“Lucy” look-alikes honour Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday

Sporting upswept hairdos and blue and white polka dot dresses, the crowd of 915 Lucy Ricardos set to establish the first Guinness world record in her honour. It was all part of the annual Lucy Fest in Jamestown, which drew fans from as far away as Australia to the normally sleepy town of 30,000 people in upstate New York.

My folks grew up near Jamestown and I’ve got plenty of relatives in the area. I’ve gone there for numerous family reunions/vacation but skipped this year; the nieces have outgrown the charm of a sleepy town and even sleepier smaller towns around the lake. Reunion is in July so we miss Lucy-fest anyway. Not sure I’d want to cope with that.

But the kicker here is “upstate New York.” “Upstate” as used by many is not a geographical term. It means “not in NY City.” Otherwise you might think of “upstate” as being up — or north— of NY city. And some distance north, too, so it’s not “just outside of the city.” Like the capitol district, Albany/Schenectady/Troy, and points north. You can include areas to the west, like Utica and Syracuse. But Jamestown? It’s at the south end of Lake Chautauqua, southwest of Buffalo and just east of Erie, PA (about about a 45-minute drive) and not even a half-hour drive into Pennsylvania when going south. You’ve really conveyed no information by geographically dividing the state into “the city” and the other 99% of the area that comprises it.