Mail from around the states!

I'm Janet Varney.

Sorry.

I'm John Hodgman.

And here's the thing: it's a beautiful spring day as we resume E Pluribus Motto Season 2.

And I've got my windows open and I heard a siren outside and I got distracted.

Wonderful.

I got distracted by a siren.

I got distracted by the beautiful, beautiful flowering trees outside my window.

Oh, April sirens bring May Myron.

Hylons.

Thank you.

As we record this, it is the springtime, a season of renewal.

And guess what, everyone?

Here's the news.

We got renewed for a season.

We got it.

We got picked up, everybody.

The execs told us just the other day.

Just the other day.

It's E Pluribus Motto, the show, the podcast, the conversation ongoing between me and Janet Varney and the whole nation, in which we celebrate not only the mottos,

but the state symbols, the state mammals, the state beverages, milk,

the state snacks.

All of you listeners are state snacks as far as I'm concerned.

Of every state, Commonwealth, and territory, and district in the Union.

And as promised, friends, this is our episode in which we address some of the many, and I must emphasize some, because of the many, many, many great emails and voice memos we have gotten from listeners just like you.

I wish that we could cover all of them.

We would need like eight episodes, which was shocking and delightful.

And,

you know, people say humbling.

I've never understood.

I always struggle with like, wait, how is something complimentary making you more humble?

Can you explain that to me?

I've never been humbled in my life.

Okay, good.

Well, I've been humiliated.

I've had my ego stroked.

I've been trampled on.

No, look, when we created an incredible email address called email pluribus motto at maximumfund.org and encouraged our listeners, as you say, our friends, to write in and correct us on facts and offer us other facts from their own home states, Commonwealth, districts, and territories.

I suspected that people would be writing in, but I was so thrilled that we got to hear from so many people.

Some of them I know, some of them I do not know.

Yes.

And all of them presenting interesting little things that make their states special to them and perhaps to you.

And we will be issuing some corrections about those things.

Facts that we got wrong, pronunciations that we pronounced wrong, all kinds of things.

And I'm looking at you, Illinoisians.

I know I just said it wrong again, right?

How am I supposed to say it?

I'm still unclear.

I hope we'll get more clarity in some of these corrections.

Illinois, by the way, again, could have done

two full-length episodes just from the Illinois feedback.

That was a spicy one.

A lot of people weighed in.

I love that.

You ever hear the state

New Jersey?

Yes.

You know who is a native of New New Jersey?

I mean, I could probably guess a lot of people would be right.

Well,

this person, like the states, districts, and commonwealths themselves, contains multitudes.

I'm talking about Walt Whitman.

Oh,

wasn't he a New Jerseyan?

Now, I don't even know.

I have no idea.

Walt Whitman

was no New Yorker.

Oh,

this is a good idea.

But he did die.

But he did die.

He did die in New Jersey.

Way to represent the fear all New Jerseyans experience, which is

thinking someone might have been from New Jersey and discovering, no, no, they were New York.

Walter Whitman Jr.

They were New York with the after all implied.

That's right.

Oh, they were New York after all.

Walter Whitman Jr.

was born May 31st, 1819 in Huntington, New York, but then he went to New Jersey, as so many things and people do, to die.

Died in Camden, New Jersey, where he is interred in the Harley Cemetery.

Camden, by the way, being the home of the Campbell's Soup Company, I recently learned.

That's apropos of absolutely apra-nothing.

I'll tell you what, that to me just feels like a normal conversation of Euplerbus motto.

What are we, if not trying to string together a series of little bits and pieces that make this great country the experiment it is.

Or arguably this country.

Sure.

Sure, still out.

Jury's still out.

The only people who ever really talk smack about New Jersey to me are people from and in New Jersey.

And I know that's not the only folks, but everything I've ever gotten about New Jersey that seems negative, I have only gotten from people from New Jersey.

The point is, like Walt Whitman, even New Jersey, and certainly Illinois, and certainly all of these places contain multitudes, multitudes of people, multitudes of history, multitudes of interesting facts, multitudes of state snacks.

and you helped us fill in some of the many blanks that we left in season one as we anticipate the wonderful season two.

It's true.

We are at the beginning of season two.

And as we know from season one, we've scratched the surface and merely the surface.

There are so many more places to discuss.

And we receive so much feedback from you recommending what we get into for season two

that we will be telling you in this episode where we're headed.

Yeah, we got 10 states, commonwealths, districts to announce later in this episode.

You'll find out.

And what we hope you will do is go ahead and pre-correct us by writing to us an email pluribusmotto at maximumfund.org to let us know what we should cover before we make a mistake and not cover it.

But let's go ahead and dive into that voluminous mailbag that contains multitudes of wonderful letters and voicemails from you and see what you had to say.

Let's go right into a voicemail.

We're going to do this in the order of the season itself.

So we're going to start with Connecticut and I'm going to play a voicemail from Tyler B.

Hey, Janet.

Hey, John.

This is Tyler calling from the almost New England estate of Connecticut.

I'm a Latin teacher and I know it's hard to believe that there's a Latin teacher in Connecticut who listens to a Max Fun podcast, but I want to talk about our great state motto.

For one thing, it's nice to have a state motto in Latin.

I love seeing it when I'm getting on the train into the city, when I'm going to see a Broadway show or a live podcast in the bar house.

But yeah, he who transplanted still sustains.

There's some interesting grammar going on in the Latin.

We got that relative clause acting as the subject of the sentence, qui trans tulit.

Qui is a masculine, nominative, singular, relative pronoun.

Trans tulit is the third person singular perfect form of the verb transferro, literally meaning to bring across.

That's where we get the English word transfer.

Then that last word, sestinet, is the main verb of the clause.

That's in the third-person singular present tense.

And that comes from the verb teneo to hold.

And that prefix on it, su, comes from sub, meaning under.

So if you hold something from under, you are holding it up.

All right, stop for a second.

So you just mentioned he really teaches Latin, and that's pretty clear.

It would be very alarming to me if he was pretending to be a Latin teacher.

Like this is some sort of elaborate catch-me-if-you can style con, because I believe it.

I'm only saying he really teaches Latin because I feel he's backed it up with this voicemail.

I didn't do my homework at all.

Tyler, catch me if you can.

Yeah, no, Tyler is assigning the homework.

Let's hear some more.

So, yeah, so he who transplanted still sustains.

In the original connotation, it's got this sort of God meaning, meaning that, you know, the guy who brought people to Connecticut

from Europe is going to sustain them for the future.

But I do like the sort of more active version of the motto that I've interpreted in my head, which has more to do with, you know, modern industry and transportation, right?

In the modern day, right?

He who has been able to move in place, to travel efficiently, to transport goods from one place to another, is able to keep up a liveliness and an economy.

I think that that sort of less religious, less colonial interpretation of the phrase provides us industrial New Englander types a sort of hopeful message.

So yeah, that's what I have to say about our state motto in Connecticut.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this entire message that I left to you.

Goodbye.

