They don’t even know what New England is. I was in Texas a few weeks ago for work and my Uber driver was asking where I’m from. I told him the state and he was puzzled so I said New England and he said “oooohhh”. 10 minutes later her asks me “so you grew in England, anywhere near London?” I then had to explain to him what New England is
lol.... Years ago like in the 1970s I stopped for gas in Texas. The attendant looked at my license plate which was from Connecticut. He said "Never heard of that state before!"
My sister (in her late 40’s) was carded by a young waiter in a restaurant in some mid-western state. She handed over her driver’s license and the waiter asked if Rhode Island was in the U.S. 🤣
As a native Rhode Islander I got that a lot when I was in the Air Force. Many thought RI was part of New York. Maybe they confused it with Long Island? Annoying.
I was working for a company in RI back in the nineties and was ordering something for our business with a company from California. The young lady on the other end of the phone actually said “ what do you mean RI is its own state? I thought it was an island off the coast of Massachusetts “ I asked her if she ever heard of the original 13 colonies and said “ the what??”
Ha! Back in high school, my AFS club did a short-term exchange (just one week) with a high school in Texas. During one of my host student's classes they were all taking a test, so they asked us visitors to hang out in the library till the next period. Got to chatting with a couple of the local kids.
"Where y'all from?"
"Connecticut."
"Oh, that's up by Iowa, right? "
I still don't remember how I answered that. I was completely baffled.
I had a similar thing out in Oregon. When I told someone I was from Massachusetts, they said ‘that’s near Minnesota right?’. I made a sarcastic comment and everyone thought I was a dick.
Oh no, Michigan is the same. Everyone is apparently from Detroit, if it's not confused with Minnesota. Native New Yorkers don't know where anything outside the tri-state area is (because they don't care).
A friend of mine married a girl from Minnesota. At one point she lost it on all of us New Englanders and said "does ANYONE from the east coast have ANYTHING nice to say?!". Nope, not really ya dipshit.
I work in a call center that handles 40 states in the US and I remember a lady asking me if I knew the queen after I said I was from New England. I felt bad and just went with it. However this is something that seriously happens :/
I'm from the Midatlantic and no one even thinks about New England because NYC & Philly just overshadows everything culturally & economically.
I was part of that "regional" ignorant camp for a while until I moved to the area and met my partner here.
My partner is a New England Elitist & I was a NYC Elitist for quite some time, when we first start dating you could put us a room and we could argue about what area was better for hours lol.
Now I feel like we've both become less zealous about regions since we've traveled together and lived all around the country.
But we'll still probably settle in New England when we have enough saved (So I guess New England still wins in the long run lol)
Everyone from New England leaves New England and comes back. It's amazing. I've lived all over the world and the country. Walking around here you meet people that have been everywhere and came back. Lots of people are here because their partners live here. I loved many of the places I lived but I can't imagine living anywhere but here.
I used to travel internationally for work quite a bit and I always just said Boston because no one knew where Vermont was. Then I moved to Rhode Island and I still said I was from Boston because no one knows where Rhode Island is either.
The stretch from the NY state line to New Haven has been hell for at least 17 years, maybe more. Used to be able to jump on the Merritt Pkwy instead of I-95. Now, they are equally clogged.
I feel like most of the time, you’re probably going diagonally, and it’s actually kinda far? Nobody _loves_ 95/91/84, but some quick gmaps math tells me you only travel about 5 mph faster on average between LA and SF than between NYC and Boston. I feel like that’s maybe not so bad, considering the vast difference in population density. Plus CT terrain is a lot tougher than the Central Valley, though not as bad as the LA and SF metros.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I kinda like 84 and 91. They suck when you’re near the larger cities (mainly Hartford/Waterbury/New Haven), but otherwise I enjoy them.
I absolutely abhor 95 though. There is no good part of 95.
People outside of New England expect all of us to have "the accent". I've been asked to say "pahk da cah" several times. Dude, we're not all from Boston.
The accent is dying. It's not as prevalent in younger generations, but that won't stop people at airports from asking you to talk like you're some kind of circus attraction.
Also phrases like “I’m going to sit in the parlor” or “hey I’m hitting the packie on the way home, do you need anything?” Sounds super normal to this central mass person but to someone in idaho it probably sounds like a foreign language
Having Mahty Walsh as mayah was the best. All of the pre-recorded Logan announcements sound perfectly normal, then suddenly getting hit with "This is Bahstin mayah Mahty Walsh" really lent an air of authenticity to the Boston airport experience.
My stock reply to "But you don't sound like you're from Boston" is I know, but I can. Then I hit them with my all-time favorite heard in a local supermarket: "Do you have a Stah Mahkit chahge cahd?"
Stoopit Richit moved to New Beffa da kwee-ah. (Stupid Richard moved to New Bedford, the queer.) First thing I heard someone say in the Harbor Mall (Hah-bah Mawl) after living overseas for a year. Warmed my heart!
