I Wanna Go Back In Time!
Grab a Tab and read about our national holiday and three more states.
Just like throughout history, the end of the week is here. Happy Friday to you all, and thanks for your support of Okay History.
Time travel is the theme of today’s main lesson.
Happy Back to the Future Day!
I had yet to hit double digits in age when this movie hit the big screen in the summer of 1985. This fun flick featured Marty McFly and his totally normal relationship with an older scientist named Doc.
The OKH version of this movie is this:
Doc creates a time machine out of a car I have never seen since this movie came out. Marty gets stuck in the car and travels back in time to where his mom is in high school. The weird twist is that the mom totally digs Marty and threatens his existence because she won’t kick it with Marty’s dad. Hilarity ensues with incest overtones that I never picked up as a nine-year-old, thank the Lord. Marty and Doc save the day because of Chuck Berry and lighting. The end.
Why do we celebrate Back to the Future Day on October 21? Because that is the date Doc grabs Marty at the end of the movie to travel to the year 2015, and we magically see Marty’s girlfriend turn from a random actress into Elizabeth Shue in the next film, which came out a few years later.
Some random facts about Back to the Future:
It grossed over $400 million
It was the biggest hit of 1985
It spurred two incredibly confusing sequels, one set in 2015 and the other in like 1885.
Have fun today on your skateboard!
Okay, let's go to the next round of state rankings! We return with three more states!
25: Pennsylvania
Founded: December 12, 1787
2nd state (I did not realize Pennsylvania was the second state. I always thought it was the 12th or 13th, like one of the last of the colonies to become a state.)
Do I know the state capital off the top of my head? Harrisburg
Have I been there? Yes.
Do I want to go back? I have no choice!
The Good:
Pennsylvania is the home of the United States processed food market. We process all the food in the Keystone state, particularly potato chips. And there is no better potato chip than Utz potato chips.
Have you ever had Utz? It’s delicious.
Utz could make a kale potato chip, and it would be awesome. I didn’t eat kale before I met Anonymous, and now I eat kale fairly often. I wouldn’t want it to become a potato chip unless Utz made it.
The Bad:
Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles football team booed Santa Claus when he appeared at a December game in 1968. The Eagles were 2-10 that season, and at halftime against Minnesota, Santa Claus and his elves came out to provide some good cheer.
Festive Christmas music is played, Santa is tossed out candy canes, and as he finishes his trip, Eagle fans begin to boo him. Then they decide to pelt him with snowballs. Santa received at least 100 snowballs that day, and the Eagles lost the game 24-17.
The Santa incident has been constantly referenced when it comes to Philadelphia sports fandom since.
The Ugly:
A nuclear reactor had a partial meltdown on Three Mile Island, just outside Harrisburg, on March 28, 1979. I guess it got cooler or something, and the nuclear stuff escaped from the pipes. I’m not sure; all I know it was ugly.
Bad stuff got into the river and the air. Radioactive, I think they call it.
The crazy thing about this meltdown was the cleanup. It cost about a billion dollars, and they didn’t finish the job until 1993. Yikes.
Why did I rank it here?
I had a span of about five years; whenever I traveled, someone would ask me if I was a Pittsburg Steelers football fan. Being born in Cleveland and raised in a terrible professional sports environment, I, of course, am not a Steelers fan. But apparently, I looked like one.
Anonymous and I travel to St. Martin regularly. We will be back for our honeymoon in under 100 days. To demonstrate the reach of this “Is Chris a Steelers fan?” question, I was in line at the airport to check my bag in St. Martin. I hand my DC driver’s license to the American bag guy, and he asks, “Christopher, are you a Steelers fan?” Just take my luggage, my friend.
24: Washington
Founded: November 11, 1899
42nd State
Do I know the state capital off the top of my head? Tacoma (What? Olympia? Come on. Is that even an actual city?)
Have I been there? No
Do I want to go? Yes!
The Good:
Washington leads the country in apple production. I love apples. I love apple butter, apple pie, and of course, apple cake.
If you have never had apple cake, do yourself a favor and get someone who bakes better than you to make you some. I can’t bake worth a lick, but I can finish Aunt Bea’s apple cake in a snap. Like every Sunday dinner in the fall, we would eat apple cake. Then she gave me some to take home, and once on the train back, I’d finish it off.
