I appreciate your commitment to the caribou joke spanning literal decades. That's the kind of petty I aspire to. Also, for the record, Wisconsin has no caribou either, but we DO have the World's Largest Soup Kettle in Laona. Checkmate, Indiana.
As a Rhode Islander, I have trouble describing my state as bigger than something. But now at least I can say Rhode Island is bigger than Indiana's Ball o' Paint.
I have lots of relatives in neighboring Rhode Island. They tell me the unofficial state motto is: "Many of our politicians are currently NOT in prison!"
Forwarding a link to this episode to an Indiana state representative friend who’s also an IU grad and adjunct professor. It’ll be a good test of his sense of humor. Me—you had me at Dave Barry.
I miss Miami. I remember seeing UM against UF or FSU (can’t remember which) back in the true Orange Bowl. This was when UM was known for its aggressive football. When the game was over, all the people in my area of the nosebleed seats shook hands said ‘good game’. I figured it was lack of oxygen that caused this descent into decency. BTW I took the MetroRail to and from the game (from Dadeland, I lived south of Kendall, where the MetroRail never went.)
Well, Rich, I think it goes like this: Wisconsin and Indiana are both in the Big 10 Conference. Their school colors are red. And once you drive westward past Harrisburg PA, it all kinda looks the same until you reach the Rocky Mountains. So they're all one big happy family out there.
Or maybe that's just my northeastern elite snotty bastard point of view.
Hmm, if she were still alive and I told her that she reminds us of "Bad Santa," she'd probably swear and then put out her cigarette on my forehead -- proving that we're right!
The wavy thing is called a "tilde" and after 5 years of high school and DJC college Spanish, 50+ years ago, that's all I remember. Sadly, my typing class (also at DJC before it became MDCC) did not have Spanish characters on the IBM Selectric ball element, so I don't know how to type it.
And as far as I'm concerned, this game is being played at Joe Robbie Stadium. It's a nice stadium, as far as stadiums go, but I dearly miss the original Orange Bowl (despite there being absolutely NO parking unless you knew somebody who would let you park on their lawn for $8 so you could get your 3 mile pre-game hike in).
While we were always concerned that the collective foot stomping of fans during the Orange Bowl games would cause it to collapse, we found much joy in making the loudest gun-free banging noises possible, generally accompanied by the Gator Chomp or the Tomohawk Chop... Only one member of my extended family was a 'Cane, the rest of us were 'Noles and Gators.
I can still feel the swaying of the upper deck bleachers at the FSU v Nebraska Championship game 1/1/1994. Glorious noise! So much so, that I did not mind that I lost my voice for 3 full days from screaming 😊
I'm going to wish luck to the folks who live near the stadium who have to put up with 3 days of tourists driving through their neighborhoods to find parking and hope all the Hoosiers manage to find their way back to MIA or FLL when they need to head home. Heck, I hope the South Floridians manage to find THEIR way home, with all the construction at Golden Glades, which I navigate daily, they'll be lucky if they get home before Wednesday night!
Thank you, Dave Barry, for giving me something to laugh (& reminisce) about this week! 🧡
Oh Dave, now you're making us work for a laugh. I actually had to go to Google translate to be sure your last line meant: "At least I can stay here instead of going back to that damn frozen tundra infested with corn stalks." I wish I cared about the game, but I'll do some ironing instead. As for the caribou joke, I am just immature enough to love it. Thanks for making me laugh during these disturbing times.
Thanks for doing the work for me. I saw the word "maize" and knew it involved corn. But my muy excellente cafe con leche kept me from looking it up myself.
IU is still undefeated so I am rooting for them on principal and I am from Kentucky so my knowledge of football is miniscule at best. I will always root for an undefeated team which gets to the final game. (I will also root for the underdog if it looks like they are going to take over the game and Cinderella their way home)
"Hoosiers"? Oh, I thought it was "Hosers", you know, like in the Doug and Bob McKenzie sketches. I guess that explains why Indiana is not in Canada. I gotta work on my geography.
