the good old days

Don’t drive on Highball Highway.

That’s the lesson from A Few Too Many, also called Highball Highway by some.

The first 20 seconds of this are very poor quality, presumably a result of being mangled by too many projectors in too many drivers’ ed courses, which gives it a surreal feel. (Actually, it’s appropriate — the average amputee is probably pretty disoriented right after they get to the hospital.)

The narrator, Tom, is definitely a manly man — he was involved in sports, shooting animals, drinking everything in sight — so his injury is a crushing blow. (I’m actually annoyed by that sequence — even a nerdy accountant who never went outside would be pretty upset to lose a leg.) Crushing, that is, until he hears what shape his friend Jim is in…

A good way to learn about a state that you’ll be living in for a while is to have a local historian with a local radio program. We’ve got Dr. Walter Edgar, who has both a hour-long program to explore South Carolina history and culture in depth, and a one-minute program (South Carolina from A to Z) that highlights interesting tidbits. Last week, Walter Edgar taught us that South Carolina used to be called the Iodine State, advertising its produce (which grows in South Carolina soil, which is naturally high in iodine) as a health aid to prevent goiter.

In 1926, the division attempted to create a more decorative plate by including a palmetto tree. In the 1930’s, the license plates began to carry slogans such as “The Iodine State” (1932) and “The Iodine Products State” (1933). –SC Department of Motor Vehicles

The marketing effort would eventually go nowhere, when standard table salt began to be iodized by default rather than as a special option. When nobody has goiters, nobody’s worried about iodine in the diet.

Interestingly, that’s not the only agricultural silliness I can think of. South Carolina is still trying to maintain a reputation for being the top peach producer, an effort which seems pretty wasted. Shortly after we moved here, the state Secretary of Agriculture stated that he wanted people to keep thinking of South Carolina when they thought of peaches. (Seriously, this is a question for non-South Carolinians out there — when you think peaches, you think Georgia, right? And what’s on the Georgia license plate, hmm?)

Even the current state nickname (the Palmetto State) refers to a plant that grows only on the coast, not in the majority of the state. It’s rather funny seeing new construction in Columbia (two hours from the ocean) try to incorporate palm trees in the landscaping, because they look terribly stumpy for at least a few years. The best looking tree in the area is the very convincing concrete-and-copper palmetto sculpture on the Statehouse grounds.

Really. Look at that picture. And it’s even more convincing in person.

Has your state got a strange nickname or reputation that it clings to against logic?