Outside Erie

21 Responses to “Pop Culture”

1. Wizo
   September 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

   I love your thieving of RF Peter!

   another cool map: http://www.commoncensus.org/index.php

2. john morris
   September 5th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

   I think Erie is in a fuzzy area. Certainly, in no way, east coast. The big question is weather Erie is or is not in Appalachia. The Appalachian regional commision says it is. Pittsburgh most certainly is an Appala chian city more than anything else but I really think without the mountain thing going on it’s hard to make that case for Erie.

   The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to bring poor areas of the 13 U.S. states of the main (southern) range of the Appalachians into the mainstream of the American economy. The commission is a partnership of federal, state, and local governments, and was created to promote economic growth and improve the quality of life in the region. The region as defined by the ARC[2] includes roughly 408 counties, including all of West Virginia and counties in 13 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The ARC is a planning, research, advocacy and funding organization; it does not have any governing powers.

   The ARC’s geographic range of coverage was defined broadly so as to cover as many economically underdeveloped areas as possible; it extends well beyond the area usually thought of as “Appalachia”. For instance, parts of Alabama and Mississippi were included in the commission because of problems with unemployment and poverty similar to those in Appalachia proper, and the ARC region extends into Northeastern states, which are never considered part of Appalachia culturally. The ARC’s wide scope also[3][broken citation] grew out of the “pork barrel” phenomenon, as politicians from outside the traditional Appalachia area saw a new way to bring home federal money to their areas.”

   here’s the map

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Appalachian_region_of_United_States.gif

3. Ed Tonkin
   September 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

   America is divided as in no other time before into three nations; SODA, pop, and coke. There are other pockets of resistance, but clearly we should be a SODA NATION! Even the beer capitals are soda counties. Erie is Midwestern, but not Appalachian, Great Lakes Midwestern. The water runs into the lakes, not the Mississippi.

   Erie doesn’t know of soda, pocket books or sneakers. And it spells Diner Dinor. Not Eastern. Edinburgh is Edinboro. I don’t know, maybe we are our own region; Eastern Great Lakes Midwestern Southern Ontarian Plain? Possiblly Eglamisonplainian. We should declare our independance now and have a glass of soda pop.

   This is all a lot of fun, but tell me what the heck do the folks in northern most Minnesota call the sweet bubbly stuff?

   All I want to

4. Melissa
   September 5th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   Erie is definitely not East Coast. Out here, Western PA is considered “Northern West Virginia.” The Appalachian ties are becoming more and more apparent now that I’ve moved from the area. Erie is lucky, though, as it has connectivity to Canada, New York, Great Lakes region, etc. The further south you go in Western PA, it’s basically Appalachia.

5. Jim Russell
   September 5th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

   Being from Erie, I’ve found it easy to relate to people from the East Coast, Appalachia, Ontario (Le Pop Shoppe), and the Midwest. The heartland of New England was a bit of a stretch, however.

   Miniature golf or putt-putt?

6. MGR
   September 5th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

   Properly stated, Erie is either considered to be in the Mid-Atlantic Region or the Great Lakes region. Not much similarity to Pittsburgh and WV. WV is too rural, Pittsburgh too metro. Although there is a significant size difference, Erie has a lot of similarities with Cleveland, but that is the last stop across the state line where we have any resemblance to the “midwest”.

7. john morris
   September 5th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

   This is my own personal spin on Pittsburgh’s history.

   I think the city is in a period of transformation. Originally, the city most clearly would have been part of Appalachia as the still fairly isolated gateway to the west and the Ohio River Valley.

   With the coming of railroad connections, the city went into a period of the kind of explosive growth and global interaction that separated it from the culture of isolation that characterizes Appalachia– I forget how many passenger trains once passed through town. The rapid influx of immigrants and the business connections into the city created a partial transformation at least at the urban core into a somewhat cosmopolitan city even though in many ways it remained a collection of company towns. If you look at films from the 30’s-50’s you often see sharp “city slicker characters going to Pittsburgh for business from NY or Chicago. The Hill district’s importance in music history relates to this .Every major act, played Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was built on rivers and rail.

   Now, sadly as passenger rail went into decline, the cities historic link to the world was cut. The city is not very convenient to get too by car. So what you have now, is a gradual reversion of the city back to Appalachia. Yes, it has a core “cosmopolitan” aspect mostly around the colleges but it doesn’t spread far.

   This is similar to Reading, PA—in the age of rail, Reading was almost a suburb of Philly and well connected to NY. But now, Reading has clearly become part of “Amish country”. Transportation is a key factor. With high speed rail, Erie would immediately become part of the Midwest.

8. Radio Free JoJo
   September 6th, 2008 at 6:45 am

   Peter, that map is amazing to me, as the pop vs. soda controversy in my family has been significant. Growing up in Erie, it was 100% pop. When my cousins from the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area would visit, they would order a “soda,” get a funny look and we’d correct them.

   Vise versa, once when visiting Pittston we ordered “pop” and the watiress said “are you from Buffalo?” (I think the slight nasal sounds resident in the Erie dialect is similar to Buffalo’s major nasality.)

   Things got dicey when I started dating a Jersey girl while living in Nashville. For her it was 100% soda, and we were living in a “coke” area where you would order a coke and get asked “what kind?” So you literally could get a Pepsi-coke!

