Today in 2017, a news report in the Sunday Post about something known as the “League of Extraordinary Communities.”
Its three members: the communities of Dull, Bland And Boring.
The story starts several years earlier, with a woman from Scotland named Elizabeth Leighton.
She was on a cycling trip through the US and traveled through the community of Boring, Oregon.
The town was named for a local farmer, William H. Boring, but they have gotten used to jokes about the name.
In fact, the town motto is “Boring: An Exciting Place To Live.”
Biking through Boring reminded Leighton that her hometown in Scotland was near another community named Dull.
That town’s name comes from a Gaelic word for “meadow” or “field.”
Nonetheless, she thought no two communities would make better sister cities than Dull and Boring.
The people in the towns agreed, and “Dull and Boring” t-shirts went on sale to great amusement.
They even reported boosts in tourism, because who wouldn’t want to visit places that are literally Dull and Boring?
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
There was an Australian community called Bland Shire, named for one William Bland.
And they thought the only way the Dull and Boring partnership could get more exciting would be to make it Dull, Boring and Bland.
Since this was not too long after the release of the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, they nicknamed their group the League of Extraordinary Communities.
They even started talking about adding more places with unusual names to their roster.
As one of the Australians noted, quote “We’ve found Ordinary and Dreary, both in America, and I think they could soon be part of it all, which is quite interesting.”
Today in Frankfort, Indiana, the Frankfort Hot Dog Festival is starting.
There’s a hot dog eating contest, of course, plus a classic car show, music, arts and crafts and dock diving for dogs.
So, really, there are dogs of all kinds at the festival.
‘Bland’, ‘Dull’ and ‘Boring’ team up to create ‘League of Extraordinary Communities’ (Sunday Post)
Boring, Oregon and Dull, Scotland: Sister Cities United in Tedium (Conde Nast Traveler)
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Photo by pviel via Flickr/Creative Commons
