Maybe you’ve heard the line, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights." That well-worn phrase came from a billboard in 1971 as the Boeing Company stalled and then fell into a tailspin.

And while the "Boeing Bust" happened a long time ago, that economic slump, almost as much as the most recent one, is still a part of our collective consciousness.

You might be surprised to learn that the Northwestern and the hundreds of other boats that make up the North Pacific Fishing Fleet are not based in Alaska. Rather, they travel thousands of miles south each year to tie up in Seattle.

So, why is the fleet based here?

You might say Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest. Or, Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure.

Either way, this provocative statement is a big help when you’re trying to get around downtown Seattle.

Even if you're brand-new to Seattle, you might have heard that once upon a time there was a World’s Fair here. Maybe, you even learned about it on an elevator ride – to the top of the 605-foot Space Needle.

The Northwest is home to a variety of companies that have changed how we live our lives.

We spend more now on coffee thanks to Starbucks. Amazon is changing the way we read books. And another company with deep local roots has gotten many of us to buy more of everything: Costco.

You pull up to a stop light, look over, and the windows on the SUV next to you are so dark you can’t see in. Why are we hiding behind tinted car windows here in the Pacific Northwest?

It can’t be the sun in our eyes.
 

Why has the “myth” endured in the Northwest? Is it because Bigfoot is really here? Or, is it because it’s the kind of wild alter ego Northwesterners love to imagine for themselves?

There are thousands of manhole covers on the streets of Seattle.  Some of them, 115 to be exact, are official works of art. Artists are commissioned by the city to create them. It’s one of those little quirks that set the city apart.

For years, the Northwest has had the dubious distinction of being one of the most non-religious regions in the land. In fact, it's often referred to as the "unchurched belt" in contrast to the "bible belt" in the South.

Why don’t people in this neck of the woods go to church?

The Northwest has long been known for its technological innovations – from airplanes to software. More than a hundred years ago, Seattle was showing off a brand-new invention involving babies.

At the city’s first World’s Fair in 1909, called the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, there was a Wild West exhibit, rollercoasters, concessions  and right next door, were premature babies … in incubators … on display.

In 1974, CBS’ 60 Minutes declared Seattle was the best place in the world to suffer a heart attack. Nearly forty years later, the reputation persists – and experts are still claiming Seattle is tops in saving victims of cardiac arrest.

If you live in Boston, Manhattan or Mumbai, the sounds of rush hour include the overwhelming sound of beeping and blaring car horns. But, that’s not the case in the Pacific Northwest. Honking the horn just doesn’t seem to be part of our driving DNA.

In Seattle, we’re never satisfied: Viaduct out of fashion (… and a little dangerous) – remove it and dig a tunnel; Kingdome no longer fits our vision of a great sports venue – poof!

In the Northwest, we share some unique attributes. But, like people everywhere, we disagree passionately when it comes to those things that tie us together. That came clear to us after sorting through the comments prompted by KPLU’s ‘I Wonder Why…?” series.

Did you find yourself in the dark, shivering under blankets, eating cold rations during the recent snow and ice storms?

Did it have you wondering why we are so dependent on overhead power poles to keep the lights on?

Could there be a better way?

Whatever your feelings about Utilikilts, they are part of the Northwest. The idea was born here. They’re manufactured here. They even have their own store in Seattle’s Pioneer Square Neighborhood. Why, then, are they so polarizing in their own hometown?

The revival of streetcars in Tacoma and Seattle would be a surprise to our civic leaders from the 1930’s. But they used to be prolific throughout the Northwest. What happened? Was it a conspiracy, or just the changing tides of fashion?

There's a large swath of native prairie southwest of Olympia that’s very strange looking. So strange, in fact, that some have even said it was created by aliens. 

What makes it strange are “things” called The Mima Mounds.

The city often ranks pretty high on those lists of the best places to move to – There’s the food, the water, the mountains, the music. But once people get here, they find it’s pretty tough to make friends. There’s even a name for it: The Seattle Freeze.

There they sit, almost three years later. On the shelf in the KPLU newsroom. Two dozen of them. Each in their own day-of-the-week slot.

Why haven’t we been able to toss those papers and relegate the printed P-I to the dark depths of the archive stacks at the public library?

A lot of people in the “Rain City” take pride in the fact that “real” Seattleites don’t carry umbrellas. But, I walk around town with a portable roof over my head. 

The result? I stay dry, my hair doesn’t get tousled, and I can use my iPhone while I wait for the bus. I also get dirty looks.

We’ve all seen the billboards and giant posters hanging off the sides of buildings: “The Northwest has a higher incidence of Multiple Sclerosis than most anywhere on Earth.”

But do we really? Turns out the answer is more complicated than the awareness campaign that got everyone talking about MS in the Northwest.

Everyone went a little crazy. Police were called, road blocks set up.

It’s 1954, early spring, and tiny chips, pits and dings are popping up on car windshields throughout the Puget Sound region at an alarming rate. Suddenly, communities from Anacortes to Tacoma are in the grip of a textbook case of mass hysteria. (In fact, it is in the textbooks.)

Do I have an accent? You hear me on the radio. I hear myself on the radio, many times a week in western Washington, and I didn’t think so. But, a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle tells me I do have an accent – it’s in the way I say that very word “accent.”

Fear of a ticket from paternalistic police? Group angst? Peer pressure?

Whatever the reason, even if a car is not in sight, Seattleites will often wait patiently for the light to change rather than … jaywalk.

Seattle isn’t a particularly noisy place. After all, you can get a ticket for honking your horn. But, we have a reputation for having the loudest fans in the NFL. And, we wondered why and just how loud are we?