Now That You've Heard of Delaware

Now that you have heard of my home state, let me tell you what life been like as a native Delawarean.

With Joe Biden’s election as President #46, Delaware has finally made it onto the map. Then state has been mentioned, shown, and referred to on broadcast news more in the past couple of weeks than I can remember seeing during my entire life.

Granted, we’re seeing mostly Wilmington and I’m from downstate, but it’s good enough for me.

You get used to being invisible and overlooked when your state is such a tiny sliver on maps of the United States that its name won’t fit within the lines. “Delaware” is usually printed in the Atlantic Ocean with an arrow pointing back to a dot.

You understand that the state’s three electoral votes will never swing an election one way or the other.

You get used to people joking about the state. In a very funny old bit from the 1960s, a Candid Camera crew “closed” Delaware and stopped traffic on a road at the Maryland state line. An actor dressed as a police officer told drivers headed into Delaware that the state had reached the limit of people it would hold. Before anyone could drive in, someone had to drive out.

Being from Delaware required some measure of geographic expertise and patience when people would claim that Delaware is “right next to Vermont,” or that it’s part of Pennsylvania. Native Delawareans get a bit defensive when, based only on a visit to the I-95 rest stop, people say they’re not impressed with Delaware, as if the twenty-three miles between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Maryland state line is the sum and substance of the whole state.

Back in the day, being from Delaware meant that, during Christmas shopping season, you had to drive around the parking lots of the big John Wanamaker and Strawbridge & Clothier department stores in Wilmington in search of an empty space. The lots were filled with cars from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland because, by coming to Delaware, shoppers could avoid paying the sales tax their states charged. It’s still the “home of tax free shopping.”

Back in the day, being from Delaware meant you were probably related to almost every other native you met.

The first Christmas I lived in California, I went to my local post office in Burbank to mail a package of holiday gifts to my family. When the clerk weighed it and quoted an astronomical mailing price, I blanched. “Why so much?” I asked. I didn’t have that much cash with me. “That can’t be right.” Because it’s going overseas, he answered. “Overseas where?” I said. He pointed to the “DE” official US Postal Service abbreviation for Delaware that I had written. Denmark, he informed me. Isn’t that what “DE” stands for? “Not quite,” I said. I like to think that wouldn’t happen now.

So, welcome to my home state — Delaware, The First State, the Diamond State. Small, but home to the next President of the United States! Godspeed, Joe!