Colbert in Colbert County, AL

The Times Daily of Florence AL reports that Stephen Colbert of “Comedy Central’s Colbert Report” is convinced that Colbert County, AL is named after him. As a thank you he plans to open “The Stephen Colbert Museum and Gift Shop” in Tuscumbia. It will then be part of the October story line on his program. The producer, Jeff Cooperman is the source of this information. They will return on Oct 4th for the “Grand opening” of the museum. It doesn’t look like at this time that Colbert will come to the event.

The joke will be that Stephen Colbert is not as popular as he thinks he is , because the museum closes for lack of interest. Doesn’t that make sense to you that he would open his museum in the county that is named for him; and that town is the perfect place to send his building manager, a guy named Tad to hold the opening. There may be a similarity in the name; “Colbert” but they are pronounced differently. The county pronounces it the emphasis on the first syllable, and sort of schwa-sounding “e” and a “t” that is pronounced out loud. Stephan pronounces his differently with a silent “l”, emphasis on the second syllable and a short “e”.
The show and Stephen Colbert’s character are parodies, so it is going to be interesting what parody he comes up with for this show. Don’t tell him, but Colbert County is actually named for brothers George and Levi Colbert, who lived in this area and became leaders of the Chickasaw nation.

I got to thinking about it and decided I would offer him some material for this particular show.


He could do a parody on: The Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard . In fact it should be an important part of his trip to AL. Why do you know that only Coon Dogs can be buried there. It doesn't matter what part of the world you live in with your Coon Dog, your Coon Dog will always have a burial place when he/she goes on to meet his/her maker. In fact one time a woman from California wrote Key Underwood, the owner, wanting to know why he didn’t allow other kinds of dogs to be buried at the coon dog cemetery. “You must not know much about coon hunters and their dogs, if you think we would contaminate this burial place with poodles and lap dogs,” he responded. In a small, grassy meadow, deep in the rich, thick wilderness of Freedom Hills, Key Underwood sadly buried his faithful coondog, Troop. They had hunted together for more than 15 years. They had been close friends.The burial spot was a popular hunting camp where coon hunters from miles around gathered to plot their hunting strategies, tell tall tales, chew tobacco and compare coon hounds. Those comparisons usually began and ended with Troop...he was the best around. It has became a popular tourist attraction and is the only cemetery of its kind in the world. "We have stipulations on this thing," says William O. Bolton, the secretary/treasure of the Tennessee Valley Coon Hunters Association, and caretaker of the Coon Dog Cemetery. "A dog can't run no deer, possum -- nothing like that. He's got to be a straight coon dog, and he's got to be full hound. Couldn't be a mixed up breed dog, a house dog." (I did not make this up.) Maybe Steve even needs to get himself a Coon Dog to make the whole show complete.


There are some other ideas floating in my head, but I think I'll send him this one first. what do you think? On second thought, I think I better send this one to Jeff Foxworthy and the boys on Blue Collar TV. They would understand and treat with it the dignity and respect that it derserved. After all they would know that a Coon Dog is one special hunting dog. And if they need some learning they can turn to the "Mouth of the South", Jerry Clower who could tell some good hunting stories in his time. One of his best stories about hunting was "Knock em Down John". He also told "The Coon Hunting Story". Wish Jerry was still around.