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The subject of New England came up this past week at my work place. For whatever reason I asked a friend if he knew how many states were in New England.

Once he answered satisfactorily, I asked another guy but got a wacky answer. After him I started to ask around and got wackier answers. Some guys guessed closely (the answer is 6) and named a few states therein, but two could not understand how Delaware was not on the list.

After 18-20 guys were asked, I got the following:

Fully two-thirds of the people asked thought New England was a state by itself, so they said 'one' or 'none' in answer to my question.

One guy said there were 17 states in New England; his twin brother answered 31. If this were true, over half the country would be in New England and many millions of us would be New Englanders without ever knowing it.

One guy thought New England was a totally separate country.

One guy thought it was a city. He must have had the New England Patriots on his mind. Another thought it was a state, but then corrected himself, that New England was a city after all. Final answer.

After getting the above, I started to ask questions of opinion.

I asked many of the respondees above if Oklahoma was among the Great Plains states. I would say, 'yes, we are,' and most questioned thought the same thing.

I asked if Oklahoma was in the Midwest. I would say 'yes' here also, and many agreed, though one based his answer in terms of NCAA brackets.

I asked if Oklahoma was a southern state. Here I meant southern as part of the South, in which case I would say 'no,' though we are southern in terms of latitude.

I asked many of these people if they had ever been to either coast or out of the country. Many had never been outside Oklahoma or the states sharing a border with Oklahoma.

I suppose all this is forgivable. None of the above facts or opinions has a direct practical bearing on their daily lives. On the other hand I believe the moral of the story is: "There's probably a whole other world outside the world you live in."