Oh, they sure don't, Wis! I'm not really a Texan. I'm from New Jersey. But our only daughter went to UT Austin and we couldn't get her back up north, so here we are.
Texans are really all about being Texans, for sure. They're like vegans. If you don't know they're vegans, it's because you haven't known them for more than 20 seconds. %-)
I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. I miss Jersey! But here we are! %-)
Oh my! You were my neighbor growing up in Philadelphia! The culture shock alone must have been massive, moving down there! (And 😅😅😅 about the vegans and Texans - I imagine neither would like to be in the same sentence with the other, let alone to have their similarities pointed out!)
Oh, I'm not leaving, CLAIRE WOOD! I'm following my daughter wherever she goes, whether she likes it or not. %-)
But the great thing about Mexican food (aside from the fact that it is "The Food that is NEVER Wrong" and I could eat it three meals a day) is that great Mexican food is everywhere! Some of the greatest I've ever had was in New York and New Jersey, long before Texas.
But what other places cannot do as well as Texas is... barbecue! ;-)
As a Kentuckian I would argue that a good pulled pork sandwich done correctly with hot vinegar sauce and slaw can at least equal a Texas brisket in terms of greatness. Where I come from barbeque is just another word for pork. I never actually had beef barbeque until I came to Texas. (of course in Connecticut barbeque means cooking out on the charcoal grill)
When I lived in Boston there was no such thing (of course this was in the 1970s) but I did not care because of the endless supply of excellent Italian food as well as other assorted ethnic delights. When I visited my folks in KY I stocked up on things I could not find in Boston and ate all the BBQ I could find..alas I had not really discovered the food that is NEVER Wrong at that time so I did not miss it.
A friend went to Cambridge for an 18 month master's program and he moaned and groaned about the lack of good Mexican food. Several of us told him to give it up, eat Mexican and Chickenfried steak when he came back to FW for visits and just camp out in the North End.
Are you in FW, CLAIRE WOOD? We're a stone's throw, up in Highland Village up in Denton County. After five years, Texas is starting to grow on me, but I'm almost 72, so I think I'll probably still die a Jersey Girl. ;-)
I see it's been three hours since you wrote that comment. I know people's lives are busy, and we tend to forget little things we run across as we scroll through the Interwebs. So, purely as a helpful courtesy, just in case it didn't stick with you:
I’m a Hoosier and I’m…not offended at all, because, you know, Midwestern niceness and all that. FYI, driving in Indiana is horrible as well — due to lax enforcement red lights are only a recommendation in most parts of the state, but at the same time “Go Slow In The Left Lane” is our unofficial state motto. And we’re already used to high Uber prices, seeing that it only works on Friday evenings and, well, during big football games.
Two cousins, brothers in their late teens and early college years (let’s go back 50+ years) received their profound business and economics education in Miami at the old Orange Bowl during football games.
They were hotdog vendors, carrying their wares in insulated containers and likely back when the dogs were just $5. Keen observations led to their first million: the money they collected went to the vending company, so they cut out the middle man.
Hidden in the boot of their car were several more insulated containers filled with warm hotdogs that they had prepared at home, and stadium security freely allowed the vendor to enter and leave the stadium to sell their wares.
BTW, Miami airport also has the second largest team of Wheelchair Attendants in the world, second only to Boca Raton airport. These fine servants are very adept at pushing people who look a tinge old and have absolutely no ailments, but appreciate the free ride and cutting the line.
The "free riders" in Ft. Myers are soooo annoying. They get wheeled up to the gate and board first. When we land in Hartford, they sprint off the plane like they're in the frickin' Olympics!
Ha ha! The first time I experienced this, the guy I was flying with said, "Jesus is on this plane." I replied, "Huh?" He said, "Wait till we land. You'll see a dozen miraculous healings!"
Based on my own experience I have to say that the wheelchair team at West Palm Bch (as the road signs have it) could well be bigger than the one at MIA.
