I remember being in a Canadian online chat room many years ago and having another participant make all sorts of fun of the geographically impaired "south of the border", meaning people from the States clueless about Canadian geography.
I replied that I didn't see any more ignorance of geography among those of us in Detroit than people I'd met south of the border in Canada.
Much chiding of me on his part ensued for what he saw as typical ignorance of those in the States about geography. He couldn't believe that I would insist that Canada was south of Detroit.
I insisted that he check it out on a map.
Seeing that this was a number of years before a lot of folks had a nice graphic interface to the Web, there was silence from him as I think he went to a book (remember those?) to look and see what this crazy Detroiter was on about.
And he discovered that Detroit really is north of Canada!
I wish I had these photos ready at hand at that time.
Here you see the marker in a park along the riverside in Windsor, Ontario, that points to Detroit's distinctive skyline.
The marker's text clearly shows that some folks in Canada do know that Detroit is north of Canada!
And with all due respect to the band Journey, there really is no such thing as the "South Detroit" they mention in the lyrics to the 1981 song, "Don't Stop Believin".
Journey's Steve Perry said the song originated when the band was playing some Detroit gigs. Detroit was at the top of their minds when they began to put the lyrics together. Perry liked the sound of "South Detroit" then and only found out many years later that there really was no such location.
Meanwhile, remind me someday to tell the story of being in a club in Ottawa and, when someone introduced me as being from Detroit, a Canadian there said, "Detroit? Is that anywhere near Boston?" Yup, true story.
Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.
© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved
THAT is SO interesting! Off to share this bit of trivia with everyone I know....
Posted by: Traci | March 23, 2012 at 05:38 AM
I've had a lot of fun with it over the years!
Posted by: Dominique King | March 23, 2012 at 06:05 AM
That is too funny, as I had to think about it for a moment too before getting to your conclusion.
Posted by: InACents | March 23, 2012 at 06:52 AM
What a fun story - I had no idea - of course that is cause I am from Texas and don't travel "north" much! :))If you would like to link up with another Photo Meme, I host Friday Daydreamin' every Friday! I'd love for you to join!
~Becca
Posted by: Becca@R We There Yet Mom? | March 23, 2012 at 07:05 AM
When my friends and I were in college, we once drove to Windsor (drinking age was [is?] 19 there...) I'll have to share this little tidbit with them. We had lots of laughs about our "international" trip to the north. ;)
Posted by: Nicole at Arrows Sent Forth | March 23, 2012 at 12:54 PM
InACents-It does make you stop and think!
Becca-I'll check it out.
Nicole-The drinking age is still 19 in Windsor as far as I know. We never went over there to take advantage of it as I happened to be born in the small window of time that made me 18 after the drinking age was lowered to that in Michigan and 21 before Michigan raised their drinking age back up to 21. It still looks like there are lots of clubs catering to the 18-21 crowd in Windsor these days, though.
Posted by: Dominique King | March 25, 2012 at 07:33 AM