As seen on TV our state license plates, Kentucky is known as the Bluegrass State – despite the fact that few people outside of the state have any idea what bluegrass is, or that it isn’t always blue (In all seriousness, I was watching a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field once, and the little boy was reading in his program that the field was sodded with Kentucky bluegrass. He looks up to his father with a terribly confused face and says, “But it’s green grass, Daddy. It’s green grass!”). I’ll refrain from getting into the debate that the grass really does have a blue tint to it in the early dawn hours when the day’s first sunlight hits the dew resting on top of the blades of grass … we can discuss the color wheel and how it relates to agriculture later.
Moving on …
Kentucky is truly a land of strange curiosities, and there are a number of things we could slap on our license plates as the state slogan. Here are a few of them:
• Gateway to the Wild West – Judge Roy Bean, Jim Bowie and Kit Carson were all born in Kentucky.
• The Post Office State – Kentucky has more post offices per capita than any other state.
• The Governor State – More than 100 native Kentuckians have been elected governors of OTHER states.
• The Volunteer State – OK, so technically this one belongs to Tennessee (though what exactly is a Tennessee Volunteer and why do they insist on sporting that awful shade of orange? Bleh.), but in the War of 1812, more than half of all Americans killed in action were Kentuckians.
• The Game Show State – Famous game show hosts Jack Narz (CBS’s quiz show Dotto … and he was also a narrator of ‘The Adventures of Superman’), and Chuck Woolery (the original host of Wheel of Fortune) were born in Kentucky.
Just something to think about. Kentucky’s been known to have some strange license plates before (who remembers the smiling sun that even Jay Leno made cracks about). Who knows what the boys in LaGrange will be banging out next? … did you know all Kentucky license plates are made at the Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange?
MY OLD KENTUCKY ROAD TRIP 