[Janet Kenny]

Originally Posted by Mary Meriam

I feel partial to Sam's Freedonia operetta.

Mary, It's the Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup".

[R. S. Gwynn]

Texas is large,
Texas is huge,
As big as a barge
Sailing through Bruges,

As big as a bear
In Lichtenstein,
As big as the hair
On Amy Wine-

house, big as a bishop
In Barbara Pym,
As big as you wish, up
And over the brim,

And it should be plain
That it's larger than Europe,
As big as John Wayne
Tall in the stirrup.

[Roger Slater]

Rhode Island is little,
diminutive, small,
minuscule, modest,
not big, not at all.

It's trifling and stunted,
It's piddling and slight.
You ask, "Is it puny?"
I answer you, "Quite!

"Indeed, it is paltry,
petite, microscopic.
You'll miss it completely
if you are myopic."

Yet hail to Rhode Island!
I sing it this anthem!
A heavyweight state
that's decidedly bantam!

[Marion Shore]

More about Texas

As big as Shaq's sandal,
as Johnny Depp's tip, sir,
as big as the panhandle
on the Big Dipper,

as big as a boxcar,
or the latest Land Rover,
as big as a lone star
that's gone supernova.

[Marion Shore]

Speaking of Rhode Island...

Though you may think Rhode Island
too small for significance,
it was more than a pit stop
for Puritan dissidents.

One strange little factoid
that might make you smile and
exclaim "What the hey!
It isn't an island!"

[Roger Slater]

Alaska! Home of Sarah, Bristol,
Willow, Todd and Piper!
Not to mention Track and Trig
(the one still in a diaper),

I salute your snowy banks
and shifting shoreline forming
new configurations thanks
to rapid global warming.

Alaska! How I love your name!
And how I long someday to bask in
hearing Todd at last proclaim
one nation, under God, Alaskan!

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Janet Kenny

Mary, It's the Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWaOI2sHsY

[Julie Steiner]

Oh, the rare Torrey Pines! Oh, the tourmaline mines!
The artillery booms and the fighter jet whines!
Oh, the tourist attractions’ incredible lines!
San Diego’s the county you'll know by these signs.

Oh, the cool ocean breeze! Oh, the purple-bloomed trees—
jacarandas—whose nectar attracts killer bees!
Oh, the swine flu! The bird flu! West Nile! Lyme disease!
San Diego’s the county that’s blessed with all these.

Oh, the palms’ lovely sway! Oh, June Gloom and May Gray!
Awesome winds blowing annual wildfires my way!
Oh, the real estate "bottom" proclaimed every day!
San Diego’s my county, and here I must stay.

(I tried to work in the flash floods, the mudslides, the four species of rattlesnake, the black widow spiders...but all this parochial pride made me tear up. Either that or the pollen.)

[Marion Shore]

Oh hail to thee Florida,
to thy lush Everglades,
to thy palm-shaded beaches
where the tan never fades;

where the old folks retire,
and the gators are somethin',
where George Bush and Al Gore
had electile disfunction.

Hail to thee, Sunshine State,
to Miami and Kissimee,
and last but not least
to thy kingdom of Dis-i-ney!

[Marion Shore]

Hail city where free spirits march
to the beat of a different drummer,
where the coldest winter you'll ever spend
is a San Francisco summer;

Fresh fish, Chinese and Mexican food--
the best you'll ever narf;
the place where you can say that you
got crabs at Fisherman's Wharf.

Blue windy sea and golden sun--
Ah friend, when you depart here
(Tony Bennett got it right)
you'll find you left your heart here!