Stop light conversation

If you ever have to question where I went to school take a look at my car. My licence plate frame and fan plates in my back windows all declare Ferris State Bulldogs.

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Ferris is a small school in Big Rapids, Mich. The school has about 15,000 students and the town is a podunk red neck town. No disrespect to those who live there, some of the residents are the nicest, caring people I have ever met.

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There are people in Michigan who have never heard of Big Rapids, and confuse it with the larger Grand Rapids forty minutes south. Although, it seems like everyone knows someone who went to Ferris.

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Now that I'm living in the Seattle area I am asked regularly where Ferris State is. I bust out my handy dandy hand and point out where Ferris is. Knuckle on the ring finger. Don't blame me for having an amazing way of showing Michigan geography.

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When a middle aged man asked me where Ferris State was yesterday I wasn't surprised about the question, I was surprised about the timing of the question.

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I'm sitting at a red light, windows down, dancing to music. When a voice from somewhere asks "Where is Ferris State?"

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I look around and see a man in a full fledged mid-life crisis. Sports car, Oakley sunglasses, clothes from Abercrombie, and a tad weird.

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"In northern Michigan!" I tell him.

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"Do you know Jim Someone?"

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"Uhh, no!"

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"He lives in (he did name the city, but I don't know every podunk town in the U.P.)"

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"I don't know where that is."

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"Oh. Okay."

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I went back to watching the still red light willing it to turn green.

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"Michigan! Isn't that the Edmund Fitzgerald?"

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What? When most people ask about Michigan they do not refer to a freighter that went down in Lake Superior. I must have looked confused, because he clarified.

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"The Edmund Fitzgerald! It's a freighter, it carries iron ore!"

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Yes, I know what the Edmund Fitzgerald is, you crazy man. From first grade on, school children around the state sing Gordon Lightfoot's song about the boat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A

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"Right," I tell him, really wishing this light would turn green already. Don't worry, he wasn't trying to coerce me. He told me that about five times. But still, middle aged man having conversation in a sports car at a red light is something out of a movie. A really bad movie.

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"Does Ferris have anything to do with that?"

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I blame Ferris for several things, but the sinking of the boat is not one of them. I again, must have looked confused, because he quickly clarified.

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"Does Ferris do anything with ship building or the iron and ore?"

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Ferris is in the middle of nowhere! A solid forty-five minute drive in all directions to civilization.

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The light thankfully turned green and I drove off, taking a right turn, he, thankfully, went straight.

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I guess I can no longer be mad or frustrated when people have never heard of Ferris, in fact, after that conversation I encourage people to just Bing it.