The Idaho

In honor of this weekend's Western Boot Sale at the Preston Deseret Industries, I'm blogging.  This is the SALE of the YEAR for Franklin County!  All the D.I.'s from all over send their boots to Preston, Idaho, for rodeo weekend.  This year they have almost 500 pairs!!!!  

Now, I'm wondering, when you shop at Deseret Industries, do you say you're "going to D.I." or that you're "going to the D.I." ? Because in my family, we always shopped at "The D.I." But when I moved to Idaho, my in-laws all "go to D.I." for stuff.  It used to confuse me, until my friend clarified it for me last year.  

Meet Suzie--my dear friend, extraordinary writer, wife of a dairyman, mother of six, who now lives in the Idaho, like me.  She wrote this last year, and I still laugh about it, so I thought I'd share it with you.  Please don't get offended if you have ties to any of the countries mentioned.  It is not meant to be taken that way.  So read it in good health.  Then you can decide where you're from, and where you really shop.

Attaining The Status

We have a friend who recently returned from his two year stint in the Dominican Republic.  He didn’t return from Dominican Republic, mind you.  He returned from the Dominican Republic.  Notice the difference.

Why do we refer to some countries beginning with the and others we don’t?  The Philippines.  The Ukraine.  The Netherlands.  When was the last time you heard someone say, “I feel like a vacation.  I think I’ll go visit the France.”  You would think the person who said that was mental.

After much thought, I figured it out.  It’s a pride thing.  People who take pride in their country convince the whole world to refer to their country as the.  People who could care less don’t bother.  This is why our founding fathers took the time to talk other countries into calling us The United States of America.  I wonder how many times George Washington got on the phone with leaders of other countries and had to correct them.  “For the love of Pete, Crazy King George the Third, it’s not United States!  It’s The United States!”

England seems to taken this concept and run with it.  They bypassed the the and went straight to great.  Somehow they talked everyone into referring to them as Great Britain.  Personally I don’t see what’s so great about Great Britain.  I can't think of anything great that has come out of Great Britain since the Beatles, and that was more than forty years ago.  It’s an established fact by now, though, that Great Britain is great.  There’s no use challenging it. 

There are places like, say, China that can go either way.  There are some patriots, those chinamen who don’t mind so much the censorship and that one-child-per-family thing, who boldly proclaim that they belong to The People’s Republic of China.  Notice the the.  There are also those who ain’t groovin’ with that communistic vibe so much.  These are the ones who mutter that they live in China. 

Some places you would never ever think of starting with the.  Places like Somalia.  Somalia will probably never be referred to as the Somalia, simply because Somalia is populated with pirates who steal your stuff and leave you half dead.  If Somalia ever gets their act together and quits pirating passing fishermen, perhaps the United Nations will consider granting them the status.  I doubt it though.

All this leads me to wonder why it is that the noble people of Idaho have not yet reached the status in regard to our state.  Idaho is surely deserving of the status.  Look at all the wonderful things we contribute.  Where would the entire world get their beloved french fries if not for our potatoes?  And did you know that the person who invented television, Philo Farnsworth, was from Idaho?  Just think of it.  Without Idaho, we wouldn’t be able to sit in front of the TV and stuff our mouths full of French fries.  Some dieticians would argue that we might be better off without these things, but this is beside the point.

With this in mind, I call for a revolution in the mind of each citizen.  Rise up, good people of the Idaho!  We should no longer accept the insults tossed at us of being known as simply ‘Idaho’.  This will take a concerted effort from each Idahoan.  Next time you are asked,  “Oh, you’re from Idaho?” then you should respond, “Heh heh, I think you mean the Idaho.” Just think of it!  The Idaho will cease to be “that one state out in the middle of the west.  You know, the one that’s skinny on top and fat on the bottom.”  All the world will know us by name!  The Idaho! 

I can’t wait.  If we can get this going, my Utah relatives will stop sneering at me!  Soon they will wish that they, too, could say what I do.  I am from The Idaho.  And proud of it.