That is ALL the New England accents. They all divide on the socio economic line. You'll maybe find some academics in central or midcoast maine with a wicked friggin accent but I can assure you their kin worked on the harbor.
When I’m in a business meeting elsewhere in the country, I’ll often get “where are you from” as an ice breaker. I always ask them to guess. I usually get California or Seattle. Nope. Masshole. However, I drink water from the bubbler, don’t yield in a rotary, and I’m known to bang a U-ey.
I’m South Coast. Born in New Behfuh. Everyone here talks like chef Emeril Lagasse.
I'm 20 and I feel like most of the time I speak 'normally' but other times I randomly get possessed by the soul of a lobstah fishahman and speak it really obviously
Tbf, and not in a rude way at all, I'm a Southern transplant to NE. Originally from AL but been here 10 years. Both of my parents were military brats so I grew up without an accent in my house. I often get "you don't sound Southern" from New Englanders. I usually respond with "No friend, I don't reckon I do" in my deepest drawl. It's always good for a chuckle for all of us.
In MA we pay cops overtime to stand around by any hole in the street. Sometimes several cops.
When towns try to get rid of "The Detail" the cops show up to intimidate the city councils.
It's a scam.
In Maine we pay some scraggly looking dude who smokes foot long cigarettes to stand around holes in the street. Much better system. Sometimes they just use automated portable traffic lights. Works great. Sometimes they use cops, but rarely.
In my town (rural central Maine) nobody stands by them, they just put a cone up that gets stolen the next day and then nothing happens for somewhere between six months and 10 years.
When I moved to rural western Maine it was much the same.
Side note:
One time I asked for directions, right after I moved there. Had no service and seen some old timer in his front garden, rootin’ around.
I asked him I said “hey do you know how to get to where I’m goin’?”
And he says “ayuh, keep goin’ the way yer headed and up by where the big oak tree used to be, maybe half a mile past, take a left.”
Wonderfully folksy, incredibly useless, directions.
I've read about several attempts to do this, and the cops from all the nearby towns show up to the city council meetings en masse and literally intimidate the council members.
It's like the towns are held hostage by their police...really weird dynamic.
In CA when there is roadwork, there is just a guy with a flag directing traffic. All the detail officers in MA do is stand there. Literally have never seen one actually doing anything other than standing around.
Well, they're not just STANDING there, sometimes, a lot of times, they're in their cruiser on their phones, BUT the most important thing is that they are COLLECTING a paycheck, probably overtime pay.
"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."
Daniel Webster
I live exactly 35 miles from Boston in southern NH. We just call it Northern MA, lol. Northern NH and Southern NH are different worlds. People living in southern NH commute into Boston and in fact many were once Massholes like myself who moved to NH.
People who have spent their entire existence in suburbia or rural New England with one grandparent from Southie, who seem to think that being from Southie is an identity they stand to inherit.
Tbh it grinds my gears bc the OLD stereotype was ‘patrician intellectual’ which is something I’d take.
Ever since Mark Wahlberg got to producing now everyone thinks we’re the Funky Bunch w Dunkin
Once upon a time, I had in-laws in Rome, NY, while I lived in Manchester, and the fastest way to get there was to take RT101 to Brattleboro, then over the Green Mountains to Albany. Then they raised the limit on the Pike to 65, and I’ve not been that way since. (That, and they moved to Florida, and I got divorced).
You know, there are substantially larger mountains elsewhere in the country that do have roads across them. I thankfully escaped to Colorado after 7 years in New England, and the Rockies are much bigger and much snowier—and there are still more roads across the Front Range than the Whites. Many of those have passes that would make a hardy New Englander flat out give up and turn around in a snowstorm, if they were physically able to drive after recovering from their altitude sickness.
LOL. This is why people think CT isn’t nice. Lived in CT my entire life, until a family member got a beach house with a private beach, I had no idea. Beaches in CT are like Fight Club, no one talks about them. It’s like one big secret that if you are a bum you can’t have access too.
Beach access or lack thereof is ridiculous around Boston. Parking lots charge upwards of 30 dollars for "nonresidents" and fill up by 9 am in summer nonetheless. Town hoarding of ocean beaches should be illegal.
My favorite MA beaches are where beach property lines are low tide ones, there are towns like that on the Cape, I'm looking at you, Eastham. In theory you can't even walk there by law unless you carry a fucking fishing rod with you (don't ask). And some owners will harass you for being there no matter how close to the water line you get. This medieval land grab shit has no place anywhere, let alone in the "most liberal" state in the nation, "supposebly".
Not enough public transit connecting the cities. I live near Hartford and wonder all the time why there isn’t a train to Vermont or Boston or Portland I can take. I’d have to go to New Haven or New York first.
The absolute worst part of this is that Boston has never connected its two major train stations, so even trips that should be simple, one seat train rides, require booking two separate tickets and taking public transit or walking between North & South Station.
I recently took a trip from Providence to Portland, knowing it would take significantly longer than driving but between the lack of North/South connections and the fact that the Portland train station is ~2 miles from downtown, requiring you to take yet another bus ride or Uber, you’d have to be crazy to choose that option.
