It happened to me again today (that’s today as I’m writing this, not today as I’m posting it). It’s been happening to me fairly regularly since I was seventeen years old. (No, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

Ever since I left home to go to college, back during the Truman administration, the pattern has been the same. Someone says, “Where are you from?” (Now that I’m in my dotage, the question is more likely to be, “Where did you grow up?”) I say, “Long Island.” And the other person responds, “Oh, you mean Lawn Guyland,” to which I reply, “I didn’t say that.”