It could be worse. After all, we're not talking about Cleveland.

It has been a little strange, the last 28 years. I'm acclimated, but I'm still not a native. Call them Yinzers, these restless natives, but do so politely. They nod politely when I call a Coke a Soda, not a Pop. That I don't understand the mystery of chipped ham... or chipped anything else. That a Klondike should be served in an Isaly's, not out of the freezer in the supermarket. Or that I still tend to pronounce "North Versailles" like the French do, not "Ver sales" like everyone else does.

My love of the Yankees and, as Myron Cope would put it (with an exagerrated Brooklyn accent yet) "The New Yawk FOOTBALL Giants" are tolerated... after all, that's the AL & the NFC. They don't understand why I root for the Knicks, and not the Nets (the Nets were still on the Island when I moved away), but then, pro basketball never took hold here. Nor do they understand why I think of the NJ Devils as carpetbaggers... of course, all I have to do is ask them if they really want me to root for a team originally from Cleveland, and they understand.

I am a Penn State'r married into a family of Pitt alumni. Somehow, my wife loves me anyway, I just have to be careful which college football game I watch on any given Saturday.

Hmmm. No wonder I feel so comfortable on this, ah, Island of Misfits.