station from which he broadcast. I am, however, a mere youth. I could wax nostalgic about Eagle 106, though.
• You know NewERK is in New Jersey, but NewARK is in Delaware.
  One thing that always has surprised me about new students at UD (we get a LOT of Jerseyans and New Yorkers) is that they seem to grasp this very quickly. After the first month, I almost never hear students mispronouncing the name of the town. It almost makes me think Long Islanders might not be collectively moronic. (You know I just playin’, boo! Me and Long Island are like THIS: [crosses fingers] Although I have to admit, I’ve never been there, and God willing, never will.)
• You know how to carefully pronounce the name Foulk Road.
  I was unaware that it posed difficulties for visitors. How are people pronouncing it that’s incorrect? Foh Ulk? Are they inserting random zeds, like Fizo to the Izulk? (Fizo to the Izulk is a superb name for a band.)
• You talk of Northern Delaware and the entire Eastern Seaboard as “above the canal.”
  Northern Delaware, yes, but the Eastern Seaboard I usually refer to as “The Eastern Seaboard,” or, “The East Coast.” Also, a large percentage of the Eastern Seaboard is actually south of the canal (most of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, all them other states down yonder), so this doesn’t even make sense.
• You know if another Delawarean is from southern, middle or northern Delaware as soon as they open their mouth.
  That’s because people from Sussex and Kent counties tend to talk like they’ve been sniffing chicken manure for too long.
• You know the name of every street in Delaware, but have no idea what the route number is.
  This one intrigued me because it describes my father, and yet I couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. My dad talks about growing up and living off of Limestone Road and Kirkwood Highway, things I usually refer to as “Route 7” and “Route 2.” I have always identified major Delaware roads by numbers, mostly because a route number usually describes the best way to get somewhere, while the actual street names may change frequently. Route 4, for example, as it meanders from Newark to Wilmington, is named East Chestnut Hill Road, Ogletown-Stanton Road, Stanton-Christiana Road, Mitch Road, West Newport Pike, West (and then East) Market Street, East Newport Pike, South Maryland Avenue, North Maryland Avenue, and finally plain old Maryland Avenue as it gets into Wilmington. There ain’t no way I’m calling that anything but Route 4.

  Little known fact: Foulk Road is Route 261.

• When you want to go out for a nice dinner, you have to switch states.
  While that may have once been true (back in the 50s, I’d say), nowadays Delaware is chock full of really good places to eat. Mostly just in Wilmington, of course, with a few nice places in Rehoboth run by gay men. I recommend the Corner Bistro and Moro as stellar examples of service and food. (Be prepared to shell out the bank, particularly at Moro; Sarah and I ate there about a year ago and spent over $200 with wine and booze and tip. It was so good I nearly wept.)
• You can remember when Maryland Bank (MBNA) swallowed up Ogletown and Putt-Putt.
  Any idea what the hell this means? Putt-putt? I’m so confused.
• Everywhere you go, you always run into someone you know or went to school with.
  Very, very true. Delaware is a small freakin’ wonder, I tell you. It’s getting to be pretty rare that I don’t don’t meet someone that doesn’t know someone I know. Two examples:
  1. My father went to high school with a nice fellow, also named Dave; they were in band together and apparently were thick as thieves. Dave’s later went on to marry a nice lady named Leslie, who has since become my mother-in-law’s good friend. Think that’s small world? Dave and Leslie’s son Keith sang in the choir at my father’s church for a while.
  2. A guy I did a show with last summer is dating a guy who is a good friend of another guy who is a good friend of mine. (You think Delaware is a small world; the Delaware gay community is smaller yet.)
• You know what Newark Night and First Night are.
  I do, and I avoid them. (Tourists, you know.)
• You know exactly which roads to avoid due to the CONSTANT road construction.
  Well, the state finally beat me. They’ve torn up every road around my neighborhood, but apparently I wasn’t pissed off enough to suit them, so now they have taken to tearing up the roads in my actual development, for no discernible reason. And pretty much only at the end of my street, so I have to drive around the long way if I want to get out. Bastards.
• You love Dollie’s salt water taffy and Grotto’s Pizza.
  I’m pretty sure it’s Dolly’s, not Dollie’s, but either way it is awesome. Grotto’s Pizza, on the other hand, is acidic, over-sauced dreck. That being said, it’s totally awesome when you’re beyond drunk. Although, if you’re beyond drunk, it’s probably because you just came from Mug Night (where is Mug Night on this list?), in which case you should go across from the Stone Balloon to Margarita’s and get the best pizza in Newark.
• You know where all of the late-night 24-hour rest stops and restaurants are.
  Hardly valid anymore; there are dozens of 24-hour diners in Delaware now.
• You can remember when Christiana Hospital was a field with cows.
  I can honestly say I do not remember this. Although I’d love to see photos.
• You remember when Christiana Mall had a Galaxy arcade.
  This I do remember. It had a movie theater too! I wonder what they did with the actual theaters; I know they don’t actually show them anymore, but did they fill them in with other crap? I can’t remember. Milo says they’re still there, just unused.
• When you go out of state to shop or eat, you are always surprised about the tax.
  Yep. Every time. Never fails to irritate me, too, particularly in places with high sales tax like NYC.
• You know the differences in housing in Elsmere, Pike Creek, and Greenville.
  I’m not sure exactly what this means. I know that the homes in Pike Creek are moderately expensive, the homes in Greenville outlandishly so, and homes in Elsmere are extremely cheap and mostly minority-owned.
• You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Delaware.
  I’d say I get some, probably even most, although some (MBNA? Ogletown? Putt-putt? What the hellacious poon burglarization is that?) confuse the hell out of me.

I’d like to point out a few notably Delawarean things that went unmentioned:

• The Stone Balloon and Mug Night (see above).
• The Wedge.
• The Charcoal Pit! How could that go unmentioned? One of Delaware’s most famous institutions. Just bizarre.
• Something about Dover Downs? Or even better, Brandywine Raceway?
• How about knowing why one wall of all the old powder mills at Hagley was built of wood and faced the river?

I dunno how that stuff was left out. What other notably Delawarean things did we miss? Leave me some comments, booz.