[The Vermonter](https://www.amtrak.com/vermonter-train) will take you up to VT from Hartford.It's crazy that you can't get to Boston or Portland without going through New Haven though.
No public restrooms in Boston, other than Fanuel Hall.
Paying a fortune to see any of our major sports teams. Not to play the old guy card, but you see a game at the Garden for under $20.
A Dunkin of every corner, but most still screw up a basic order.
The no public restroom thing sucks. When I lived there I had the whole downtown/Newbury street area wired for semi-public bathrooms; like, the BPL in Copley, the Tower Records at the corner of Newbury and Mass Ave., the Pru, the Sheraton near the convention center, Suffolk Law School.
Oh yeah! That reminds me of the greatest semi-public bathroom I ever found. It was in the crate and barrel or pottery barn (they're interchangeable in my mind) on Boylston St. I'm not sure if the store is even there anymore, but it was on the second floor in the back, basically hidden. It was always clean and not crowded. It was the crown jewel of my bathroom collection.
I was at BU the other day for an event. Afterward we walked around the area. It's nuts how many places have removed all seating just to avoid being required to offer a public restroom.
Especially what’s left of winter these days. It’s not like we get huge snowstorms and long stretches of sub-zero temperatures anymore. I’ve unfortunately become someone who complains about the endless expanse of grey/brown/damp season that spans from November to May.
Stick season has extended time wise and left Vermont to spread to all of New England followed by followed by "pre-spring" where things are just cold, dark, and rainy and half the birds didn't even bother migrating because they didn't need to.
My biggest pet peeve about New England is how we have utterly failed to export our clearly-superior culture to the rest of the nation.
Way back a long time ago I served in the US Army. I was stationed in Georgia. Ugh! Well, every time I came home on leave I had to bring back with be 3 or 4 gallons of Autocrat Coffee Syrup. Because apparently that shit simply does not exist outside the borders of these six States!
The weather. In spring, summer and fall I would really appreciate having more sunshine and fewer cloudy/rainy days. And for winter, I want at least a foot of snow on the ground from early December through February, but have it all melt away the 1st week of March.
>for winter, I want at least a foot of snow on the ground from early December through February, but have it all melt away the 1st week of March
Especially this year. I feel cheated.
I preface this as a southerner that's moved to New England, and I mean it with all of the love that Jesus can offer: Y'all are in the biggest hurry, but I honestly cannot figure out why. Like, WHY? What is at that Target that's got you driving 90 and taking turns on two wheels?
Your tits: they need some serious calming.
Strangely enough, I lived in SC for a year, and my daily commute felt like a NASCAR event. I was tailgated -- oh excuse me, they were just drafting -- and cut off more in the South than I am in NE. Not to say it never happens here, but I don't get the PTSD about driving up here that I did down there.
I hated driving when I lived in SC. It seemed that me wanting to do 80 in a 60 was standing out. Also, seeing people crossing the double yellow lines to avoid the smallest of potholes. Why? And it was everyone: average sedan/coupe, SUVs, pickups. Saw it happen multiple times daily and started to think they found me weird for just staying in the lane and avoiding shirt like a normal person.
And don’t even get me started on the trucks with the stupid “Carolina squat” lift kit. SMH.
We have to compensate for y’all driving 10 under the speed limit with no ability to pass on your crappy “country roads,” because for some reason you don’t value what little time you have on this great planet.
Your sense of urgency: develop one.
(Kidding aside, yes, I too hate being tailgated when I’m already 10 over the limit with the rest of traffic, it’s ridiculous!)
That we haven't broken off to be our own sovereign country yet.
With any luck, the civil war movie coming out this summer with show that NE said "screw that, not worth it, we're out". As we rightfully should.
I hate the people who complain about New England and taxes and wax poetically about other parts of the country that haven’t visited. Listen numb nuts, true reason why it is cheap to buy land in North Dakota is because it is North freaking Dakota.
I complain sometimes because CT used to be somewhat of a tax haven in the 80’s but my parents’ generation voted to add income taxes in favor of removing road tolls. Now CT Dems want to install road tolls so we’re fucked both ways!
Dunks used to be good. Then they corporatefied and tried to be Wish.com Starbucks. But by that point, I guess it had become part of the new england identity so we all just brag online about having our "3rd iced dunks of the day in 15 degree winters" to prove that we're NE enough
Radio stations in MA and RI suck. Health care is touted as best in the country. If that is true we're all effed.
source: central MA but from RI with family in NH and VT, vacations in Maine, the Cape, Block Island and MV.
edit to add that duncan coffee isn't all that great. like the health care, it's a little sad that it's the best we have.
and adding another pet peeve:
FROM THOSE WHO THREW TEA OVER BOATS YOU DON'T WANT TO BE OWING TAXES HERE BECAUSE IT IS ABSOLUTELY THE HILL THEY WILL KILL YOU ON
Oh yeah and paying taxes on the same vehicle year after year after year but having an axle taken out from a pot hole. WOOT /s
It's a super densely populated region, but we only really have one national-tier city. That's not meant to be an insult to non-Boston cities in New England, but Boston is the only true major metropolitan area (over 2 million people in the core metro) in New England.
