Ask a Mississippian about their home state, and there’s a good chance they’ll have to correct at least one assumption. No, Mississippi isn’t landlocked. No, Elvis wasn’t born in Memphis. And no, the Mississippi River didn’t get its name from the state. Some things just shouldn’t have to be explained this many times. 1. Mississippi’s…
Forty-two percent of the parishes in Ohio’s Cleveland Catholic Diocese were already running a deficit before a single closure went on paper. That was true back in 2009, years before many Ohioans noticed the pews were emptier. Several other Ohio traditions faded the same way. These are the Ohio traditions that have all but disappeared…
Think a Friday night in small-town Texas means a couple hundred folding chairs and a scoreboard nobody quite trusts? Tell that to Aledo, where a stadium built to hold 9,155 people fills up many weeks in a town of about 7,100. That’s not the exception. These are the Friday night traditions Texas towns take far…
Virginia’s rulebook for its rest areas is short, but breaking it is a misdemeanor that runs $5 to $100 a violation. These are the things Virginians never do at a rest stop on I-95. Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Rules for Virginia’s rest areas are subject to change, so confirm current requirements…
Think a truck can cross into Alabama with anything in the bed as long as the driver has a valid license? It can’t. Alabama won’t even let a beehive cross its border without a health certificate signed within the last 60 days. Skipping that paperwork costs $100 a hive. These are the things that are…
A cashier at a Sacramento grocery store slides your last item across the belt and asks if you brought bags. You say “sorry,” like you did something wrong. These are the things Californians apologize for that nobody else would ever think twice about. 1. Correcting a Town’s Name Californians will let almost anything slide, except…
About two out of three of Tennessee’s 95 counties keep Central time. The rest keep Eastern time, an hour ahead. The line between them traces county borders rather than a river or a mountain ridge. Federal regulators drew that line decades ago, and nobody voted on it. These are the headaches two time zones cause…
The Sarasota-Bradenton area’s population climbs by 25 percent or more once winter settles in. But in the months and weeks before that jump, Florida’s snowbirds are already giving themselves away from a thousand miles north. These are the signs Floridians spot every September, long before the worst of snowbird traffic shows up. Note: This is…
A mahogany secretary desk that went for $71,000 at a Virginia estate sale in 2004 fetched about $14,400 by 2018. Nothing about that price difference broke any law. A Virginia antique shop can follow every rule on the books and still hand a shopper a completely legal bad deal. These are the Virginia antique shop…
California pays some restaurant workers a full minimum wage before a single tip ever lands on the table. That’s the law. But as Americans across the country can attest, a higher paycheck has never fully settled what a tip is supposed to cover. These are the tipping habits that keep splitting Californians at their own…
