The Wisconsin Badgers and Minnesota Golden Gophers have played each other in football 135 times since 1890, the most of any two schools in the sport. Football is arguably the loudest fight among the two states. But Wisconsinites and Minnesotans have been arguing about certain other things for just as long. These are the arguments…
Pull off the interstate anywhere in South Dakota and the gas station snack rack looks little like the one back home. Much of it didn’t come off a national distributor’s truck. So what’s stocked on that gas station snack aisle, and why does none of it travel? These are the regional snacks that only make…
Arkansas churches were holding “dinner on the grounds” after Sunday service as far back as the 1800s, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The tables have moved indoors since then, but the etiquette never went away. Break one rule, and the room notices. These are the church potluck rules Arkansas families never break. 1. Claim…
In New Jersey, “We’re getting pizza” can sound like a settled dinner plan. Then someone asks where, and suddenly everyone has something to say. If you grew up in the Garden State, you understand the fuss. If you didn’t, a casual pizza night can introduce you to traditions locals treat as common sense. These are…
Fareway keeps its Iowa employees around for decades at a time. The company says its meat market managers average 29 years on the job. Some have stayed as long as 40 years. That kind of tenure builds up knowledge that never makes it onto a sign. These are the Fareway secrets Iowa employees wish shoppers…
If you’ve only visited coastal Maine in the summer, you’ve met the town at its busiest. Come back in the fall, and you’ll feel like you’re getting to know it all over again. These are the signs fall has taken over a coastal Maine town, in roughly the order they arrive. 1. The Leaves Peak…
For ninety-nine years, Garavelli’s carved roast beef to order for St. Louis lunch crowds. Then, in the summer of 2013, Garavelli’s turned off its ovens for good. It wasn’t the only one. These are the restaurant chains Missouri misses that never came back. 1. Forum Cafeterias The Forum Cafeterias chain started as a single ground-floor…
A steering wheel sitting in the Tempe sun averaged 127 degrees within an hour, according to a joint study by Arizona State University and the University of California, San Diego. Arizonans built a whole routine around that number. These are the habits that get Arizonans a strange look when they move out of state. 1….
Ohio has words visitors never see coming. Some of them even change from one end of the state to the other. These are the words Ohioans use that out-of-staters don’t understand. 1. Calling Soda “Pop” People call a can of soda “pop,” a term that puts the speaker in the Midwest’s dialect camp rather than…
Long before texting shrank American slang into acronyms, Floridians spent the 1970s talking with words nobody used to have to define. Many of them didn’t last. These are the words Floridians used throughout the 1970s that sound like a different language to Americans today. 1. Groovy Groovy meant excellent, first-rate, exactly what you wanted, and…