Governor Mike Braun of Indiana has wagered 25 pounds of caribou steak against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ bet of a thousand pythons (dead or alive) from The Everglades.
With the weather this week, there will be plenty of iguanas on the sidewalks to offer. Offer for what, you may ask? Someone here will have answers I’m sure.
As a member of the Cuban-American Citizens Association (CACA), we will be out in force on the streets and roads this weekend to offer assistance, directions, cafecitos, pepper spray refills, and a friendly "Mi casa es Tu casa (¡but no zapatos en el sofa¡)" as a sign of our hospitality to all our northern visitors before sending them on their way....with a stun grenade on the back seat.
Correction: you won’t be watching student athletes but rather NIL multi-millionaires who all have Fan Duel accounts they abuse and are probably responsible for more road kill than Carl Hiassen can write jokes about. But whatever, go ‘Canes
Can't speak for Dave, but I do believe they're buds and both on the Mt. Rushmore of humor. (Apologies to both men if they believe any reference to Mt. Rushmore has been tarnished by our oh so humble president, who hallucinates about being memorialized in that venerated place.)
Well, I voted for the caribou. If they were in the game, I might actually watch it. Otherwise, I do not care. At all. I'd rather watch paint dry, especially if they're applying a new coat to that gigantic paint ball in Indiana. My pick this week for best rock band name is Black Market Elevators.
I appreciate your commitment to the caribou joke spanning literal decades. That's the kind of petty I aspire to. Also, for the record, Wisconsin has no caribou either, but we DO have the World's Largest Soup Kettle in Laona. Checkmate, Indiana.
As a Rhode Islander, I have trouble describing my state as bigger than something. But now at least I can say Rhode Island is bigger than Indiana's Ball o' Paint.
Are you sure?
Hmmmmm. . . . well, there's one way to make sure -- roll that ball o' paint over here and we'll measure.
😅
"Rhode Island: The World's Smallest State Also Bigger than Indiana's Ball of Paint!"
Your state-motto license plates must be the size of windmill blades.
I have lots of relatives in neighboring Rhode Island. They tell me the unofficial state motto is: "Many of our politicians are currently NOT in prison!"
MerryCatholic.substack.com
Actually, the semi-official state motto is: "I know a guy."
Buddy Cianci, the late multi-felonious mayor of Providence, once ran for re-election with the slogan "Vote for Cianci - a man of conviction."
In NJ, where I grew up, the unofficial state motto is: "No prisons are big enough for all our politicians!" 😉
I live in Illinois. Some of our governors have not been in prison, but not many.
Forwarding a link to this episode to an Indiana state representative friend who’s also an IU grad and adjunct professor. It’ll be a good test of his sense of humor. Me—you had me at Dave Barry.
I miss Miami. I remember seeing UM against UF or FSU (can’t remember which) back in the true Orange Bowl. This was when UM was known for its aggressive football. When the game was over, all the people in my area of the nosebleed seats shook hands said ‘good game’. I figured it was lack of oxygen that caused this descent into decency. BTW I took the MetroRail to and from the game (from Dadeland, I lived south of Kendall, where the MetroRail never went.)
https://www.abc6.com/content/uploads/2024/07/o/w/157899858-10158034944692544-4528761519581490636-n.jpg
Pardon the interruption, but: how does a kudo for Wisconsin translate to an advantage for Indiana?
Well, Rich, I think it goes like this: Wisconsin and Indiana are both in the Big 10 Conference. Their school colors are red. And once you drive westward past Harrisburg PA, it all kinda looks the same until you reach the Rocky Mountains. So they're all one big happy family out there.
Or maybe that's just my northeastern elite snotty bastard point of view.
MerryCatholic.substack.com
Thank you, Bill, but we prefer “one big polite family that will absolutely remember this later.”
Kinda sound like what my grandma taught me: "Forgive, but NEVER forget."
I like your grandma. A lot. Kinda the grandma version of Bad Santa.
Hmm, if she were still alive and I told her that she reminds us of "Bad Santa," she'd probably swear and then put out her cigarette on my forehead -- proving that we're right!