May I say, Tyler, I enjoyed listening to the whole thing.

Tyler, I did as well.

And it makes me happy that even as the teacher of a dead language, you still consider yourself an industrial New Englander.

I think he means industrious.

Sorry to.

Sorry to teach the teacher.

Oh, how dare you teach the teacher?

I mean, if we're talking about industry, we should be talking about New Jersey.

Trend makes the world takes.

Do you know where they used to make a lot of shoes?

Tell me.

Maine.

One of the top producers of shoes in this country.

I'll be interested when we cover Maine.

But until then, anymore.

The point is,

New Englanders are, in a cliched sense, thrifty and industrious, though we don't manufacture a lot anymore.

Oh no, every time you say we don't manufacture a lot anymore and we're talking about New Jersey, I feel like I'm about to improvise a Bruce Bringstein song, and that's very dangerous.

Well, it'll make shoes down in the factory

of trail for New Jersey.

Was they closed down when they went to Maine?

Why are all the people up?

They're such snobs.

Now, I didn't write that.

Bruce Bringstein did, so I'm not saying people from Maine are snobs.

Julian, whatever you do, make sure to cut all of that.

No, leave it in.

Please.

That was delightful.

Tyler, thank you so much.

Thank you, Tyler.

I enjoy any conversation where we can talk about the different ways to interpret mottos and to perhaps modernize them.

If there is an opportunity to perhaps further them away from colonialism, I don't mind that in the least.

So I appreciate that.

And I appreciate your being a teacher.

Thank you very much for doing that.

Don't get me started on that.

You refer to it as the almost New England state of Connecticut.

Connecticut is part of New England.

I know that a lot of New England would like to exile you, frankly, to New Jersey, but you are part of us, and I appreciate you.

Thank you.

If you've got a lobster roll, you're part of New England, and Connecticut does.

Oh, well, there you go.

Yeah.

You heard it here.

Yep, that's a rule.

All right, let's take a listen to our second voicemail.

We're going to be playing about Connecticut.

This one from Ben S.

A second nutmeger, eh?

All right, let's hear it.

Hey, John and Janet.

My name is Ben Silver, and as John can attest, I have a giant tattoo of the great state of Connecticut on my chest, which is pre-eminently quiet.

I know, Ben.

Hi, Ben.

So nice to hear from you.

I used to do a monthly show at the Bell House, and Ben was a regular, and indeed,

dude, has a tattoo of the entire state of Connecticut on his chest.

He says giant.

How giant are we talking about?

It's his whole chest.

It's as giant as it gets.

Are there cities that line up with like the never mind?

With the nipples?

Yeah.

I have to look at a map of Connecticut again to be right.

Connecticut.

Hang on.

Map.

Let's see here.

I mean,

I'm sorry that Ben didn't send a photograph, but he didn't.

Hartford, the capital, is in the dead center, so

that wouldn't work.

But hang on.

Hartford would be the Sternham.

Probably Torrington would be at one nipple.

Unsurprising.

And

the Adventure Park at Stores.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Or West Ashford, maybe.

Or maybe Ashford.

I mean, I don't know his nipple placement, but let's hear more from Ben.

Which makes me eminently qualified to offer just two small corrections and two little fun facts related to the episode.

The first correction is that Connecticut actually is known for its grapes.

The climate is inhospitable to growing the big, juicy grapes you would want to buy in the grocery store, but it is perfect for growing these ugly little grapes that make great wine.

In fact, you can drive across the state following the Connecticut Wine Trail, which is a beautiful scenic route.

The second correction is that Yale University was not founded in New Haven, Connecticut.

Whoa.

Did I say, did I, I mean, it's possible that I said Yale was founded.

I bet you did.

In New Haven, but boy, oh boy, Ben.

What a way to

send a knife straight into the Hartford of my sternum

and twist it.

Before I play the rest of that, I was trying to stop it before I rocked your world quite as hard as I just did.

But I just wanted to quickly say that I think it sounds fun to follow the wine trail because to me, that sounds like the work of a wine detective.

Like, here's another little piece of the trail.

I'm on it picks back up here in this winery.

When I think of the term wine trail, I can't get the image of Ben's bear torso out of my head.

So I feel trace it.

I feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you know where I'm going, and I don't want to go down that trail, so let's move on

to how wrong I was.

Back to Ben about the founding of Yale.

Yale University was not founded in New Haven, Connecticut.

It was founded in 1701 in Saybrook, Connecticut.

In 1716, the university trustees voted to move to New Haven, which was actually the first city planned in the New World instead of just being a haphazard colony.

Fun fact number one is that Salvatore Consiglio, known as Sally, was actually the nephew of Frank Pepe, which makes their little rivalry more of a family affair.

Okay, stop.

For those who don't remember,

that's a reference to the two very famous pizza parlors in New Haven that are very close to each other in the Worcester Square District, the traditionally Italian-American district of New Haven, Connecticut.

Very, very famous, very thin crust pizza, famous for their white clam pizza, Frank Peppy's in particular.

Sally's, of course, being its ancient rival.

And they're both delicious because guess what?

They're both pizza.

And I'm not going to get into that fight.

Also, go Yorkside.

All right, let's hear this second fun fact.

And the second fun fact is about nutmegger, which was actually used as a pejorative by the other colonists to refer to the residents of Connecticut.

But that may not have been deserved because the Yankee peddlers weren't giving fake goods, as was often rumored, but actually just were not giving proper instructions.

You see, nutmeg is an unusually hard spice, and it looks like a walnut.

So what happened is that many of the other colonies would try to crack the nutmeg open like a walnut and failed.

So they assumed that it was a counterfeit product, just wood pellets carved to look like seeds.

They didn't know that they actually had to grind it into the powdered version that we know and love today.

Ben, what a delight to hear from you again.

What a joy.

Ben, I love that tidbit about thinking that something is not the real thing because you simply don't know what to do with it.

That feels like it could be part of a larger conversation about ways in which we write off stuff because we just don't have all of the information.

Yeah, you just got to grind.

Give it some shaves.

Give it some grindings.

Yeah, let this be a lesson to all of you out there.

If someone tries to sell you a nut and you think that it's a bogus nut because it's made out of wood and that they tricked you, try grinding it first.

Yeah.

Learn the lesson that Connecticut taught us.

By the way, you know what the outer covering of a nutmeg seed is?

Silk.

No, mace.

The other spice known as mace.

Oh, I didn't know that.

It's like a webby outer covering of it.

It has its own flavor.

I don't know.

That just just makes me think about all of the different ways in which anise and fennel and licorice and all of that sort of same flavor.

I'm still confused about whether they all come from

like an anise.

Is an anise plant a fennel plant?

I hope, I really hope that someone has a state spice that is fennel or anise so that we can really get into it.

I'm not going to look it up because we have a couple of other letters just on Connecticut in our mind.

Some other states.

I'd love to hear you read one.

Yeah, I'd love to read one.

Here's a a letter from KM on the subject of nutmeg.

In fact, my husband, who is a Max Fund member, thank you very much.

