“Hey, you’re a true Rhode Islander now”
I was just chatting with Val, my officemate Justin’s wife, and we were talking about sushi. I asked her if she had ever been to Ran Zan, one of the first restaurants that I’d ever visited in Providence. She asked where it was and I said, “It’s where Hope & Blackstone converge, next to where Maximillian’s used to be.” Justin then noted that I had just referred to the location of a place with respect to a landmark that no longer existed, as Rhode Islanders tend to do so often. (I’ve heard “where the old Shell station used to be” so often that I wish I had been here while it still had existed.)
If you spend much time in Wisconsin you’ll start to give directions that reference the number of hills along a route. It’s really weird.