It doesn’t. But if Indiana would like to borrow the soup kettle to improve morale, Wisconsin is generous like that.
Wisconsin is home to many "largest of" national objects.
•Largest Muskelunge, Hayward, WI https://www.freshwater-fishing.org/
•Largest Loon, Mercer, WI https://mercercc.com/about-the-area/loon-capital/
•Largest Badger, Birnamwood, WI and •Largest Squirrel https://detritusofempire.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-worlds-largest-badger-soldiers-on.html?m=1
Having lived in South Florida, I am familiar with Spanish hand gestures all South Floridians use!
Why, every day I drive to work at least one person would yell something, and gesture that I was number one!
One-handed, of course. The other hand had to hold the steering wheel and gun. Safety first!
All you really need to know:
1. how to find a bathroom ("Bano" {pronounced BAN-yo} *
2. how to get a beer (cerveza)
3. Cafe Cubano (and you won't sleep for days)
I also highly recommend eating as many Cuban sandwiches as possible. Those things are damn good!!!
*How do you get that wavy thing to sit on top of the n?
The wavy thing is called a "tilde" and after 5 years of high school and DJC college Spanish, 50+ years ago, that's all I remember. Sadly, my typing class (also at DJC before it became MDCC) did not have Spanish characters on the IBM Selectric ball element, so I don't know how to type it.
And as far as I'm concerned, this game is being played at Joe Robbie Stadium. It's a nice stadium, as far as stadiums go, but I dearly miss the original Orange Bowl (despite there being absolutely NO parking unless you knew somebody who would let you park on their lawn for $8 so you could get your 3 mile pre-game hike in).
While we were always concerned that the collective foot stomping of fans during the Orange Bowl games would cause it to collapse, we found much joy in making the loudest gun-free banging noises possible, generally accompanied by the Gator Chomp or the Tomohawk Chop... Only one member of my extended family was a 'Cane, the rest of us were 'Noles and Gators.
I can still feel the swaying of the upper deck bleachers at the FSU v Nebraska Championship game 1/1/1994. Glorious noise! So much so, that I did not mind that I lost my voice for 3 full days from screaming 😊
I'm going to wish luck to the folks who live near the stadium who have to put up with 3 days of tourists driving through their neighborhoods to find parking and hope all the Hoosiers manage to find their way back to MIA or FLL when they need to head home. Heck, I hope the South Floridians manage to find THEIR way home, with all the construction at Golden Glades, which I navigate daily, they'll be lucky if they get home before Wednesday night!
Thank you, Dave Barry, for giving me something to laugh (& reminisce) about this week! 🧡
Oh Dave, now you're making us work for a laugh. I actually had to go to Google translate to be sure your last line meant: "At least I can stay here instead of going back to that damn frozen tundra infested with corn stalks." I wish I cared about the game, but I'll do some ironing instead. As for the caribou joke, I am just immature enough to love it. Thanks for making me laugh during these disturbing times.
Thanks for doing the work for me. I saw the word "maize" and knew it involved corn. But my muy excellente cafe con leche kept me from looking it up myself.
Clearly, my four years of Spanish in high school didn't do as much good as my parents had hoped.
I’m still waiting for someone to ask me “Donde es la bibliotheca?” (Although not in Miami though. No libraries there.
Ha! Yes, there is a danger of learning when near one.
Yes, thanks, Fran. I was in the process of looking, but I knew someone here would have already done so. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I am here for you!
I care desperately for the game! The last time IU was this good I was in high school—let’s just say several decades ago.
Btw, little note so everyone here can sound informed: it is Indiana University, NOT University of Indiana. Now you know.
IU is still undefeated so I am rooting for them on principal and I am from Kentucky so my knowledge of football is miniscule at best. I will always root for an undefeated team which gets to the final game. (I will also root for the underdog if it looks like they are going to take over the game and Cinderella their way home)
I was pretty impressed that (assuming my Spanish is adequate) Dave gave actual translations for the examples of what to say before that final one!