My husband and I listened to the Connecticut podcast today.

We live in Penang, Malaysia, which used to be a booming center of nutmeg production and today still has some amount of spice cultivation.

We even have nutmeg juice.

Whoa.

But the reason I'm writing is because of this local literary magazine called Nutmag.

Made me so happy to see that.

And by local, K means local to Penang, Malaysia.

That's right.

Nutmag is an annual zine published by my writers Penang.

By the way, I hope I'm pronouncing Penang correctly.

Send me a letter if not.

Just as nutmegs are homegrown in our lovely island, we aim to be a 100% Penang-grown product.

And it's a literary magazine.

You can go find it at nutmagazine.weebly.com.

And it looks lovely.

I'm looking forward to reading more.

Kay goes on to say, thanks for letting us know Connecticut is the nutmeg state.

I had no idea.

And I now understand it's because of shipping not growing, but it's also because of grinding.

Connecticut is really on its grind.

I might advise people to please go to that website because the covers of the volumes of Nutmag are available for your enjoyment.

And in fact, there is an anthology that one can get their hands on titled Homegrown,

G-R-O-A-N.

Homegrown, a nutmeg anthology.

That's great stuff.

You know what?

I was going to say, homegrown, G-R-O-A-N should be an anthology of dad jokes.

Ugh, for certain.

Right?

But too bad, because nutmeg anthology.

That's their first.

Yep.

Go get them, K-M.

We have another letter.

Do you want to read this one from...

I'd love to.

Kevin says, you may already be aware that Connecticut is known to some as the land of steady habits.

While that is not our official state motto, I think it should be.

Too bad.

I learned this from Colin McEnroe, Yale graduate, NPR host, and former longtime Hartford current columnist.

Colin is probably most famous for once having gifted John Hodgman a Hartford Whalers jersey.

I'm sure that is what he is most famous for.

Colin says, I believe that happened on stage at the beautiful Bushnell Theater in Hartford.

Can you confirm or deny?

I can confirm.

And that was a wonderful evening that I experienced in Hartford, Connecticut.

Colin McEnroe moderated a conversation between me and Baratunde Thurston and Carrie Brownstein, two heroes.

We talked about comedy, I guess.

And then Colin gave me a Hartford Whalers shirt, and I took off my shirt on stage and put it on.

Oh, my.

People saw my

West Ashford and

whatever the two nipples of Connecticut are before I covered up my shame very quickly.

And the wonderful thing about that event was

the designer of the logo for the Hartford Whalers, Peter Goode, was in the audience.

And I got to wave to him.

He's one of my heroes too.

Fortunately, he passed away a couple of years ago, but he had an incredible long life as a designer in West Hartford.

And for those of you who don't know, Google Hartford Whalers logo and you'll see it's just the best logo in sports and certainly the best logo in the only sport that I follow, which is defunct hockey.

Correct.

Yeah.

Well, that's wonderful.

Thank you so much for writing in, Kevin.

And I still have that shirt.

And you still, well, I would hope so.

I would hope so.

Yeah.

Would you like to read our last one for Connecticut from Allison?

I would love to.

Allison D.

writes back in 2006.

My partner and I met in Connecticut when we were working on,

whoa,

okay.

I didn't know where this was going.

Well, we were working on separate tall ships.

Wow.

couple of tall shipmates.

Can you tell us more about, before we go further, Allison, John, can you tell us what a tall ship is?

Yeah, it's an old-timey sailing ship.

So like the big, when we think of the big masts and like the different...

That's what makes them tall.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, we're talking about a very large sailing ship, usually with three masts.

And they're antiques, obviously.

They don't build them like that anymore.

But

there are a lot of them that have been restored and maintained, and they sail around, and they're amazing.

And mostly they go back to, well, I guess the last

commercial freight schooners that plied the waters of New England probably died out

in the early 20th century.

But the real tall ships were from the

18th century and in the 19th.

Anyway,

these two lovely people, Alison Dee and her partner, were working on tall ships.

Allison Dee says, I was on a boat in Stamford, and my partner was on a boat in New Haven.

The first time we met was at the Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut at Shantynight.

Love it.

Well, where both of our crews had gathered to sing along with Tim and Cliff.

Shout out to Tim and Cliff, whoever they are.

Still the best shanty singing I've ever heard.

Wow.

Sea shanty singing.

That is the song of romance.

It is the song of romance, but if I may,

John Hodgman did a very nice job of protecting Allison's partner because John omitted

the little side addendum that Allison included, which was the night that they first met, is a night that her partner does not remember.

He doesn't remember meeting her that night.

Yeah, her partner doesn't remember meeting her at the Griswold Inn.

Well, look, I haven't been to Essex in a long time, but I know Feces goes down to the Griswold Inn.

People go hard when they're shantying and it's easy

to get a little too excited on grog and not remember.

But I'm glad that you both woke up in each other's hammock on whichever ship you retired to.

Presumably.

And Allison did include a couple of great photos, one from the shanty night and then one from her partner's boat.

And they're wonderful and charming.

And what a great meet cue, even if one of you doesn't remember.

Hey, we've got many more letters to read from many more states and Commonwealth.

Let's take a little break.

We'll be right back.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

You know, we've been doing My Brother, My Brother, me for 15 years, and

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back.

It goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back.

I'm John Hodgman.

There's Janet Varney.

Hi, Janet.

Hey, I'm over here.

Hi.

Eplurbus Motto continues.

We've got letters and voicemails now from the greatest little state in the union, Rhode Island, Rhode Island.

For Rhode Island, I just want to start with a general shout-out to our listener, Amanda M., longtime listener and pal of the network, of the JV Club, of ePlurbus Moto, of John Hodgman.

Delighted by the new podcast.

Thank you so much, Amanda.

She sent a very long voicemail that unfortunately we don't have time to read.

It was charming and full of factoids, including recommendations for Iggies, for PPAC, for a book called Politics and Pasta, and just generally, Johnston, Rhode Island.

Rhode Island Johnstonites have so much pride that Amanda has a map of Johnston hanging on the wall in her apartment.

She is very, very proud to be a Rhode Islander, but who is also, by the way, now a New York transplant.

So that's probably why she has Johnston.

When you talk about Iggy's, you're, of course, talking about Iggy's Doughboy house and seafood.

And when you're also talking about Rhode Island, both you and Amanda are talking about coffee milk, which is...

Coffee milk.

You know, a lot of, I made a joke about this earlier, but a lot of states have a state beverage, which is milk, which is gross.

But coffee milk is delicious.

And if you want to hear more about this, and if you want to hear all about it, let's just go ahead and play Amanda's full voicemail at the end of the episode.

It's about four minutes long and you will enjoy it.

That said, I just want to quickly say I did post on social when I tried coffee milk when I was in Providence, Rhode Island, about a year ago.

I did post about it.

Please feel free to go to Instagram and watch my reaction to coffee milk.

It may not.

completely match what John Hodgman just cared about.

Oh, you didn't care coffee milk as me.

