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Doug Clark: The true meaning of ‘Couged’ and other juicy Washington facts

Like anyone with an email address, I get a lot of garbage mail from people I barely know.

For some reason, people think it’s cute to send me corny jokes or touching stories or notices of late payment on my Visa bill.

Normally, I just hit the delete key and move on to more pressing matters.

But the other day someone sent me an interesting list of facts about Washington state, some of which I have paraphrased, quoted directly or edited today for the sake of column clarity.

What surprised me, however, is how many juicier true tidbits I have acquired about Washington from my years of hanging around.

Here. Let me show you what I mean.

WASHFACT – A Seahawk is an athlete, not a bird. The closest thing in nature to a Seahawk is an osprey hawk.

DOUGFACT – In Pullman, “Couged” is not a reference to WSU’s mascot, but a verb describing the choking way so many football games end. Example: “Man, Wazzu really Couged it again, huh?”

WASHFACT – Famous musicians from Tacoma include Bing Crosby, the Ventures and the Wailers.

DOUGFACT – Nobody, let alone a famous musician, would ever admit publicly to being from Tacoma.

WASHFACT – Seattle is home to the first revolving restaurant.

DOUGFACT – Spokane is the Home of the Revolving Mayors.

WASHFACT – Everett is the site of the world’s largest building, the Boeing final assembly plant.

DOUGFACT – Spokane is the site of the Ridpath, the World’s largest white elephant.

WASHFACT – “The Wave,” that popular mass cheer, was started by Husky fans at the University of Washington.

DOUGFACT – “The Finger” was first flipped at a Spokane cop by a juvenile delinquent who was cruising Riverside in 1959.

WASHFACT – North America’s largest land mollusk, a foraging banana slug that can grow up to 9 inches long, calls Washington state home.

DOUGFACT – Now that marijuana is legal, many Washington residents consider the foraging banana slug a role model.

WASHFACT – Washington has hosted the World’s Fair twice: Seattle in 1962 and Spokane in 1974.

DOUGFACT – Unlike Seattle, Spokane won’t stop bragging about it.

WASHFACT – Seattle leads America in residents with more college degrees per capita.

DOUGFACT – For a time, the Washington State Patrol led all of law enforcement in cops with phony degrees from diploma mills.

WASHFACT – The northwestern-most point in the contiguous United States is Cape Flattery on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

DOUGFACT – Due to the fear of having to actually pay for parking, few Spokane Valley residents will venture west of Havana.

WASHFACT – Seattle’s annual rainfall is actually less than Atlanta, Boston, New York, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, D.C.

DOUGFACT – During the heat of summer, Seattle’s downtown public urination level is higher than New York and New Delhi combined. Or at least it smells that way.

WASHFACT – Seattle has the world’s highest number of aerospace jobs, led by Boeing’s 50,000 employees.

DOUGFACT – Spokane has the highest number of enterprising panhandlers, including this real guy I saw on Third whose cardboard sign read: “Will Kidnap Your Ex for Spare Change – God bless.”

WASHFACT – Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America, deeper, in fact, than the Grand Canyon.

DOUGFACT – A pothole on Southeast Boulevard once swallowed an entire busload of retirement center residents.

WASHFACT – Washington grows more apples than any other state in the country.

DOUGFACT – The Spokane City Council has had a whole lot of bad apples, although Bob Apple wasn’t so bad.

WASHFACT – Tacoma-based LeMay, America’s Car Museum, is one of the world’s largest private auto collections.

DOUGFACT – The world’s biggest gas guzzler, my 1967 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, has been moored in my mother’s garage due to a flat tire.

WASHFACT – Washington’s official insect is the green darner dragonfly.

DOUGFACT – Todd Mielke is a Spokane County commissioner.

WASHFACT – The “12th Man” is the name coined for fans of the Seattle Seahawks, judged the loudest group of fans in America.

DOUGFACT – Yeah? Tell that to anyone who has been in the Tinnitus Center, I mean McCarthey Center, when the Zags are playing basketball.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or dougc@spokesman.com.

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