He left us that last one to keep us on our toes.
Probably the #1 search on Google today!
Glad I’m not the only one who had to know what it meant and used the translator.
"Hoosiers"? Oh, I thought it was "Hosers", you know, like in the Doug and Bob McKenzie sketches. I guess that explains why Indiana is not in Canada. I gotta work on my geography.
MerryCatholic.substack.com
I am in Texas, and we have the largest Texas.
And you don’t let anyone forget it…!
(🙄😉)
Oh, they sure don't, Wis! I'm not really a Texan. I'm from New Jersey. But our only daughter went to UT Austin and we couldn't get her back up north, so here we are.
Texans are really all about being Texans, for sure. They're like vegans. If you don't know they're vegans, it's because you haven't known them for more than 20 seconds. %-)
I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. I miss Jersey! But here we are! %-)
Have a lovely weekend!
As Lyle Lovett wrote, “oh no, you’re not from Texas but Texas wants you anyway!”
Oh my! You were my neighbor growing up in Philadelphia! The culture shock alone must have been massive, moving down there! (And 😅😅😅 about the vegans and Texans - I imagine neither would like to be in the same sentence with the other, let alone to have their similarities pointed out!)
But what about Mexican food? You will come to find out if you leave us that you will begin craving enchiladas and fajitas the next day
I haven’t had the Mexican food in Texas - and to be clear, I actually like the Texans who show up on this Substack. Y’all are intelligent Texans! 😊
Thank you very much!! #KentuckyExpat
Oh, I'm not leaving, CLAIRE WOOD! I'm following my daughter wherever she goes, whether she likes it or not. %-)
But the great thing about Mexican food (aside from the fact that it is "The Food that is NEVER Wrong" and I could eat it three meals a day) is that great Mexican food is everywhere! Some of the greatest I've ever had was in New York and New Jersey, long before Texas.
But what other places cannot do as well as Texas is... barbecue! ;-)
As a Kentuckian I would argue that a good pulled pork sandwich done correctly with hot vinegar sauce and slaw can at least equal a Texas brisket in terms of greatness. Where I come from barbeque is just another word for pork. I never actually had beef barbeque until I came to Texas. (of course in Connecticut barbeque means cooking out on the charcoal grill)
Okay, so now you're just making me hungry. Pulled pork! Hot vinegar sauce! Sign me up! ;-)
👏👏
When I lived in Boston there was no such thing (of course this was in the 1970s) but I did not care because of the endless supply of excellent Italian food as well as other assorted ethnic delights. When I visited my folks in KY I stocked up on things I could not find in Boston and ate all the BBQ I could find..alas I had not really discovered the food that is NEVER Wrong at that time so I did not miss it.
A friend went to Cambridge for an 18 month master's program and he moaned and groaned about the lack of good Mexican food. Several of us told him to give it up, eat Mexican and Chickenfried steak when he came back to FW for visits and just camp out in the North End.
Are you in FW, CLAIRE WOOD? We're a stone's throw, up in Highland Village up in Denton County. After five years, Texas is starting to grow on me, but I'm almost 72, so I think I'll probably still die a Jersey Girl. ;-)
I see it's been three hours since you wrote that comment. I know people's lives are busy, and we tend to forget little things we run across as we scroll through the Interwebs. So, purely as a helpful courtesy, just in case it didn't stick with you:
We have the largest Texas!
We know! 😅
I’m a Hoosier and I’m…not offended at all, because, you know, Midwestern niceness and all that. FYI, driving in Indiana is horrible as well — due to lax enforcement red lights are only a recommendation in most parts of the state, but at the same time “Go Slow In The Left Lane” is our unofficial state motto. And we’re already used to high Uber prices, seeing that it only works on Friday evenings and, well, during big football games.
Hey, wait a minute, I thought that was the state motto here in Pennsylvania!
Two cousins, brothers in their late teens and early college years (let’s go back 50+ years) received their profound business and economics education in Miami at the old Orange Bowl during football games.