I thought it was so, so, so, so sweet, I couldn't take more than a sip.

It was just too sweet.

No, it's like chocolate milk, but it's instead of chocolate syrup, it's coffee-flavored syrup.

I would take a slightly less sweet version, happily.

That one was just too sweet for me.

One of the leading brands of coffee syrup in Rhode Island.

Unfortunately, it's appropriate for our times.

The brand is called Autocrat.

Oh, my.

Who knows why?

Oh, my.

Let me ask you this.

If I had a slight cold, but I wanted to be cute about what I was taking for it, could I say, I drank some coffee syrup.

I think I'll feel better real soon.

You can't not be cute no matter what.

So yes.

Here's a letter from Alec M.

I liked your podcast about Rhode Island.

Learned a few new things about the state I've lived in for almost 25 years.

I'd honestly forgotten how wonderful our motto is, hope, right?

Am I remembering that correctly?

Just plain old hope.

That said, we do have counties.

Pawtucket.

Pawtucket, you did say there were no counties.

I said there are no counties in Rhode Island.

Well, I don't know what I was thinking.

Pawtucket, where I live, is in Providence County.

Perhaps there's some definition I'm missing, but we consider them counties.

You're right, Adam.

I like that he gave you that out.

He gave you that out.

That's classy.

That's a classy Rhode Islander, right there.

I don't know what I was saying, but I will tell you that Pawtucket is home to one of the minor league teams associated with the Boston Red Sox, the Pawtucket Red Sox, also known as the Paw Sox.

So there you go.

Sports.

What about Rebecca P.?

Well, Rebecca just wanted to give us a quick correction that the old name was the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations rather than the state of Rhode Island, Providence, and Plantations.

State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, rather than the state of Rhode Island, Providence, and Plantations, which was, and I quote, repeatedly said out of order on the show.

Well, I will say repeatedly, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And I will say, sorry, I am, which feels out of order.

But why not?

Well, say it one more time and we'll get another letter.

Sorry, I am.

Oh, no.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Let's move on to Gordon.

What state do you think Yoda would be from?

The state of the force being with me.

No, I'm sorry.

The state of sounding like Grover.

Hey, we have a letter from Gordon P.

I would like to draw your attention to another piece of ephemera.

Thank you.

The Rhode Island license plate.

Love it.

It has long portrayed an elegant blue wave,

fingers crossed, against a pale sky.

I think it is an excellent piece of graphic design and perfectly says ocean state.

Have you ever seen the Rhode Island Island license plate?

It's really very pretty.

I have.

I observed it while I was in Providence last year.

It's charming.

It's very true.

We do a thing when we drive to Maine where we try to spot as many different state license plates as we can.

Yeah.

And we were, and we were actually driving, in this case, from Maine to Savannah, Georgia.

So we saw a lot of them the other week, including in one day, Alaska and Hawaii.

Oh, my.

Which,

you can imagine Hawaii is hard to spot.

Well, yeah, that's impressive.

You would think you would never see it, but you do see it, and it's beautiful.

It's got a rainbow on it.

Yes, it does.

But I do love that Rhode Island license plate.

It's one of the prettiest, and I will say this, Massachusetts, ugliest.

I hate the New York Excelsior license plate.

The most beautiful license plate is the New Mexico license plate.

Agree.

Most beautiful flag.

We'll also win for talking more about that one.

I think we sure will.

A few years ago, Gordon says the Rhode Island DMB came up with a scheme to promote the use of hybrid and electric vehicles, a new special license plate design.

So now, if you drive an eco-friendly car, you'll be sporting a plate with a massive green wave,

which to me looks like toxic sludge or an algal bloom.

Gordon, I hear you.

On the topic of misguided branding, Gordon goes on, in 2016, the state government paid Milton Glazer's firm, Milton Glazer being a very, very famous graphic designer.

I love New York, I heart New York being one of his most famous, but he's done many of them, including the

most famous and storied DC Comics logo.

There you go.

So, anyway, Rhode Island gave Milton Blazer a half a million dollars to develop a new tourism campaign, says Gordon P.

And what they came up with was Rhode Island cooler and warmer.

No, that's Noah Heart, New York.

So sorry.

Gordon P.

calls this lame and vague, and I agree.

And it was widely mocked by Rhode Islanders and abandoned almost as soon as it debuted.

Go a little roadie, says Gordon P.

Cooler and warmer.

Yeah, Milton Blazer.

It's cooler temps and warmer people.

It's cooler.

I hear you, Gordon.

Yeah.

If that was actually Milton Glazer, one of his rare, rare missteps.

Yeah.

But we're now moving south to our first Commonwealth of our episode, Virginia.

Yes, indeed.

Longtime supporter of Max Fun, friend of the show, friend of our shows, Ben M.

has a little anecdote from his time growing up in Virginia.

Hello, John and Janet.

My name's Ben.

When I was in sixth grade, my family moved from Georgia to Roanoke, Virginia, which is in the southwestern part of the state.

And so I'm still feeling a little bit like the new kid in school in seventh grade when we start practicing things like analogies in English class, you know, this is to this, is that is to that.

So one day my teacher gets up on the board and writes, George Washington is to Mount Vernon as Thomas Jefferson is is to Blank.

And

I kind of remember that George Washington didn't actually live in the White House.

And I'm thinking, okay, I guess he lived in whatever this place is.

So the answer must be the White House.

So I go up to the board and I write White House in the blank

and I hear my classmates start to kind of whisper to each other and my self-conscious little seventh grade self starts thinking like, oh, I'm feeling like I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what the answer could be.

So I sit back down and a friend of mine leans over and says, Ben, Ben, it's Monticello.

And I'm going,

what are you saying?

What are these places?

I don't know these places.

And it's because, you know, my classmates, this is seventh grade, two years prior, they had state history in Virginia, whereas I had it in Georgia.

So I just don't know these state landmarks just yet.

So I was a little embarrassed about that at the time.

But despite that,

you you know, growing up in Virginia

was a good place to spend some formative years.

I very much enjoyed it.

I hope you guys enjoy learning about the state of Virginia.

And best of luck.

I want to say I'm charmed by the fact that you were adjusting, wanting to fit in, wanting to be a part of your new community, and that you bravely went up to the board and wrote the White House.

to the snickerings of your classmates.

I would not have known to write Monticello.

I barely know what Monticello is right now in this moment as I'm saying the word Monticello.

That's the wacky house that Jefferson built for himself.

Yeah, I'm sure he thought of it as wacky while he was building it.

I got an idea for a real wacky house.

Why do I say it's it's it's wacky.

It has a big rotunda.

It's got, I mean, it's very distinctive.

Monticello.

That's in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I did a wonderful Judge John Hodgman live show at the beautiful Paramount Theater in Charlottesville on Halloween night, and people actually came to our show.

Any Draculas?

I'm glad to say no.

Well, you never know.

That you know of.

Yeah, you never know.

Yeah.

But we did have a wonderful guest, Jamel Bowie.

