Abnormal Alabama

 Abnormal Alabama looks for the unusual throughout the Southeast. Nothing is to strange and nothing is to unusual.

1. Just so you know, it ‘s illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.

2. It is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.

3. Alabama is the only state to have an alcoholic beverage as its official drink: Conecuh Ridge Whiskey.

4. Alabama also had what may have been the World's Largest Senator: Dixon Hall Lewis weighed 500 lbs and occupying his seat in the Senate from 1844 until dropped dead in 1848, during his colleagues cracked that Alabama had the largest representation of any state.

5. Apparently no one in Tuscumbia, Ala. has heard of “War or the Worlds” or Orson Welles because in 2013 the local radio station Star 94.9 thought it would be funny to publicize their programming change by pretending to be taken over by aliens on air… and people freaked the hell out, even keeping their children home from school. Oops.

6. Montgomery's Lightning Route, established in 1886, was the first-ever electric streetcar system.

7. Boogers may not be flicked into the Alabama wind. I mean, that’s just good advice (See also: Peeing into the wind).

8. Mobile had to ban bicycles from the interstate highways. Because apparently basic common sense wasn’t deterrent enough.

9. The museum also displays a pair of blue suede shoes Hank owned long before Elvis ever sang about them.

10. It is a felony to engage in bear wrestling. Also, a really dumb idea.

11. Unlike socks, we now know where all the missing baggage disappears to: Scottsboro, Ala. There is an Unclaimed Baggage Center there that houses all unclaimed baggage.

12. Scratch Ankle, Smuteye and Chigger Hill are all places that exist, in like, reality… in Alabama.

13. Love playing bones? Not on Sundays! because its illegal to play dominos on the sabbath in Alabama.

14. Alabama is home to a giant rooster made of car bumpers. It was created by Larry Godwin and it lives three miles south of Brundidge on Hwy 231.

15. Not to mention the World's Largest Catfish, located between Brundidge and Troy. This 28-foot whiskery whopper is even animated, with rolling eyes, flapping gills and a swishing tail.

16. Downtown Enterprise has a very nice statue of a pretty lady on a pedestal. She is also holding what appears to be a trophy, and sitting atop...a big, ugly bug. Gross. Yep, this is the famous boll weevil monument.

17. Prattville, Ala. is home to the Cross Garden. This oddball roadside attraction—named in 2010 by “Time” as one of America's best—bears such inspirational messages as “Everyone in hell from sex used wrong way,” “Hell is hot hot hot,” and “You will die.” Good to know.

18. “Sweet Home Alabama” was written to counter several songs by Canadian singer/songwriter Neil Young that had pretty much dissed the whole state.

19. Now for something spooky… The Mount Nebo Baptist Church Cemetery in rural Clarke County has several tombstones featuring death masks cast from the people whose graves they mark.

20. Krewes at Mobile's Mardi Gras started the tradition of tossing moon pies from parade floats in 1956, although this custom has now spread to other Gulf Coast locales (at least the cool ones that celebrate Mardi Gras).

21. And speaking of Mardi Gras, Mobile's was actually the first one in the New World. It started in 1703, while those Jean-come-latelies in New Orleans didn't get theirs off the ground until sometime in the 1730s. So there, New Orleans.

22. So I know Texas is the state that things they do big things. But (or maybe butt?) Anniston is home to the World's Largest Office Chair, made of 10 tons of steel.

23. And also the World's Largest Hog monument in Dothan, 26 feet long and 13 feet high.

24. The Gaines Ridge Supper Club in Camden is said to be haunted by a number of different spirits, one of them the ghost of an infant who was accidentally smothered while sharing a bed with his 350-lb. mother.

25. A 1,010-gallon pot of baked beans cooked up at the 2010 Alabama Butterbean Festival was Guinness-certified as the World's Largest. I would say that’s a pretty big tease except that…

26. Mobile rings in the New Year by dropping a 12 foot tall, 600 lb. mechanical moon pie.

27. The World's Largest (edible) Moon Pie was baked to celebrate the first-ever Mobile moon pie drop in 2008. It weighed 55 lbs. and contained 45,000 calories.

28. Colbert County is home to the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard, a cemetery reserved specifically for coon dogs.

29. Postal workers take their jobs very seriously in the Magnolia Springs. It is the only location offering year-round postal delivery by boat, and has the USPS' only River Route.

30. Shelby County Habitat for Humanity holds the record for world's fastest home building for a house they erected in Montevallo in 2002. Total time from start to finish? 3 hours, 26 minutes and 34 seconds. That is impressive!

31. The Saturn V rocket used to launched the Apollo 11 spacecraft that would land the first people on the moon was designed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

32. At the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery (one of two state museums dedicated to him), you can see the '52 Cadillac in which he died—at the ripe old age of 29.

33. The Alabama state quarter issued to commemorate Tuscumbia-born Helen Keller is the only circulating US coin to feature Braille lettering.

34. The city symbol for Birmingham is the 56-foot tall, Vulcan, the world's largest cast-iron statue. Which makes sense because…

35. Alabama is the only state with all of the natural resources to make iron and steel.

36. “Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy found early musical inspiration in the clanging iron shovels of Florence's McNabb Iron Furnace.

37. The 1930s jazz standard “The Night the Stars Fell on Alabama” was inspired by a particularly spectacular meteor shower in the skies over Alabama. This song has become the anthem of Jacksonville State University, and their Marching Southerners band plays it at every home football game.

38. The Berman Museum of World History in Anniston not only contains a collection of espionage paraphernalia said to rival that of the International Spy Museum in D.C., but it has on display a silver tea service that once belonged to Adolf Hitler.

39. In 1913 the most most popular boy name was James and William was No. 3. In 2013 the most popular baby name was William and James was No. 3.

40. Hammerin' Hank Aaron and “Say Hey Kid” Willie Mays were both Alabama boys. 41. Speaking of famous folks from Alabama… The list is too long to recount but here are a handful of national treasures that were born right here in the Magnolia State: Lionel Richie, Octavia Spencer, Jimmy Buffett, Evander Holyfield, Felicia Day, and the queen of “Cougar Town” herself, Courtney Cox.