Philadelphians talk funny

I wrote this when I first moved to Delaware. I know what a Skoogle is now. But I still think Philadelphians talk funny.

I listen to NPR in my car. I know it raises my blood pressure and makes every hair on my head stand up in rage. However.

We in northern Delaware are too small and primitive to have our own public radio station. The whole state only has one Congressman, for God's sake. Of course, Senator Biden talks enough for an entire delegation from a medium-sized state, so that kind of makes up for it. Sort of. You could say.

Now you ask: what does this have to do with Philadelphians, who reside in a whole nother state for God's sake? Why dump on them?

Okay. As I say, we don't have our own NPR, so we make do with Philadelphia's. We don't even get our own weather, we have to borrow it from Philadelphia. We're just a miserable hinterland, unworthy of having our own rush hour traffic reports. We have to make do with those across the state lines. The traffic report even mentions New Jersey, from time to time, but never a word about Delaware.

Actually, I find this quite soothing, tooling around Delaware at 4 o'clock and hearing about tractor trailers overturning on I-95 south while I whiz through back roads. There's just one thing that puzzles me about the Philly traffic reports.

What in God's name is the Skoogle? Could this possibly be how you pronounce Schuylkill? And if so, Why?

As I say, Philadelphians talk funny.

Now don't get me wrong. You guys have the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsy's Ross' house, etc. You're world class. But Skoogle? It sounds like some kind of Jewish food, a kugel with chocolate chips in it maybe.