The incredible

New York Times columnist and

opinionator and very talented photographer, a podcaster about 90s action films.

And he reviews cereal on social media, like breakfast cereal.

What an incredible guy.

That was a delight.

One of the wonderful delights that I had while I was in Charlottesville, Virginia, but I did not see Monticello, but I did have a drink at the bar at the Sheraton.

How about that?

Wonderful.

And shout out to the Sheraton.

I think any Sheraton.

May even the Omni.

Doesn't matter.

Why don't you read this letter from Nicholas C.

Nicholas says, while I no longer reside in the Commonwealth, I still consider myself a Virginian, having lived in Richmond for 30 years and having attended Virginia Tech.

I love Richmond.

Shout out to Richmond.

I'm sure Virginia Tech is great.

Haven't spent any time there.

I implore you to further your research by listening to the song Old Dominion by the band Eddie from Ohio.

Irony not lost on me.

I don't know what's ironic about it.

Because he's from Ohio.

Never mind.

Because Virginia is the Old Dominion state.

And the band is called Eddie from Ohio, which is not.

Virginia.

That is not Virginia.

Yeah.

I will not spoil that.

For some reason, what I focused on was: why is it weird that someone named Eddie is from Ohio?

I got a little in the weeds on that one.

Eddie, that doesn't sound like a Buckeye name to me.

I will not spoil the delight I believe it will bring you when the lyrics mention what they think the state of Virginia resembles.

I do.

We both love to talk about what we see when we look at a state.

I'm hoping that I will soon be famously known for over-interpreting what a state shape looks like to me.

Well, I love you both dearly.

Eddie from Ohio struck gold and you struck out in the shape naming.

Ooh, harsh words.

Let's see if that's true.

I'm scanning the lyrics now and they're delightful and I'm just going to invite people to go listen to the song because I've been

wanna spoil it for you.

Good point.

Good point.

I'll give a shout out to Richmond too because on that road trip from Maine to Savannah, Georgia via Albany, New York for some reason.

Of course, we had to drive through Virginia.

What beautiful country to drive through.

Gorgeous rolling landscape, pastoral landscape.

And then in Richmond, had a really nice plate of oysters at a place called Birdie's in Richmond, and they had incredible crab dip there.

So

enjoy your bounty of the Chesapeake, dear Virginie, and go to Birdie's and tell them

thanks for taking care of John Hodgman.

Indeed.

Yeah.

On to New York.

Excelsior.

Or Or is it because Liam J

takes issue with that word?

He writes, it's seemingly been standard practice for the last decade or so for the MTA, that's our subway system, to put large Excelsior signs or lettering in new build subway and rail stations.

So mainly we're talking about the new 2nd Avenue subway and the additions to Penn Station and Grand Central as of now.

I guess Liam J doesn't love the Excelsior signage and the new

rail infrastructure in New York City.

All I can say is, give me more rail infrastructure.

Well, that's a good point.

And I'm going to say, I don't know that Liam is saying that he doesn't like it.

I think he's just saying it's the way that they are adding it is not exactly subtle.

I don't know that he's attaching a judgment to that, but the photo that he did include is a very large chiseled into marble across an entire ceiling, essentially.

Right.

Yeah, Excelsior.

So it is very, it is very noticeable.

Um, it's, yeah, I will say that it doesn't feel uh, there's a coldness to it that I think I would like to feel more cooler and warmer vibes from this charming motto because it's great.

Well, I do love the motto and its association with Stanley.

I don't know if Liam J is trying to say that the use of the term Excelsior has now become excessive Velsier.

And moving on to listener Adam W.

Adam W says, I'm a librarian in Kansas.

Shout out to librarians and teachers everywhere.

And figured I'd help find some resources.

And Kansas.

Why not?

Why not?

I'll tell you why not.

We haven't covered it yet.

That's right.

Sorry, Kansas.

And figured I'd help find some resources about the New York yogurt lobby to advance to snack stardom.

That's right, because yogurt is the state snack of New York.

And we were like, what the what?

Yeah.

Because there are a lot of snacks in New York.

Adam provided us a whole yogurt about

Adam sent us a whole milk yogurt.

By the way, don't mail yogurt.

It's spoiled.

We had to eat to the bottom of the yogurt.

And underneath that, in fine print, was the article about yogurt becoming the state snack.

All right, let's get back to Adam's actual letter here.

What happened?

He was investigating New York yogurt in a Kansas library and came across two articles of interest.

What are they?

Well, one is about

yogurt becoming the snack, and a second one is about frogs failing to become the New York state amphibian despite fourth grader Lily Winkleman's efforts to bring out the pressure on the legislature.

Oh, and so we have these articles.

Why don't you tell me about Lily Winkleman and I'll tell you about yogurt?

So this article refers to a four and a half minute YouTube video that Lily Winkleman put together arguing why the frog should be the official state amphibian.

But what she discovered, what the class discovered, was that they were right up against the wire.

The voting was about to happen.

Would enough traction be gained by this YouTube video, which at the time of this article had only been seen by 300 people, which, by the way, is still a lot.

Would it be enough?

Would they get their plea to the assembly quickly enough for the voting to happen?

She was feeling very nervous and excited, but they only had three days to get the word out.

So

Irene Mana, Lily's fourth-grade teacher at State Street Intermediate School in

Skinetales?

Skinitelis

nope absolutely not where

S-K-N-E-A-T-E-L-E-S I've never heard of this town scan it's not Skinetales I don't know I don't yeah I don't know either sk a n e a t e l e s skan eatelies

anyway that can't be right or maybe you can they were working very hard to advocate to have frogs become the state amphibian officially lily was saying I'm feeling really anxious and excited.

I really want to get it passed before then.

Unfortunately, it did not get passed.

We were hoping that there would be another round where Lily, feeling not too defeated, will lean hard on the legislation to see if we can get those frogs in.

Well, yeah, that was 2014, and

next year is come and gone.

And by the way, as of this time,

New York does not have an official state amphibian.

They never passed the frog.

The job is still open.

Yeah.

At this point, Lily is, I don't know, 39 years old.

Wait, hold on.

I don't know about time.

If anyone is out there listening and is a fourth grader and wants to take up the mantle

and start to get a little bit of traction for the state amphibian to become the frog, I welcome you to do so.

And please let us know at emailplurbusmoto at maximumfund.org.

Yeah, and I might name the salamander.

I don't know, just to give you a little bit of competition.

Wow, okay, but it was the same legislative session that yogurt was named a state snack.

Yeah, somehow that made it through.

Yeah, well, that was because there was no,

I was going to say because there was no debate over that, but in fact, there was debate according to the article that our friend from Kansas sent,

quote, the 50-minute debate was far from smooth.

Nice work, Ben Hooper

of the UPI, Albany, New York, October 16th, 2014.

But it did pass.

It was signed.

It was also suggested as the state snack by some fourth graders.

And it was then Governor Andrew Cuomo,

controversial figure for a lot of reasons, including this one as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, this one is at the top now.

Yeah, exactly.