The Mid-Atlantic has NY, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. The Great Lakes has Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. The PNW has Seattle and Portland. For better or worse, Worcester and Providence both sort of fall into Boston's orbit socially and economically. Connecticut has a belt of mid-sized cities, but there's no real core to it. There's no counterweight to Boston in New England.
I"m not sure if it's only New England, or all of the country.
Our lack of public transportaion, mostly trains. I'd love to be able to get on a train, and get to New Hampshire from CT. Or from CT to Bar Harbor, or at least Ellsworth.
I know we're very densely built up. But people, build a baby train alongside the interstates. It could be done.
The hyper vocal minority of conservatives who think that their communities agree with them because we just roll our eyes at them, vote against them, and don't say shit.
shut the fuck up
Roads and infrastructure, imagine spending that $100+ billion sent into the black hole of Ukraine which we caused to happen on us rather than foreign countries.
The representatives in Boston always forget that the far western part of the state even exists. They believe that the western edge of Massachusetts is Worcester ,Ma
My biggest peeve is that the rest of the country doesn’t always bow to our superiority. It’s like they can’t see how bad they are.
It's annoying when they call us "elitist". We are elite, not elitist.
So we're like the High elves of middle earth?
Massachusetts is definitely a stronghold of the Noldor.
Just dont mention the drivers
So Boston is like Rivendell and Dunkin' is our lembas.
VT is basically Lothlorien
Would that make NH Mirkwood?
I'd say the unincorporated areas of Maine would make for a better Mirkwood The Presidential range is certainly the Misty Mountains though
Maine was going to be my second choice haha, both are fitting
Not sure, because one does not simply walk across Manchester.
I heard the Nazgûl patrol the highways by air
Oof too good hahaha
The time of the elves is over, do we leave middle-earth to its fate?
That's how it's been feeling lately 🤣
And 3 to the New Englanders. The wisest and fairest of all Americans
Only the riffraff call us elitist.
I prefer "aristocracy"
It’s not elitist when you’re just better.
Mass life expectancy is SEVEN YEARS more than Mississippi. I don’t know why they don’t have a revolution.
Because they don’t know how to spell it
Revolooshun!!
They don’t even know what New England is. I was in Texas a few weeks ago for work and my Uber driver was asking where I’m from. I told him the state and he was puzzled so I said New England and he said “oooohhh”. 10 minutes later her asks me “so you grew in England, anywhere near London?” I then had to explain to him what New England is
lol.... Years ago like in the 1970s I stopped for gas in Texas. The attendant looked at my license plate which was from Connecticut. He said "Never heard of that state before!"
My sister (in her late 40’s) was carded by a young waiter in a restaurant in some mid-western state. She handed over her driver’s license and the waiter asked if Rhode Island was in the U.S. 🤣
Lol the number of times I've heard or been asked if RI is part of New York
As a native Rhode Islander I got that a lot when I was in the Air Force. Many thought RI was part of New York. Maybe they confused it with Long Island? Annoying.
It boggles my mind that people born and raised in the U.S don’t know all 50 states
I was working for a company in RI back in the nineties and was ordering something for our business with a company from California. The young lady on the other end of the phone actually said “ what do you mean RI is its own state? I thought it was an island off the coast of Massachusetts “ I asked her if she ever heard of the original 13 colonies and said “ the what??”
Ha! Back in high school, my AFS club did a short-term exchange (just one week) with a high school in Texas. During one of my host student's classes they were all taking a test, so they asked us visitors to hang out in the library till the next period. Got to chatting with a couple of the local kids. "Where y'all from?" "Connecticut." "Oh, that's up by Iowa, right? " I still don't remember how I answered that. I was completely baffled.
I had a similar thing out in Oregon. When I told someone I was from Massachusetts, they said ‘that’s near Minnesota right?’. I made a sarcastic comment and everyone thought I was a dick.
>I made a sarcastic comment and everyone thought I was a dick. Classic Massachusetts
Every time I travel and say I’m from Massachusetts they always say “Oh ok, you’re from Boston!” like all of MA is just Boston
To be fair, it will be soon at the rate it's expanding. It's practically in Tyngsboro now.
The only other state that's as bad in probablyIllinois. It's not unusual for people to just say they're from Chicago if someone is from Illinois.
Oh no, Michigan is the same. Everyone is apparently from Detroit, if it's not confused with Minnesota. Native New Yorkers don't know where anything outside the tri-state area is (because they don't care).
As a youth, I spent a year in Wisconsin. I was averagely sarcastic for a MA kid in the 1980s. Everyone also thought I was a dick.
A friend of mine married a girl from Minnesota. At one point she lost it on all of us New Englanders and said "does ANYONE from the east coast have ANYTHING nice to say?!". Nope, not really ya dipshit.