No judgment here.
The Bad:
When you have a state filled with a bunch of rich, liberal snowflakes, it gets to be really expensive to live there.
Washington’s cost of living is about 13% higher than the national average, and its housing costs are out of this world.
Outdoor nerds love Washington. With its fresh air, clean streams, and beautiful skies.
Wait, this is the bad section.
It’s super-expensive to live there and drink your super-expensive coffee.
The Ugly:
Amazon is one of the few major corporations born in Washington. Along with IBM, Starbucks, and Grunge Music, Amazon calls Seattle home.
The thing is, Amazon hires people to work at Amazon. These people need to live somewhere, so they buy places or build places. These people aren’t doing it cheaply, and therefore a consequence is that it drives up the cost of living.
In response, Amazon decided not to donate a single dollar in 2015 to the housing shortage in Seattle. In fact, they killed the bill that would have taxed the people who worked at Amazon to help pay for affordable housing projects.
Nowadays, Amazon has seemed to learn its lesson and gives out pennies for housing issues. Great work.
Why did I rank it here?
US News and World Report thinks Washington is the best state in the country, using a 71-point metric system to objectively identify which states rank the best to live in.
At Okay History, we ranked Washington 24th because I thought about it a few months ago when I made this list. I was like, “Oh, Washington is cool; let’s see, 24 looks good.” In my defense, 24 is one of my favorite numbers.
23: Arizona
Founded: February 14, 1912
48th State
Do I know the state capital off the top of my head? Phoenix
Have I been there? No, but I will be at their airport next week.
Do I want to go? Yes, but only in the winter.
The Good:
The Grand Canyon is a natural wonder located in the northwest part of the state. The Colorado River cuts through it, creating colorful rocks and majestic views.
It was preserved as a National Park in 1919, signed into law by Woodrow Wilson, which surprised me.
The Grand Canyon is on my list of places to visit, even though I hate heights. I’m hoping there are rails. There have to be rails, right?
The Bad:
In Arizona, the average temperature during the winter is 66 degrees. Then when spring happens, it jumps twenty degrees. When summer hits, you get melted by 100 degrees of sun each day. I have a friend who lives in Arizona, and when she moved there, she noticed that everyone drove a white car. I didn’t understand the reference until she explained how heat worked on darker cars.
Oh.
The Ugly:
On January 8, 2011, a day after I turned whatever age I turned in 2011, Jared Lee Loughner walked into a Tucson shopping center parking lot and shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 other people during a constituent meeting being held outside.
Giffords survived the assassination attempt, but six people, including a judge and a nine-year-old girl, were killed.
I remember how shocked I was that this happened and that there was so much attention around it. Leaders from all over the world chimed in. I mean, even Fidel Castro.
Doesn’t it feel now that this violence is normal?
Why did I rank it here?
Arizona has a pretty sweet flag. It’s divided in half, with navy blue on the bottom and the top are lines of red and yellow with an orange star in the middle. It’s wicked cool.
Also, Arizona is the last continental state to be admitted into the Union.
My alma mater also stole its flagship university’s head basketball coach. Basketball is king in Arizona, and sure, Sean Miller was fired, but whatever, we took him back, and it’s top 25 all day for YOUR Xavier Musketeers.
I’d love to travel back to 2015 and warn everyone about Donald Trump. I’d also do something about the 2016 World Series because it kills me to this day that the Cubs beat my Cleveland team in seven games, mostly because of a rain delay.
2015 was the year I began to work for the firm I’m currently employed. It’s by far the longest-tenured job I have had, and just like getting married at 46, better to have figured it out later than not at all.
I hope your weekend is a good one. I’m going to play golf. My handicap is 54. That’s okay.
See you on Monday.
Okay,
Chris
Aww. I prefer uninfluenced commentary. I refuse to corrupt an independent mind....no matter HOW WRONG he may be!!! :-))
I love Arizona. The Cleveland Guardians Spring Train there in Goodyear next to the Airliner Graveyard. It’s really cool in Goodyear. I’m going to put up a Double Wide trailer there someday. The golf courses are awesome too. Welcome back Sean & Amy Miller. You were misplaced in the desert and you went crazy with the heat. Sanity has returned. I would have ranked it 20 places higher but I don’t control this blog, so…. HH