Signed the yogurt into state snackdom

because I guess,

according to Ben Hooper and the UPI,

yogurt took over from California as the nation's top producer of yogurt in 2012.

And as of 2014, now accounts for almost 16% of yogurt production in the United States.

So, all right, yogurt isn't.

Big yogurt.

Sounds like big yogurt, how to say.

And there was no big frog.

Yeah, no, well, I mean, obviously there's a huge dairy industry in upstate New York, and all the things that we might call a state snack,

the bagel, the dirty water hot dog, the soft pretzel, those are all New York City snacks.

No surprise at all that upstate asserted itself.

But I would have said the wedge sandwich.

Look it up.

But let's move on.

Great.

Well, we do have a shout out about a cryptid

from one of the states we already covered.

You might remember from our wonderful Max Fun Drive episode about

some, but certainly not all of the cryptids of the U.S.

states, Commonwealths, and territories.

Cryptids, of course, being Bigfoots and other unverified animals that some people call monsters, that I call skunk apes and mothmans and Dover demons or whatever they are out there.

We invited people to please, and we plan to make it a feature of season two, to always talk about a cryptid of the state.

And Caleb R.

writes in with this letter, Janet.

After hearing your recent episode about state cryptids, I wanted to write to you about a popular cryptid that I learned about, and I love this, from an Airbnb two years ago in Perry, New York.

This is why I love Airbnb.

The Silver Lake Serpent, which was first spotted by local fishermen one night in 1855, was described as a massive, dinosaur-like, scaly shape that disappeared into the water after it had been spotted.

Word spread quickly, and hundreds of people flooded to town to search for this mysterious creature.

Nothing was seen of the monster for two years, and then tragedy struck.

A fire burned down the hotel of one Artemis B.

Walker.

Among the wreckage was found the charred remains of a wire-framed sea serpent.

Walker admitted that he had created the myth to successfully drum up tourism.

The sea serpent is still remembered in festivals and parades to this day.

And

we received a very helpful link to the Silver Lake Estate website where we hear more, where you can read more about the Silver Lake sea serpent.

It's a great illustration of it.

The rare confirmed hoax

in the cryptozoology community.

And yet, though it was not real,

I still believe that the Silver Lake Serpent should be and will be the New York State amphibian.

Sorry, fourth graders.

Wow.

I'm going to put all of my Excelsior energy behind that.

Hey, we're going to take a break.

And when we come back, we're going to announce the states and commonwealths and maybe territories and maybe districts that we are covering in season two.

So it's gonna be very exciting.

So stick around and we'll have more letters about more states and commonwealths as well when ePluribus Moto returns.

All right, we're back with our aforementioned promise of an exciting announcement.

Yes, here they are, the states we are visiting for ePluribus Model Season 2.

They've been decided and you played a big part in what we're covering.

Again, we want to thank the ton of folks who wrote in to recommend what states and more we should talk about.

And we agreed.

Look, we will cover all of them.

And, you know, I'm talking about Guam.

But...

We're going to break it up into seasons because it's just more logistically reasonable to do it that way.

And we did invite you to suggest your states that you wanted to hear covered, whether you lived there or not.

And you really responded.

And here are the ones that we have chosen based on your recommendations.

I will read one, and then you will read the next one, and I will read the next one, and so forth, until we get to the end.

You ready?

I'm so ready.

Here we go.

The first state is Maryland.

Followed by Pennsylvania.

A Commonwealth known as Pennsylvania, followed by a state known as Wisconsin.

Followed by a, huh?

Known as Iowa?

Is it a Commonwealth?

No, it's a state.

It's a very new state known as Iowa.

Great.

Home of the Englert Theater in Iowa City.

One of my favorite most Muppet showy theaters I've ever played in.

Then Minnesota, home of another wonderful theater, the Fitzgerald Theater in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and so many more things, including up to 10,000 lakes.

Next, we've talked about its beautiful flag, New Mexico.

We're going to talk about its beautiful everything yes indeed in new mexico the land of enchantment we'll also be talking thereafter about the wonderful northwest pacific state of oregon can't wait we are also going to cover the state of nevada

i think you mean the state of nevada the state of nevada well go ahead and send those letters to janet at epluribusmotto at maximumfund.org leave me out of it because because we'll then be talking about the bluegrass state of old Kentucky.

And

second drum roll or something.

Our first non-state and non-commonwealth.

Although I will say we probably gave it away when we mentioned the word district earlier.

That's right.

The district of Columbia, Washington, D.C.

And we might even call it the district and future state

of Washington, D.C.

Where, by the way, I may mention we stopped on our road trip between Maine and Savannah, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., what an incredible town.

Cannot wait to talk all about my visit there and perhaps your visits there, Janet, and even more importantly, your the listeners' visits and thoughts and facts about D.C.

there.

Send them all in for Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada, Kentucky, and and D.C.

Send your facts, your interesting things, your cryptids, your snacks, everything you want us to know and talk about at email pluribus motto at maximumfund.org.

Wonderful.

Cannot wait.

Cannot wait to see what you have.

Some of you have already sent us things, as we said.

We will incorporate those as well.

We're very excited, but we're also excited to return to

comments and feedback from the first season states.

We are diving into the great state of Vermont with an email from Paul Caputo.

Would you like to read that, John?

Paul writes, I practically yelled when John, oh, that's me, made reference to a fact I believe was gleaned from an article I, Paul Caputo, wrote about Burlington's minor league baseball team, which you will know, Janet, is called the Vermont Lake Monsters.

Yes, indeed.

Paul says, I wrote that when the team was choosing a new name, they selected Lake Monsters rather than the Champs, which is the name of the monster itself, because they had not actually won a championship for several decades.

I support that decision, and I get it.

I don't believe that the fact is readily available online.

So my sincere wish, says Paul, is that John stumbled across my article, which was entitled, Champing at the Bit,

the story behind the Vermont Lake Monsters while researching this episode of Eploribus Motto.

Here is a link, and Paul shares this at the great website sportslogos.net.

If you have not checked out the website, sportslogos.net.

As I am a fan of sports logos, much more than I am a fan of sports themselves, I've been to sportslogos.net many times, and indeed, I probably did read Paul Caputo's article about the Vermont Lake Monsters all the way back November 22nd, 2014.

And now you can too.

Go over to sportslogos.net and check out all of the fascinating history of sports logos and uniforms.

I really love this stuff.

That's wonderful.

Paul, thank you so much.

Here's one from Cameron.

Yes, indeed.

Our note from Cameron says, I absolutely love the podcast.

And by the way, many of you said lovely things about the podcast.

We did have to truncate some of these emails for length, just for brevity and clarity.

I absolutely love the podcast and adored the Vermont episode.

I just want to say for the record, for all the listeners out there,

Janet cut out all of your wonderful compliments about the podcast against my will.

I was like, no, I want to hear it.

I know.

But

I cannot be humbled, but I can

be flattered.

So what does Cameron from Vermont have to say?

Cameron says, I adored the Vermont episode as a raised but not born Vermonter.