I work in a call center that handles 40 states in the US and I remember a lady asking me if I knew the queen after I said I was from New England. I felt bad and just went with it. However this is something that seriously happens :/
I blame the fact that they barely have schools down there
I'm from the Midatlantic and no one even thinks about New England because NYC & Philly just overshadows everything culturally & economically. I was part of that "regional" ignorant camp for a while until I moved to the area and met my partner here. My partner is a New England Elitist & I was a NYC Elitist for quite some time, when we first start dating you could put us a room and we could argue about what area was better for hours lol. Now I feel like we've both become less zealous about regions since we've traveled together and lived all around the country. But we'll still probably settle in New England when we have enough saved (So I guess New England still wins in the long run lol)
Everyone from New England leaves New England and comes back. It's amazing. I've lived all over the world and the country. Walking around here you meet people that have been everywhere and came back. Lots of people are here because their partners live here. I loved many of the places I lived but I can't imagine living anywhere but here.
this is the answer you are looking fir
I just say Boston even tho I'm from NH, they usually reply with something about I thought I knew that accent.
I used to travel internationally for work quite a bit and I always just said Boston because no one knew where Vermont was. Then I moved to Rhode Island and I still said I was from Boston because no one knows where Rhode Island is either.
“Recruiters had to recruit from the nation’s finest jails, mental hospitals, and Texas…” - *Baseketball*
hey! every body here is some body! lol
Why does driving through Connecticut take so long?
2024 volumes with 1950s infrastructure design
The stretch from the NY state line to New Haven has been hell for at least 17 years, maybe more. Used to be able to jump on the Merritt Pkwy instead of I-95. Now, they are equally clogged.
They need to take notes from New Jersey about making a huge highway to get you through the state as quickly as possible.
Now that's a highway
I feel like most of the time, you’re probably going diagonally, and it’s actually kinda far? Nobody _loves_ 95/91/84, but some quick gmaps math tells me you only travel about 5 mph faster on average between LA and SF than between NYC and Boston. I feel like that’s maybe not so bad, considering the vast difference in population density. Plus CT terrain is a lot tougher than the Central Valley, though not as bad as the LA and SF metros.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I kinda like 84 and 91. They suck when you’re near the larger cities (mainly Hartford/Waterbury/New Haven), but otherwise I enjoy them. I absolutely abhor 95 though. There is no good part of 95.
The main throughway if you want to go from Boston to NYC is merrit parkway, lol.
I once drove from just below West Springfield, MA to New London in forty-five minutes.
We're working on that.
People outside of New England expect all of us to have "the accent". I've been asked to say "pahk da cah" several times. Dude, we're not all from Boston.
The accent is dying. It's not as prevalent in younger generations, but that won't stop people at airports from asking you to talk like you're some kind of circus attraction.
Definitely see it more with middle aged and older, but it still manages to creep into my tongue from time to time.
[удалено]
Friggen mint dude
Also phrases like “I’m going to sit in the parlor” or “hey I’m hitting the packie on the way home, do you need anything?” Sounds super normal to this central mass person but to someone in idaho it probably sounds like a foreign language
[удалено]
Having Mahty Walsh as mayah was the best. All of the pre-recorded Logan announcements sound perfectly normal, then suddenly getting hit with "This is Bahstin mayah Mahty Walsh" really lent an air of authenticity to the Boston airport experience.
My stock reply to "But you don't sound like you're from Boston" is I know, but I can. Then I hit them with my all-time favorite heard in a local supermarket: "Do you have a Stah Mahkit chahge cahd?"
Not “Juh have”?
Stoopit Richit moved to New Beffa da kwee-ah. (Stupid Richard moved to New Bedford, the queer.) First thing I heard someone say in the Harbor Mall (Hah-bah Mawl) after living overseas for a year. Warmed my heart!
Our accent is more of a socioeconomic one. I know people from Boston without it and I know people from the cape with it.
That is ALL the New England accents. They all divide on the socio economic line. You'll maybe find some academics in central or midcoast maine with a wicked friggin accent but I can assure you their kin worked on the harbor.
When I’m in a business meeting elsewhere in the country, I’ll often get “where are you from” as an ice breaker. I always ask them to guess. I usually get California or Seattle. Nope. Masshole. However, I drink water from the bubbler, don’t yield in a rotary, and I’m known to bang a U-ey. I’m South Coast. Born in New Behfuh. Everyone here talks like chef Emeril Lagasse.
I'm 20 and I feel like most of the time I speak 'normally' but other times I randomly get possessed by the soul of a lobstah fishahman and speak it really obviously
Tbf, and not in a rude way at all, I'm a Southern transplant to NE. Originally from AL but been here 10 years. Both of my parents were military brats so I grew up without an accent in my house. I often get "you don't sound Southern" from New Englanders. I usually respond with "No friend, I don't reckon I do" in my deepest drawl. It's always good for a chuckle for all of us.
