...it's a century old, take a ride around and enjoy what you seeeee... (Idaho's state song*, and yes we learned this in grade school.)

The more coastal my friends get, the more I realize how different it is, being here in the red states. I swear we should have some sort of cultural exchange between native coastal and interior folks; it might give us some more perspective (and maybe we'd even be a little less surprised come election time...?).

So here's Dot, with your occasional report from Middle America. I've come to edju-ma-kate you on my state, via blacktable's Six Things You Don't Know About series, which lists six things you don't know about random states.

Nate's Six Things You Don't Know About: Idaho is pretty accurate, although I wanted to add a few things.

When I traveled abroad, I too had to explain (well, after they understood that I could be Asian and be from America, too) where Idaho was, and had to settle with "near California". Yes, there's the potato thing (#1 on Nate's list), but I wanted to relieve the impression that Ore-Ida (famous for Tater Tots, which are 50 years old this year, incidentally) was started in Pittsburgh by Heinz and is their corporate puppet. It's not, or it didn't start out to be. It started in Ontario, Oregon, which is close to the border shared by Oregon and Idaho. They got sold to Heinz later, and HQ up and moved maybe 6 years ago from the area to Pittsburgh. It was actually a pretty big deal; out of 400 employees they wanted to move, only 15 opted to go. Like ex-Ore-Ida economist Don Holley says, "That says something either about Boise or Pittsburgh." (Apologies to my Pittsburgh homies, but Boise is, well...home.)

Anyway, back to it. Yes, #2, we are famous for the Smurf Turf, the unique blue astroturf that covers the football field at Boise State University. Our team, the Broncos, have enjoyed a recent rise to domination in the sport of college football since Dan Hawkins took over as head coach. He's so good that earlier this month the front page news reported the local apprehension that we might lose Hawk to Notre Dame. Fortunately he re-signed with BSU for a respectable 5 year, 2.6 million dollar contract. Which I guess we can afford, now that we got in bed with the Bell. (How would you like to have your graduation in Taco Bell Arena?)

#3, yep, we're in the Rocky Mountains, not the Great Plains. We have good skiing, but in Boise there's actually very little snow. (It's only snowed once this winter.) I think it's the combination of being in a valley, as well as being in a semi-arid desert region.

#4, true. Idahoans tend to be xenophobic. It's not an exaggeration that not too long ago there was a rash of anti-Californian vandalism, as a good majority of the new and burgeoning population of Boise (The tech industry is a big draw, as both Micron and Hewlett-Packard have HQs here.) has been from California. My folks included, although they came almost 30 years ago, and not for tech. We used to fear for Grandma and Grandpa driving up in their car from Cali, because of all this "Idaho Native" BS, and rocks in windows and whatnot. California license plates were dangerous to have. It's better now, though, probably because there's more people like me (atypical-looking Idaho-born/raised; I'm Nampa-nese!) who can safely claim Idaho nativeness. Of course it was never the more native Shoshone or Nez Perce that started the "native" hullabaloo, it was the xenophobic folks with the white Idaho homesteading history.

And #5, yep, racist assholes live in Idaho. They mostly keep to the northern panhandle, the home of the Aryan Nations. Nate comments about what might be Idaho's attempt to make up for its northern residents, what is now Boise's Anne Frank Holocaust Memorial, a well-funded and beautiful memorial including sculptures and some of Anne Frank's more poignant words carved into the walls surrounding a fountain, all next to the serene Boise River, yet very visible on one of the main roads into downtown Boise. Boise is also home to the Humanitarian Hall of Fame, and the Humanitarian Bowl. I guess it makes more sense in the context of having the Aryan Nations up north, but last time I heard, Minidoka Relocation Center (one of the WWII Japanese American internment camps) remains a pile of rocks with a sign barely visible from the highway. You'd also hardly know about the history of the Chinese in Boise. Not that the Holocaust isn't an enormous scar on the face of humanity. I mean no disrespect, but what about recognizing our own, too?

Oh, and Nate jokes that the first Jew only arrived in Boise mid-1980s (and funny enough, I think I went to high school with both Nate and the friend he speaks of, so truly we might claim to know the one Jew from Boise), but I thought I should mention that the first Jewish United States governor ever was governor of Idaho, in 1915.

And lastly, #6 is true - we love a good corporate conflict. Screw Texas, don't mess with Idaho. AOL ran a campaign that included an ad insulting Boise, so our governor fired back, and we got thousands of dollars for the Boise School District, as well as a free concert by the Counting Crows, courtesy of AOL.

Okay, lesson's over. Idaho's great. Boise's always been reputed as a great place to raise a family, and I contend that, in the small world of academia I've created for myself here, the main reason we've got such outstanding academics sprinkled throughout the university is because Boise's such a great place to live and be. It's backwards sometimes, but it's definitely got it's charm.

* [Added 26 Dec 2004]: I looked this up later and the real lyrics are: "Here we have Idaho, winning her way to fame..." I don't know where those other lyrics came from. How embarrassing!

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