I was horrified to realize, though, that you never mentioned the state song.

It's the best I've heard of all the state songs I know, and I absolutely loved singing it in school as a kid.

It still pops into my head every time I see the state house as there's a line about the golden dome.

Spoiler alert, Cameron, many state capitals have a golden dome too, so I'm glad that this one in Vermont has been captured with love in these green hills.

I will say that Cameron also provided a YouTube link specifically to These Green Hills being sung by eight different Vermont schools.

How charming!

These Green Hills is by Diane Martin and Rita Bouglas.

Let's take a listen.

And to all

our sons and daughters,

may they be strong

and forever free.

let us live

to protect your beauty

and look with pride

on the golden door.

That was absolutely charming.

It's like not only eight school choruses singing together, but I feel like it's the whole school in each case.

Like hundreds and hundreds of Vermont children singing.

All of whom can carry a beautiful tune, if I may say.

Sounded really great.

Now, here's a letter from Darren Z.

Darren writes, all that talk of Ethan Allen, the Vermont militia leader, the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, who, along with the eventual traitor Benedict Arnold, capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.

That was in New York, though.

All that talk of...

Ethan Allen and you missed an excellent weird state thing opportunity.

Vermont's northern border, while looking like an excellent straight line, is almost absurdly crooked.

It's known as the false 45th, a line so badly drawn that it deviates by up to a mile from the intended survey.

I'm particularly fond of the Haskell Free Library, which is bisected despite being almost a quarter mile north of the actual 45th parallel, that being the line of

latitude

that supposedly designates the border between Vermont and Canada.

The Haskell Free Library is a quarter of a mile from the actual 45th, but it actually sits on the border between Vermont

and Canada.

I love that.

East Richford Slide Road crosses the border twice in quick succession, and the cemetery on the west side of the road spans both Vermont and Canada.

And Province Point, which is in the northeastern corner of Vermont, it's an isolated exclave which genuinely is in the United States only because the survey crew was off their mark by quite a bit.

That's great.

I have no idea that the line of northern Vermont was so hazy, but given the amount of marijuana enjoyed up there, I'm not at all surprised.

I would say that of that wonderful email, knowing that the library is bisected is extremely funny to me.

That's just very, that's just great.

Hey, we got Letters Galore, so let's move right along to Illinois.

Let's kick off Illinois with a voicemail from listener chris h

i recently listened to your episode on my home state and while i was thrilled to hear john mention my city of champagne my joy turned a little to consternation when he mentioned our sister city which he pronounced urbana john you are a native of the great commonwealth of massachusetts so this is understandable but if you really want to blend in with the natives you have to get your midwest on and lean into those nasally a's the correct pronunciation is urbana rhymes with the non-snooty pronunciation of banana.

Banana.

Champaign, Urbana is home to the main campus of the University of Illinois and is as wonderful a small city as you could ever hope to live in.

But its citizens will definitely mock you behind your back if they hear you say Urbana.

Thanks to you both from the heartland.

Wonderful.

Well, one of the great things about dealing with people from the Midwest is that they will never mock you to your face.

That's right.

They only be nice to you, and then they will go back and say, can you believe that he says urbana the way i guess he thinks i say banana

that's huge highlight of that voicemail for me chris huge highlight i would love a banana split please let's call the whole thing off and i do apologize uh urbana all the way here's a letter from matthew t the following is an excerpt from a book that i matthew t am writing Love this?

That you might find interesting as it pertains to your segment on Illinoisian food.

I'm saying it wrong, right?

Oh, no, you're definitely saying it wrong.

When I was supposed to say Illinoian, is that what?

Yeah, well, I find that to be a little uncomfortable.

Illinoisian.

Homegrown.

All right, here's the quote from this book.

Matthew, by the way,

I appreciate your humility, Matthew.

You didn't even tell me the title of this book that you're writing, and I'm very interested in reading it.

So get back to us with the title so we can tell everyone else, because this is the kind of book I like to read.

Quote, even a partial list of the food that debuted at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair is astounding.

Wrigley's chewing gum, cream of wheat, shredded wheat, Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Hershey's Chocolate Cracker Jack, Brownies, Chili, huh?

I'm not sure about that.

And yes, as it turns out, hot dogs.

That means the week before the fair started, no one had ever heard of a hot dog, and no one had a clue what chili was, and then, voila, the world suddenly had everything it needed for a chili dog.

Incredible.

End quote.

Great, great passage from a book that I cannot wait to read.

I really want to see your sources.

That the World's Fair was the invention of chili.

I maybe, I don't know.

I don't know.

It could be.

But I have heard at least, you know, it's anecdotal.

But perhaps Matthew T has sourced this, that the hot dog was introduced at the Chicago's World Fair, the Frankfurter sausage, and that it was served with white gloves because they hadn't thought of a bun yet.

You would be given white gloves to stroll around and eat your dog.

And that's just another reason why a hot dog is not a sandwich.

That unique history.

How about that?

Talk about white glove service.

Eat your chili with your bananas, with your white gloves.

I think Anthony has a letter about another, often counterpart to the hot dog, the hamburger, right?

Yes, indeed.

Anthony, this is a bit of a longer email, so we're going to read part of it.

But Anthony also did a great job of answering our quiz.

If you go all the way back to our Illinois episode, you may remember you asked me to guess what towns might have the nicknames that they had.

And Anthony went through.

It was a good game.

We should have a game.

Yeah, that was very fun.

We can still do it in season two.

Don't you even worry about it.

But Anthony gave great answers to the quiz, and he says, back to the EIU area.

That stands for Eastern Illinois University.

Ah, thank you.

Let's go back to the old EIU area.

Where Anthony wants to say the bagel capital of the world is Mattoon.

Mattoon, Illinois claims to be the bagel capital of the world.

He also mentioned and answered correctly that the home of Superman is Metropolis, Illinois.

That the home of the white squirrel is Olney, Illinois.

Those were all answers to the quiz.

Yeah.

And going back to Mattoon, what does Anthony have to say?

He says there's a place called the Burger King.

Not Burger King, but the or the Burger King.

This place actually came.

Oh, that's a really snooty pronunciation there.

The Burger King.

The Burger King.

The Burger King.

This place actually came before the franchise.

Surprise, surprise, when the franchise was created, there was a lawsuit that basically stated that the franchise cannot operate or advertise Burger King within a 20-mile radius.

Interesting little fact.

Very interesting little fact, Anthony.

And I will say, I don't know about you, but I had the expectation that the little guy would lose out in a lawsuit with Burger King.

It makes me very happy to know that the original the

or the Burger King was honored and was able to operate safely without too much infringement within that 20 mile radius.

Hmm.

This is like Westeros up in there.

There are two kings.

I am the Burger King.

No, I am Burger King.

Jason N wrote to say, I was equal parts relieved and disappointed that your research on Illinois, where I was born and raised, did not unearth its mercifully short-lived tourism slogan from the 80s,

which slogan was, Illinois, you put me in a happy state.

Wow.