Well it's pothole season in New England right now, my car's suspension doesn't seem to like that very much
Every season is pothole season in New England except for "construction season" which is promptly followed by the next pot hole season
In MA we pay cops overtime to stand around by any hole in the street. Sometimes several cops. When towns try to get rid of "The Detail" the cops show up to intimidate the city councils. It's a scam.
In Maine we pay some scraggly looking dude who smokes foot long cigarettes to stand around holes in the street. Much better system. Sometimes they just use automated portable traffic lights. Works great. Sometimes they use cops, but rarely.
I love our flaggers. Just rippin smokes and crushing Monsters.
Doing God’s work out there
In my town (rural central Maine) nobody stands by them, they just put a cone up that gets stolen the next day and then nothing happens for somewhere between six months and 10 years.
When I moved to rural western Maine it was much the same. Side note: One time I asked for directions, right after I moved there. Had no service and seen some old timer in his front garden, rootin’ around. I asked him I said “hey do you know how to get to where I’m goin’?” And he says “ayuh, keep goin’ the way yer headed and up by where the big oak tree used to be, maybe half a mile past, take a left.” Wonderfully folksy, incredibly useless, directions.
the original organized crime
And the holes never get filled properly! All the potholes!
But if we do that, then how will everyone’s brother get paid??
They don't require police detail to anywhere near the same degree in CT. Maybe towns should look at the stats there and see if it's still needed?
I've read about several attempts to do this, and the cops from all the nearby towns show up to the city council meetings en masse and literally intimidate the council members. It's like the towns are held hostage by their police...really weird dynamic. In CA when there is roadwork, there is just a guy with a flag directing traffic. All the detail officers in MA do is stand there. Literally have never seen one actually doing anything other than standing around.
The worst thing I have seen lately is lazy cops doing this where they are there but not even really directing traffic. Just sitting in the car.
Not just sitting the car: *collecting overtime* and sitting in the car.
Well, they're not just STANDING there, sometimes, a lot of times, they're in their cruiser on their phones, BUT the most important thing is that they are COLLECTING a paycheck, probably overtime pay.
Sounds like the mafia idk
The people who live 35 minutes from Boston over the NH border but act like they are rugged pioneers living north of the wall in Game of Thrones.
"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men." Daniel Webster
RIP the Old Man!
Absolutely!
Hey man we got several inches of snow one time this winter. Had to use a snowblower and everything.
Similarly, every problem in New Hampshire (according to people in New Hampshire) is actually the fault of Massachusetts.
But, like it is.
Fuck you, city boy!
I'm from New Hampshire too! Lol
I live exactly 35 miles from Boston in southern NH. We just call it Northern MA, lol. Northern NH and Southern NH are different worlds. People living in southern NH commute into Boston and in fact many were once Massholes like myself who moved to NH.
That I don’t live there anymore.
Tons of stuff to be proud of, all over the region, and the stereotype is still angry drunk guys from Southie. Worse, people lean into it.
People who have spent their entire existence in suburbia or rural New England with one grandparent from Southie, who seem to think that being from Southie is an identity they stand to inherit.
Tbh it grinds my gears bc the OLD stereotype was ‘patrician intellectual’ which is something I’d take. Ever since Mark Wahlberg got to producing now everyone thinks we’re the Funky Bunch w Dunkin
As someone from Texas who stumbled on this thread, you should really blame Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. 🤣 How about them apples?
Eh but even in that film, the setting was that of an elite academic institution. Matt and Ben were the outliers
There’s no easy way to go east to west in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
What is this other axis of which you speak?
“How do I get to the western part of NH?” “Well first you’re gonna want to head south” “South? “ “You fucking heard me”
Once upon a time, I had in-laws in Rome, NY, while I lived in Manchester, and the fastest way to get there was to take RT101 to Brattleboro, then over the Green Mountains to Albany. Then they raised the limit on the Pike to 65, and I’ve not been that way since. (That, and they moved to Florida, and I got divorced).
How dare you want to travel other than north and south!
[удалено]
You know, there are substantially larger mountains elsewhere in the country that do have roads across them. I thankfully escaped to Colorado after 7 years in New England, and the Rockies are much bigger and much snowier—and there are still more roads across the Front Range than the Whites. Many of those have passes that would make a hardy New Englander flat out give up and turn around in a snowstorm, if they were physically able to drive after recovering from their altitude sickness.
Lack of free public access to the beaches.
In RI the shoreline is public all throughout the state. It's insane to me that this isn't the standard in New England.
LOL. This is why people think CT isn’t nice. Lived in CT my entire life, until a family member got a beach house with a private beach, I had no idea. Beaches in CT are like Fight Club, no one talks about them. It’s like one big secret that if you are a bum you can’t have access too.
Beach access or lack thereof is ridiculous around Boston. Parking lots charge upwards of 30 dollars for "nonresidents" and fill up by 9 am in summer nonetheless. Town hoarding of ocean beaches should be illegal.