   I married that Jersey girl, moved back home to Erie, and officially in our house and with our children it’s….”soda.” Mama’s always right!

9. john morris
   September 6th, 2008 at 11:11 am

   I don’t know how I fit into this as a life long New Yorker who always said Coke. Mostly, I wanted a Coke, cause I just like it better.

10. john morris
    September 6th, 2008 at 11:21 am

    Also, what does the green “other” mean. It sort of looks like most people would have a lot of trouble getting any soda at all in those places since those are the 3 terms almost everyone uses. I suppose cola must be used– or perhaps these are the places where people told the questioners to stop waisting their time and get a real job!

11. julio c reyes
    September 6th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Peter,

    I am fascinated for some of the post presented in this topic. Every single one of the posts is very interesting and informative. I had a really good time reading in detail every single line in this topic.

    Now, I want to make a couple of points. First the map is old news, the latest responded is dated March 2003 this in the soft drinks business is an eternity.

    I also want to comment that based on my experience in 12 years dealing with the people in public in my Restaurant on Parade St. I believe that the Soda-Pop , at least in Erie, is more generational than anything else. During all those years only one person patronizing my business had ever asked to be served a pop. Everybody else had always asked us for a soda, or the specific name of a drink for example coke, pepsi, sprite,,,,,,, or Water.

    The only other person I have interacted with in my retail operation using the “pop” term is my piano player how happens to be around 75 years old.

    Using the Soda-Pop term dilemma as a sign for the future, from my point of view of course, the more the soda term is used the better for Erie because “soda” is a more “global” term thus it seems to me that will be a sign that people in Erie are getting more exposure.

12. Ed Tonkin
    September 6th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    In all seriousness I found the map fasinating. I pulled out a linguistic map anf found that of no help. It reminded me of the political map of the US prior to the compromise of 1850, with the nation divided into three different regions.

    I think the term coke has stayed in the south because it let the ex-confederates continue the battle against us damnyankees. However, the area around Miami has a soda bias because of all the ex-New Yorkers who moved down there to retire. California is a similar situation. How many of those folks working in the movie industry came from the East Coast from the 20’s thru today. Remember the first film industry was out of Astoria, Queens, New York and New Jersey.

    St. Louis & Milwaukee are our beer capitals and yet they are soda havens in a mixed area. Kentuckey is also mixed between coke & pop. I think that the Missouri and Kentucky mixtures come from the fact that both were ex-slave states that stayed in the Union. Indiana was always divided between north and south. Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, New Mexico, & Nevada are all battle grounds between various uses.

    Ligustically, New England and the Middle Atlantic states are different, but from Vermont to Washington State should be all the same. The great middle section of America from Jersey to California is the same, but covers the biggest differences, The south has two speech patterns, but both use primarily coke.

    In our house it’s soda coming from NYC, upstate New York east of Rochester, and Connecticut. There is some Ohio, but my wife was a GE “brat” and has deep roots in the Syracuse and Schenectady areas.

    Just some thoughts, but what I really want to know as well is, what do those people in Northern Minnesota ask for, a tonic?

13. Dale Hannah
    September 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    After reading all of this fascinating stuff, I’ve come to the conclusion that all the good folks who use ‘other’ have no idea what soft drinks even are–they drink the good stuff at BrewErie!!!!!! LOL

    Great post, Peter.

14. Rob McGahen
    September 6th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    Everyone calls it “Soda” here and it drives me crazy! I stick to my guns and call it “Pop.”

15. Ed Tonkin
    September 7th, 2008 at 7:30 am

    Dale, shouldn’t Erie be a soda city since Milwaukee and St. Louis and even parts of Coors country are? Erie’s becoming a great beer city, it should say soda too.

    Hey, how about a non-alcoholic brew for those of us who can’t and won’t drink alcohol but like the taste of a good dark brew? Tell all the folks at BrewErie this maybe an untapped market.

16. Dale Hannah
    September 7th, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Ed, I’ll run that past a friend of mine who’s really into beer, and see what his take is on the matter……Sounds like a good idea to me. BTW, here’s his website if you’re interested.

    http://www.shouldidrinkthat.com

17. Lita
    September 7th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    I switched from pop to soda when I moved to Rochester because I wanted to combat the long “o” sound in the upstate NY dialect. Pop became “paaap” and that just got too annoying. I agree that the linguistics of the area play a part in what you call it.

18. john morris
    September 7th, 2008 at 11:17 am

    What are the local politicians doing about this? That’s what their there for!!! Give me pop or give me death.

19. Ed Tonkin
    September 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    This is not the beginning of pop or the end of pop, but it is the beginning of the end for pop for soda. We have met the enenmy, pop, and it is ours. Don’t give up your soda!

    I can hear Mr. Churchill and Mr. Perry and Mr. Henry rotating in their graves.

20. Solitaire Miles
    September 11th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

    When I moved to Chicago several years ago for college, I learned the lingo quick, and soda was one of the first words in my new vocabulary. Now when I visit Erie and I ask for a soda in a restaurant, the waitstaff usually looks at me like I’m a martian!

21. Phil G
    September 16th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    That map is a great find. But, it shows that at least half the country is wrong. Pop is the correct term.