What Does This Beloved Road Sign on the Massachusetts Turnpike Actually Mean?

[doxydad]

The sign is regularly photographed and blogged by road-trippers, and remembered with fondness as a familiar milestone. People film the sign, even while they're driving. John McPhee gently mocked this marker of the “cordillera of Massachusetts” in a 2005 New Yorker story. There’s even a poem about it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/08/18/becket_massachusetts_next_highest_elevation_oacoma_south_dakota_what_does.html

[leftyohiolib]

1. this is a nation that bought rocks as pets some years ago

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. That does explain a lot.

[Renew Deal]

2. We like to know stuff

And that is an interesting useless fact. Probably the distance to the next highest point plus the altitude in mostly sea level Massachussets also makes it interesting.

[elleng]

6. Yes, thanks, we like to know stuff!

[Trailrider1951]

4. It means it's all uphill for the next 2000 miles

Better downshift now

[KamaAina]

5. It means that's the highest point on I-90 unless you drive all the way out to Oacoma.

[jmowreader]

7. It means this country is shaped like a bowl

There are mountain chains a few hundred miles inland on both coasts...in the middle the joint is board flat.

[shenmue]

8. So Oacoma is only five feet taller?

Wow, that's exciting.

[LiberalElite]

9. Can't say I've never heard of Oacoma, SD anymore... nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. It means the entire country says fuck the metric system.