Maryland's state sport is even cooler-- jousting.
Maryland is in really great shape, apparently, so the legislature spends its time coming up with things like this. There is a state insect (Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly ), state bird (Baltimore Oriole), state boat (skipjack), state cat (calico), state crustacean (the tasty delicious Maryland Blue Crab), state cake (Smith Island Cake-- basically a multi-layered yeller cake with chawklit icing), state dinosaur (Astrodon johnstoni), state dog (Chesapeake Bay Retriever), state drink (milk-- one legislator from Baltimore was pushing for 'peppermint lemonade,' but that's more likely to become the state mouthwash), state fish (the tasty delicious rockfish, aka striped bass), state flower (Black-Eyed Susan), state folk dance (square dance), state fossil shell (Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae Wilson-- some extinct snail or something, apparently the French ate them all), state gem stone (Patuxent River Stone), state horse (Thoroughbred), state reptile (Diamondback Terrapin), state song (Maryland my Maryland-- more below), state theater (Center Stage, in Baltimore), state summer theater (Olney Theatre, in, um, Olney), and a state tree (the white oak). Probably more of these things, that I've overlooked.
Maryland My Maryland is sung to the tune of 'O Tannenbaum,' except that they never sing it, it is always just a musical thingie, because the words are a little embarrassing: it was originally written as a poem by a Confederate sympathizer at the beginning of the Civil War, responding to the Union Army moving into the state (among other things, they locked up the legislature, preventing them from voting for secession, which saved Maryland from Reconstruction afterward). The first verse goes:
The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Lincoln is the 'despot' he's whining about. They don't like to talk much about the last verse:
I hear the distant thunder-hum, Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb- Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
The next-to-last line was probably recycled from a porn novel...