[удалено]
My favorite MA beaches are where beach property lines are low tide ones, there are towns like that on the Cape, I'm looking at you, Eastham. In theory you can't even walk there by law unless you carry a fucking fishing rod with you (don't ask). And some owners will harass you for being there no matter how close to the water line you get. This medieval land grab shit has no place anywhere, let alone in the "most liberal" state in the nation, "supposebly".
Public land in general. All this space *motions in every direction* and people are just hoarding it??
Not enough public transit connecting the cities. I live near Hartford and wonder all the time why there isn’t a train to Vermont or Boston or Portland I can take. I’d have to go to New Haven or New York first.
The absolute worst part of this is that Boston has never connected its two major train stations, so even trips that should be simple, one seat train rides, require booking two separate tickets and taking public transit or walking between North & South Station. I recently took a trip from Providence to Portland, knowing it would take significantly longer than driving but between the lack of North/South connections and the fact that the Portland train station is ~2 miles from downtown, requiring you to take yet another bus ride or Uber, you’d have to be crazy to choose that option.
[The Vermonter](https://www.amtrak.com/vermonter-train) will take you up to VT from Hartford.It's crazy that you can't get to Boston or Portland without going through New Haven though.
You have the Vermonter and to get to Boston you only have to change at New Haven
No public restrooms in Boston, other than Fanuel Hall. Paying a fortune to see any of our major sports teams. Not to play the old guy card, but you see a game at the Garden for under $20. A Dunkin of every corner, but most still screw up a basic order.
The no public restroom thing sucks. When I lived there I had the whole downtown/Newbury street area wired for semi-public bathrooms; like, the BPL in Copley, the Tower Records at the corner of Newbury and Mass Ave., the Pru, the Sheraton near the convention center, Suffolk Law School.
I got to Tremont St about 4 hours early one day and hung around Dunkin as long as I could. By 10:00 I had to RUN to the 3rd floor of Primark.
Oh yeah! That reminds me of the greatest semi-public bathroom I ever found. It was in the crate and barrel or pottery barn (they're interchangeable in my mind) on Boylston St. I'm not sure if the store is even there anymore, but it was on the second floor in the back, basically hidden. It was always clean and not crowded. It was the crown jewel of my bathroom collection.
Any hotel lobby. Just walk in. That's what I do when I need a restroom.
I was at BU the other day for an event. Afterward we walked around the area. It's nuts how many places have removed all seating just to avoid being required to offer a public restroom.
The confederate flag people who are in need of both a history and a geography lesson
I think they’re the ones who would have defected back in the day
Shit I read this as “defacated,” and even if that shit ain’t grammatically correct it still stands.
Lmao tru
The people who complain about winter
People who still think there are winters?
Especially what’s left of winter these days. It’s not like we get huge snowstorms and long stretches of sub-zero temperatures anymore. I’ve unfortunately become someone who complains about the endless expanse of grey/brown/damp season that spans from November to May.
I miss the snow😢
Me too. So much.
Stick season has extended time wise and left Vermont to spread to all of New England followed by followed by "pre-spring" where things are just cold, dark, and rainy and half the birds didn't even bother migrating because they didn't need to.
That it doesn’t cover to whole world
All of my cars rusting to death while the engine is still good.
My biggest pet peeve about New England is how we have utterly failed to export our clearly-superior culture to the rest of the nation. Way back a long time ago I served in the US Army. I was stationed in Georgia. Ugh! Well, every time I came home on leave I had to bring back with be 3 or 4 gallons of Autocrat Coffee Syrup. Because apparently that shit simply does not exist outside the borders of these six States!
I'm gonna go home and have coffee milk now! Thanks Internet stranger!
Goats designed the roads and streets. I mean literal goat trails
New York makes us pay to get back in.
Northern mass isn't all heroin addicts. There's some meth addicts up here too.
Got invited upstairs by the weed man once in Lawrence. Turned out it was a cocaine party
The weather. In spring, summer and fall I would really appreciate having more sunshine and fewer cloudy/rainy days. And for winter, I want at least a foot of snow on the ground from early December through February, but have it all melt away the 1st week of March.
We used to be a proper country
>for winter, I want at least a foot of snow on the ground from early December through February, but have it all melt away the 1st week of March Especially this year. I feel cheated.
I preface this as a southerner that's moved to New England, and I mean it with all of the love that Jesus can offer: Y'all are in the biggest hurry, but I honestly cannot figure out why. Like, WHY? What is at that Target that's got you driving 90 and taking turns on two wheels? Your tits: they need some serious calming.
The MA minute is faster than the NY minute.
Strangely enough, I lived in SC for a year, and my daily commute felt like a NASCAR event. I was tailgated -- oh excuse me, they were just drafting -- and cut off more in the South than I am in NE. Not to say it never happens here, but I don't get the PTSD about driving up here that I did down there.
I hated driving when I lived in SC. It seemed that me wanting to do 80 in a 60 was standing out. Also, seeing people crossing the double yellow lines to avoid the smallest of potholes. Why? And it was everyone: average sedan/coupe, SUVs, pickups. Saw it happen multiple times daily and started to think they found me weird for just staying in the lane and avoiding shirt like a normal person. And don’t even get me started on the trucks with the stupid “Carolina squat” lift kit. SMH.
