Texas — and its trivia — covers a lot of territory

Woodmonkey · 10-07-2006, 17:43

Texas — and its trivia — covers a lot of territory

Have you ever comtemplated just how flipping big the Lone Star State really is? Drive across it sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now before you think I’m shooting from the hip here, I want you to understand that two things have brought this to mind for me. I’m not just blathering blindly like I normally do in this space.

First, I’m getting ready to drive from Odessa to San Diego. The one a thousand miles away in California, and not the one 500 miles away in Texas.
I’m headed out to the Left Coast to watch my nephew (and former OHS starting quarterback) Josh Shibler graduate from Marine Corps boot camp.
Second, a Hoosier friend of mine who once lived in Texas recently e-mailed me some Texas trivia. Thanks to former OA sports editor Tim Timmons, I now know that El Paso is closer to the California state line than it is to Dallas.

See what I mean?

Here’s another one: Mapquest says it’s 815 miles from El Paso to Texarkana, but only 796 miles from Texarkana to Chicago. Heck San Francisco, Calif., is closer to Seattle, Wash., than El Paso is to Texarkana.

Did you know you could drive from Boston to New York City to Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., to Richmond, Va., to Durham, N.C., and still have about 100 miles left before you’d match the driving distance from El Paso to Texarkana.

That’s big.

The are other cool things about Texas, though. Here are some of the trivia facts Timmons sent me, and if they’re wrong, you can call him, not me.

The King Ranch is larger than Rhode Island.

The Heisman Trophy was named after John William Heisman who was the first full-time coach for Rice University in Houston.
Brazoria County has more bird species than any other area in North America.

Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America’s only remaining flock of whooping cranes.

Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty, instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas flag to fly at the same height as the U.S. flag.

Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state.

Texas has had six capital cities: Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, West Columbia and Austin.

The state animal is the armadillo. (An interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies! They have one egg which splits into four and they either have four males or four females.)

I’ve always loved trivia, so some of these facts were a lot of fun for me. The funniest thing in the e-mail though was a Texas take on the 10 Commandments. I wanted to include them for my good friend Tommy Gregory, and I sincerely hope no one is offended by this little bit of fun.

Here are the 10 Commandments that are supposedly posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Fairlie, Texas.

1. Just one God.
2. Honor yer Ma & Pa.
3. No telling tales or gossipin’.
4. Git yourself to Sunday
meeting.
5. Put nothin’ before God.
6. No foolin’ around with another feller’s gal.
7. No killin’.
8. Watch yer mouth.
9. Don’t take what ain’t yers.
10. Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff.

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