"You Never Even Called Me by My Name"

I had a Wyoming moment this weekend in Denver.

Toward the end of what should have been a Rockies' drubbing of the Dodgers (but turned into a nail-biter when Colorado allowed three runs then loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, letting a 9-4 game turn into a 9-6 game before finally, mercifully, winning) a man from California made me feel like I lived in the smallest state in the U.S. (For the record, I do).

"Where's Wyoming?" he asked between swigs of beer from the two cups he bought at last call.

Errrr, 90 miles past right field, I thought.

Turns out I wasn't the only one a bit shocked. The Long Beach resident, who claimed he gets lost when he drives past Riverside (which, for those keeping score at home, is a whopping 60 miles away, according to MapQuest), shocked some folks from the Western Slope of Colorado. Not knowing where a town was is one thing, we all agreed, not knowing where a state was is a totally different ballgame.

To quote Bill Clinton, they felt my pain of being forgotten by the coasts. At least Bruce Springsteen remembers... From "Nebraska":

From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska with a sawed off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path