Welcome to Fun Facts About the 50 States, where – week by week – I’ll be taking you on a tour around this great nation of ours, providing you with interesting, yet completely useless and probably untrue, information about each of the 50 states.

This week: first in our hearts, first in the alphabet, dead last in shoes per capita, we’re headed down south to Alabama, so let’s get started…

• Alabama is a medium-sized state in the Southern US. It’s very similar to its neighboring state, Florida, except it doesn’t have as many old people or alligators.
• The first Mardi Gras parade was held in Mobile, Alabama in 1711. It featured colorfully decorated, slow-moving cars driving down the streets amongst a crowd of stumbling, drunken pedestrians wearing funny costumes. This is the source of the Alabama state motto: “Alabama – where every day is like Mardi Gras!”
• The state motto has since been changed to “Alabama – the sorta shaped like a beer gut state.”
• Workers from Alabama built the first rocket designed to put humans on the moon. It was launched from Florida so that wouldn’t be attacked by angry villagers with torches and pitchforks who thought it was a tool of the devil.
• The world’s first Electric Trolley system was introduced in Montgomery Alabama in 1886. It was immediately destroyed by angry villagers.
• Perhaps NOW you understand NASA’s fear.
• Alabama is the only state with all the major natural resources to make iron and steel. This explains why all the villagers had pitchforks.
• To help fund education, Alabama instituted a America’s first pitchfork tax in 1937.
• The flag of Alabama is a big red X on a white field which symbolizes the states high illiteracy rate.
• Maybe they need to raise the pitchfork tax.
• Montgomery Alabama was the capital and birthplace of the Confederate States of America, which earned Montgomery the nickname “Birthplace of Bad Ideas.”
• The Confederate Flag was designed and first flown in Alabama in 1861 by the great-grandfather of Bo and Luke Duke.
• Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14th, 1819. This posed a problem for celebrating the event, since most Alabama citizens couldn’t count past 20, even with their shoes off, although certain of the more inbred sections of the state didn’t seem to have as much of a problem with it.
• Alabama is actually a Creek Indian word meaning “can’t count past 20 even with his shoes off.”
• Alabama’s state government is known for its love of high-spending pork projects, and its state capitol building was once blown down by a hungry wolf.
• Serves ’em right for building it out of sticks.
• Baseball player Hank Aaron was born in Mobile in 1934. He started playing for the Mobile Black Bears in 1950, but his career there was cut short when he was arrested for “Batting While Black.”
• The state song of Alabama is “Alabama.” I’d sing it for you but it has no words, since nothing rhymes with Alabama.
• Well, except “gamma”, but the Greek alphabet is outlawed in Alabama, so that doesn’t really work.
• The highest point in Alabama is Mount Cheaha at 2405 feet. The second highest point is in Trashy Acres Trailer Park at the top of Mary Lou Clanton’s hair-do.
• The musical group Alabama has a fan club and museum in Fort Payne, Alabama, which was burned to the ground by angry villagers after the group used the word “gamma” in a song.
• Governor George C. Wallace served four terms in office and spent two of them shooing colored people away from his drinking fountain.
• In 1995, Alabama native Heather Whitestone was the first disabled woman chosen to serve as Miss America. I’m not sure exactly WHY she was classified as disabled, since the Johns Hopkins Medical Encyclopedia lists “being an Alabama native” as a “handicap” rather than a “disability.”
• Hitler’s typewriter is on display at the Hall of History in Bessemer, Alabama. It’s unknown whether it still works, since no one in Alabama can correctly spell the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
• The city of Mobile, Alabama is named for the Mauvilla Indian word meaning “Damn! Squaw have heap big hairdo!”
• Alabama’s official state mineral is automotive rust.
• Alabama’s state insect is the Monarch Butterfly, or – as natives refer to it – “that pretty little bug what’s flappin’ around over there.”
• Alabama’s state bird is the pecan pie.
• Long story. Something to do with a gallon of moonshine & Hitler’s typewriter. I’m not really at liberty to discuss it, since it involves the word gamma.
• In 1864, at the battle of Mobile Bay, Union Admiral David Farragut issued his famous command “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Also uttered that day was the less famous Confederate reply – “Holy crap! They’re coming right for us! RUN!”
• Despite having only 50 miles of coastline, Alabama’s beaches are a popular tourist destination. Be sure to visit during early March to witness the “Feed Yankee Tourists to the Sharks” Festival.
• The town of Enterprise, Alabama houses the Boll Weevil Monument which celebrates the role this destructive insect played in encouraging farmers to grow crops other than cotton. But despite all their contributions, Alabama still doesn’t allow Boll Weevils to either vote or ride in the front of the bus.

That wraps up the Alabama edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week we’ll be hitting the frozen tundra – and a few baby seals – as we take a look at Alaska.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to working on the lyrics for Alabama’s state song:

I live in Alabama… I really hate my mamma… I hit her with a hamma… and they threw me in the slamma…

Hmmm… not bad.

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