Anyone remember the video game called "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" It was a fun game if you lean to the geeky side of life, which I definitely do. I am interested in many topics and have been known to go off on research binges--hunting down listings for books on certain subjects, reserving them, and having them sent to my local branch of the library. Then I check them out as they come in and read like crazy on a subject until my curiosity is satisfied, I run out of books, or I veer off to another interesting subject. It's no wonder my masters degree is in humanities. Nothing like majoring in generalities. That would be my focus of nonfocus, a masters degree in lotsa stuff.
So anyway, I have liked geography ever since seventh grade when my mom was helping me studying for an exam, and she started singing a song about Copenhagen. I just googled the song and found it on YouTube of all places. To my knowledge I have only been exposed to that song from my mom's use of it as a way to help me remember Denmark's capital city. I aced the test and the class, so she must have done a good job drilling me. Anyway, I still enjoy learning about other places in the world, so the Carmen San Diego games were a sure bet for me.
Now there's a game on Facebook called "Kidnap!" where people kidnap each other and take them off to exotic or not so exotic hideouts. I'm currently in Dublin, although I change my hideout rather often. Once you've been kidnapped, you have to answer trivia questions to get out of prison. They give you a cheat sheet, but you have to go and read about the city where you're imprisoned in order to learn the answer, which is the key that unlocks your prison, unless of course you just happen to know the answer off the top of your head. I've gotten a few answers that way, but not all that many.
Now by this point you may be wondering what all that has to do with Delaware? The answer is absolutely nothing. That's just my rambling, tangential way of writing, while throwing bits of knowledge and trivia at you before getting to the point. You have to admit that more times than not, you probably learn something while reading one of my blogs. You can thank me later when you are able to spout bits and pieces of fascinating things at people during a dinner party. Just mind your manners and don't spit anything else at them please.
So back to Delaware, or more to the point, NOT back to Delaware. Recently on Facebook, I got one of those "lists" things where all 50 US states were listed and you were supposed to check off the ones you've visited. Although the vast majority of the traveling my mom and I have done has been separate from one another, we have both been to 47 out of 50 states. Oddly enough, we've been to exactly the same 47 states. Back in 1985, on a trip from North Carolina to Canada, we drove up Interstate 95 and purposefully tried to find Delaware along the way because it was one of the states neither of us had ever visited. As far as we know, we still have not been there. If we drove into Delaware, we did it without noticing it, even though it appeared to be on the map, and despite the fact that we were looking for it. I'm not utterly convinced that it exists anywhere except on a map. I know it's a small state, but so is Rhode Island, and we managed to locate that state without difficulty.
I finally concluded that all Delaware consists of is a single post office, which they built for credit card companies to use as a billing address, since that's the only thing I've ever noticed as having a Delaware address. Do you know of any people who are from Delaware? I've met people from all around the world, but I've never encountered one person who claimed to be from Delaware. Do they never leave the state? Are they too embarrassed to say they're from Delaware? I'm still convinced that it doesn't exist and you're going to have to take me there in person and solve the mystery of "Where in the World is Delaware?" before I change my opinion. So there.
Beth Mitchum is the author of five novels, one collection of poetry, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link:
Beth Mitchum's Books and Music
I learned from my sister that I have actually been in Delaware, though apparently I either fell asleep or blinked for too long. She was driving when we passed through briefly, and she is a trustworthy witness. So for what it's worth, I concede that it there really is a state of Delaware. All forty of its residents can breathe a sigh of relief now to know that their place of residence and one post office does in fact exist.
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