They were hotdog vendors, carrying their wares in insulated containers and likely back when the dogs were just $5. Keen observations led to their first million: the money they collected went to the vending company, so they cut out the middle man.
Hidden in the boot of their car were several more insulated containers filled with warm hotdogs that they had prepared at home, and stadium security freely allowed the vendor to enter and leave the stadium to sell their wares.
Ah, those were the days!
BTW, Miami airport also has the second largest team of Wheelchair Attendants in the world, second only to Boca Raton airport. These fine servants are very adept at pushing people who look a tinge old and have absolutely no ailments, but appreciate the free ride and cutting the line.
The "free riders" in Ft. Myers are soooo annoying. They get wheeled up to the gate and board first. When we land in Hartford, they sprint off the plane like they're in the frickin' Olympics!
MerryCatholic.substack.com
That's why the flight crews call flights to Florida "Miracle Flights"
Ha ha! The first time I experienced this, the guy I was flying with said, "Jesus is on this plane." I replied, "Huh?" He said, "Wait till we land. You'll see a dozen miraculous healings!"
Based on my own experience I have to say that the wheelchair team at West Palm Bch (as the road signs have it) could well be bigger than the one at MIA.
Governor Mike Braun of Indiana has wagered 25 pounds of caribou steak against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ bet of a thousand pythons (dead or alive) from The Everglades.
Remember you read it here first.
With the weather this week, there will be plenty of iguanas on the sidewalks to offer. Offer for what, you may ask? Someone here will have answers I’m sure.
Excellent idea! Weather report last night said to be alert for frozen iguanas falling out of trees.
As Dave Barry would say “I am not making this up”.
As a member of the Cuban-American Citizens Association (CACA), we will be out in force on the streets and roads this weekend to offer assistance, directions, cafecitos, pepper spray refills, and a friendly "Mi casa es Tu casa (¡but no zapatos en el sofa¡)" as a sign of our hospitality to all our northern visitors before sending them on their way....with a stun grenade on the back seat.
Miami: See it Like a Native!
"Hoosier" derives from that fine old song "Hey, hey, hoosier your lady friend?" as Indiana is the birthplace of the clandestine affair.
Is it true that the winner of the Spanish-American War was forced to take Miami?
Wait... the war is over?
Correction: you won’t be watching student athletes but rather NIL multi-millionaires who all have Fan Duel accounts they abuse and are probably responsible for more road kill than Carl Hiassen can write jokes about. But whatever, go ‘Canes
Love Carl Hiassen. Is he related to Dave Barry? Maybe distant cousins? Or just pen pals. Oh, sorry. This is about football…never mind.
Carl is my good friend and sometime bandmate.
And apparently, your doppelgänger when people ask you for his autograph
How cool is this! I love his books. A hoot and a holler. (Hope I spelled all that correctly)
and at least once a co-author (See: Naked Came The Manatee) Dave, how is Booger anyway?
Can't speak for Dave, but I do believe they're buds and both on the Mt. Rushmore of humor. (Apologies to both men if they believe any reference to Mt. Rushmore has been tarnished by our oh so humble president, who hallucinates about being memorialized in that venerated place.)
Har!!
Same person.
Very useful for multitasking.
Ask any schizophrenic.
I do not like your airport because I have trouble walking more than 9 miles.
Obviously you have not been inside DFW. Fortunately there is a speedy little trolley that can get you to any terminal in no time flat.
Also, I believe the elevator sign has a replaceable patch. Please Use Elevators at Center of Parking Row xx. That might explain a lot.
As a retired urologist I hope the Hard Rock stadium has sufficient loos and that the women loos outnumber the men 50-1 although I doubt it.
Tom…not to go off topic, but I have this burning sensation…can we talk? Just kidding. (Maybe)
Well, I voted for the caribou. If they were in the game, I might actually watch it. Otherwise, I do not care. At all. I'd rather watch paint dry, especially if they're applying a new coat to that gigantic paint ball in Indiana. My pick this week for best rock band name is Black Market Elevators.