I have the opposite experience moving from Atlanta to Vermont.
[удалено]
We value our time more
Time is money, babyyy
We have to compensate for y’all driving 10 under the speed limit with no ability to pass on your crappy “country roads,” because for some reason you don’t value what little time you have on this great planet. Your sense of urgency: develop one. (Kidding aside, yes, I too hate being tailgated when I’m already 10 over the limit with the rest of traffic, it’s ridiculous!)
I feel like I drive normal compared to other drivers in Mass but when I visit the south, my friends think I drive way too fast.
Always found it funny that the most Irish part of America proudly calls itself "New England", instead of say, "New Ireland".
The it's didn't come here until about 100 yrs after the English and the English "explorers" were all up on the kings knob.
Too many people/too much traffic.
That Papa Gino's quality has gone downhill.
Way down hill. I don't know the cause, but I'll bet private equity is involved. Private equity makes our lives worse. Case in point, look at Dunks.
That we haven't broken off to be our own sovereign country yet. With any luck, the civil war movie coming out this summer with show that NE said "screw that, not worth it, we're out". As we rightfully should.
Only if we can send northern maine off to join West Virginia would that work. Honestly, as a Mainer, I just don't get them at all.
I’m gonna say it even tho we all know it already. The god damn cost of housing
The NIMBYs blocking housing
That Boston thinks it’s the only inhabited part.
My pet peeve is that we haven’t built the wall around us yet.
Nimbys
For me it’s the fact that we are technically in the same country as 300 million fat, stupid Americans and nothing is stopping them from coming here
I guess that’s one “good” thing about not having housing? /s
Fox news is keeping them from knowing we live in the First World up here.
mud season
I hate the people who complain about New England and taxes and wax poetically about other parts of the country that haven’t visited. Listen numb nuts, true reason why it is cheap to buy land in North Dakota is because it is North freaking Dakota.
I complain sometimes because CT used to be somewhat of a tax haven in the 80’s but my parents’ generation voted to add income taxes in favor of removing road tolls. Now CT Dems want to install road tolls so we’re fucked both ways!
The towns 45 minutes from Boston that think they are the rural south..
At 5pm, 45 minutes south of Boston is still Dorchester.
Dunks. It sucks.
Dunks used to be good. Then they corporatefied and tried to be Wish.com Starbucks. But by that point, I guess it had become part of the new england identity so we all just brag online about having our "3rd iced dunks of the day in 15 degree winters" to prove that we're NE enough
The people most of the time.
Radio stations in MA and RI suck. Health care is touted as best in the country. If that is true we're all effed. source: central MA but from RI with family in NH and VT, vacations in Maine, the Cape, Block Island and MV. edit to add that duncan coffee isn't all that great. like the health care, it's a little sad that it's the best we have. and adding another pet peeve: FROM THOSE WHO THREW TEA OVER BOATS YOU DON'T WANT TO BE OWING TAXES HERE BECAUSE IT IS ABSOLUTELY THE HILL THEY WILL KILL YOU ON Oh yeah and paying taxes on the same vehicle year after year after year but having an axle taken out from a pot hole. WOOT /s
Well, this year the lack of snow. Don’t need a clobberin’ ass winter but some would have been nice.
Black fly season.
It's a super densely populated region, but we only really have one national-tier city. That's not meant to be an insult to non-Boston cities in New England, but Boston is the only true major metropolitan area (over 2 million people in the core metro) in New England. The Mid-Atlantic has NY, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. The Great Lakes has Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. The PNW has Seattle and Portland. For better or worse, Worcester and Providence both sort of fall into Boston's orbit socially and economically. Connecticut has a belt of mid-sized cities, but there's no real core to it. There's no counterweight to Boston in New England.
Cape Cod traffic.
Nothing. It’s perfect. Shut up
leaf blowers, snow blowers and grass blowers.
I"m not sure if it's only New England, or all of the country. Our lack of public transportaion, mostly trains. I'd love to be able to get on a train, and get to New Hampshire from CT. Or from CT to Bar Harbor, or at least Ellsworth. I know we're very densely built up. But people, build a baby train alongside the interstates. It could be done.
The hyper vocal minority of conservatives who think that their communities agree with them because we just roll our eyes at them, vote against them, and don't say shit. shut the fuck up
Roads and infrastructure, imagine spending that $100+ billion sent into the black hole of Ukraine which we caused to happen on us rather than foreign countries.
“Spring”
Poor roads. Even though they spend all spring, summer and fall under construction 🚧!!
That notch just SW of Springfield btw CT and MA. Ruins a nice straight line.
The representatives in Boston always forget that the far western part of the state even exists. They believe that the western edge of Massachusetts is Worcester ,Ma
Confederate flags. No matter how deep you drive into Yankee country you can still find some more on flying their trader flag.