Happy Birthday Washington! 120 years of in-your-face beauty and “move if you don’t like it here” attitude!

The State of Washington celebrated 120 years of pure awesomeness on Wednesday. While Clambaker recovers from his all-night partying in celebration of his state’s complete superiority and dominance over the other, less-than awesome states, he thought it would be nice to share some historical perspective on life for our state brothers and sisters in 1889.

Some of the other happenin’s in Washington in 1889:

• Chinese slave laborers too sick and weak to work on the transcontinental railroad are transferred to the SR520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and Alaskan Way Viaduct projects. A personal diary entry of laborer Xiang Wi details the quality of construction.

“Very poor design…many doubts about longevity of materials…engineering quality dubious at best…much surprise if structures last to Christmas. Good smoked salmon readily available though, so Xiang not praying for death just yet.”

• Tim Eyman’s ballot initiative to rescind a state tax on codpieces fails, despite heavy support in Eastern Washington.

• Grover “Shingles” Cassidy, a tent-to-tent chicken salesman and amateur jug musician from Aberdeen, leads America out of its big-haired, long-bearded, glam-bluegrass days with a new angst-ridden sound called “grunge-grass,” 100 years before future Hoquiam rival Kurt Cobain.

• Eastern Washington residents, pissed at Western Washington’s liberal leanings, strong economy, temperate climate, and tolerance of each other’s differences, begin plans to secede from Washington to form a new state, named “Lincoln,” with an official state motto of “Fuck you jerks! Spokane is awesome! Freedom for everyone...everyone…everyone but gay people!”

• The Seattle Mariners finish their inaugural season a disappointing 10-152. Manager Jumpy “Jack” Stacks, blaming a lack of support from ownership and less –than-harmonious clubhouse chemistry, places a hex on the franchise, wishing them “mediocrity until the sun explodes...”

• Aplets & Cotlets production begins in Cashmere, bringing together a horrid concoction of jellied fruit, powdered sugar, and nuts, to the exuberant glee of old people across the state. Everyone younger than 70 describes them as “possibly the worst thing I’ve ever eaten…seriously…I’d eat a steaming pile of dog shit first.”

• At 5:28pm, literally one minute after statehood is officially declared, Californians begin moving to Washington by the wagon-load, inflating housing prices and creating a disdain among the local population that still exists today. Clambaker almost wishes this disdain had culminated in clubbing them over the head with a whiskey bottle and sending them back home to their crappy shithouse further south, but alas, Washingtonians have still yet to take the initiative. I kid, Californians…I kid…