So far I don’t have a favorite place to visit. I think I need more than 18 months of living here to come up with that. Talk to me again in June after I’ve been driving to Portsmouth, NH for work each day (yes I got a job, more about that later this week). As for funny stories, well so far I can list a flood, a layoff and a lawsuit as memorable although they aren’t funny.
But I can share a story from Kent. Worcester is a town about 40 miles west of Boston, although in a way it’s almost part of Boston—people do commute from there to work in Boston. We’ve always giggled at how the local NPR announcer says Worcester: WOOster. OK, we aren’t from here and I certainly laughed at how folks in Columbus, OH say Scioto (cyotah) or people in the Kansas City area say Olathe (oLAYtha).
The day of the flood, Kent grabbed a cab to get home because at the time I didn’t know the water was coming from a water main break and I thought maybe the T lines had flooded or something. So he told the cab driver our address and added that the nearest cross street was Worcester. The cab driver, who was clearly a native Bostonian, immediately asked him how he’d said that word.
So Kent repeated himself, “WOOster.”
The cab driver laughed and laughed. “So how do you say it?” Kent asked.
“WUHstuh.”
We still laugh about that.