Homegrown.

As a member of the Illinois juvenocracy in the 80s, I can assure you that we fourth graders were not consulted on this.

it appears that most of the evidence of this abomination has been purged from the internet but its jingle still lives on youtube i'm going to take a quick listen oh for sure me too

illinois

yeah you're right jason and that's terrible good riddance

so say we all we also heard from chris h and chuck and many other illinoians too many to count at the moment but we do have a letter from eliza b do you want to read this one sure she says hi i've lived in Chicago for nearly 20 years now, and I wanted to write in because I feel that you've left out a very important sandwich from your discussion of sandwiches originating in Illinois.

Behold, the Hibarito.

Hibarrito.

It was invented at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Chicago, and there are plenty of other places that make them too, especially in and around the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The bread is yum,

flattened and fried plantains.

It's very greasy and so delicious.

Next time you're in Chicago, please try a hibarito.

I have some very bad news for everyone, Eliza, which is that I was just in Chicago and I was not able to immediately find one near where I was.

I was not in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, but I love a plantain.

I love Puerto Rican food and I am dedicating myself to make it happen the next time I'm there.

This cannot go a moment longer.

Delicious.

Flat green.

Fried green plantains.

Instead of bread, aioli or garlic-flavored mayonnaise, and a filling consisting of meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, sometimes onion, crushed garlic.

You could have it with steak, you could have it with chicken, pork, you'd probably have a vegetarian version of it.

This was introduced in 1996 in the Humboldt Park neighborhood at a restaurant called Borinquen.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

I apologize.

It was created by Juan Peter Figueroa.

And it's spread throughout Chicago.

So I'm sorry that I missed that one.

I can't wait to get back to Illinois and try it.

I am very, very into sandwich recommendations from your states.

So remember to send those in to email pluribus moto at maximumfund.org.

But let us move on to Tennessee.

Our final state that we received feedback about, we got lots of wonderful emails from those of you in Tennessee.

We'll start with something from Trevor K.

Trevor is, and if you're noticing a trend, a librarian.

And we had other emails from librarians that we didn't get a chance to include in this episode.

I don't think it's a coincidence.

I feel that our beloved librarians are tasked with keeping information, not just about the world writ large, but also the places that they call home.

I thank you for your service.

I'm giving you a loving library salute right now.

Trevor says, I am a librarian here in the consolidated metropolitan area of Nashville and Davidson County in the Grand Division of Middle Tennessee in the great state of Tennessee.

The musical Roy, you mentioned when you listed Tennessee, was not Orbison, a a Texan, but Acuff.

Roy Acuff, the king of country music, was one of the biggest stars the Grand Ole Opry ever produced.

He is credited with shifting country music from its original big band ho-down style to its current focus on individual singer-songwriters.

And I will add, Trevor, this was a much longer email with a bunch of great information.

I'm sorry that we had to cut it down a little bit, but I wanted to make sure to include...

Trevor Bristoling a little at Hodgman, mentioning of Jack White, bringing other types of music to Nashville.

Country music is the cash cow and the tourist draw, but the city has always always been home to a very wide range of musical styles, which I will say, Trevor, not to push back, but just a little to push back.

We did say that it was home to many other things.

And I don't think that John really thinks that Jack White is responsible.

But anyway, I honestly have no memory of saying that Jack White brought other types of music to Nashville.

I would rarely credit Jack White with anything.

I'm nothing against him.

It's just, it's not like I'm saying, yeah, Jack White really brought something to Nashville.

That sounds out of character for me, but sometimes I talk fast and I don't know what I'm saying.

And I will say I'm glad that it happened because it gives us a chance to read this email from Trevor and give a shout out to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, one of the world's most acclaimed gospel choirs and the origin of the city's nickname, Music City.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, I believe that's right.

We also have an acclaimed symphony orchestra, a thriving jazz scene, and plenty of underground and DIY punk, metal, EDM offerings, all of which, again, as I'm sure John knows, existed long before Jack White.

I also happen to know that Nashville is the current home of Sean Nelson, one of the great indie rock songsmiths and crooners of our time.

You might know him from being the lead singer of Harvey Danger, and he's an incredible talent and a good friend of mine, and he's just but a part of the constellation of incredibly diverse musical styles that make Nashville music city.

I am, though I don't remember praising Jack White in any way, I do.

And talking about an over-correction.

Five Nation Army is a really cool song, but I'm just saying I get it.

I apologize, Trevor.

I'm sorry that I misrepresented you in Music City, and I'm really sorry that I've never visited Music City, and I need to get there as soon as possible.

So maybe I'll see you then.

Yeah.

And Trevor, you spelled my name wrong.

It's H-O-D-G-M-A-N, no, E.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.

Oh, I bristled.

I bristled too.

I bristled a little.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

We also have this wonderful letter from Nolan H.

of Tennessee, who I guess also is a little bristly with old Hodgman.

Just wanted to mention something.

John, spelled it right, J-O-H-N, John said that Jack Daniels is the only company making Tennessee whiskey, which is incorrect.

I believe this was true at one time, but more distillers have entered the category in recent years.

Outside of Jack Daniels, George Dickell is probably the biggest and most widely available brand nationally.

It was a historic distillery that had stopped producing, but is now back.

All right, I apologize, Nolan H., I shall never forget the Dickel.

Nolan continues, as a resident of Nashville, I see numerous smaller brands of Tennessee whiskey locally, though I don't know how widely they're distributed.

Of particular note, I want to highlight the brand, which is called Uncle Nearest,

N-E-A-R-E-S-T.

Very cool name.

It is an African-American owned brand and named for an early distiller who was a former enslaved person.

So that's cool.

Yeah, thank you so much for writing in, Nolan.

Again, I like that even our corrections end up facilitating very cool tidbits.

That's exactly what we're looking for.

I love being corrected because I only learn more things.

And I'm looking up Uncle Nearest.

It is a premium whiskey, a brand of Tennessee whiskey that uncles Nathan Nearest Green, the first black master distiller on record.

That is super cool.

I can't wait to sip some of this charcoal-filtered

corn mash whiskey that is made in Tennessee.

And that's what makes a Tennessee whiskey, is that charcoal filtering.

And if I said that wrong, bristle at me at emailplurbasmotto at maximumfun.org.

I say don't assume a bristle unless someone says a bristle.

Trevor, I accept and applaud your bristle.

I have great power to bristle.

That brings us to our final email of the episode from Asher.

This was a much longer email, Asher.

I did shorten it for brevity.

I also want to give a huge shout out to Asher for taking the time to send me separately a video from his yard of an adorable adorable string of raccoons running out from the forest to tangle with his garbage.

And then once he was out there, they scurried away.

And I believe Asher said something like, gotcha, or something like that.

Like, I knew it.

It was extremely cute, very satisfying.

Ash knows that I love raccoons from previous conversations on Eplerbus Mato and possibly elsewhere I talk about them far too much.

But in this case, Ash wanted to draw attention to an alma mater that's a very important institution of Tennessee.

We did not know to give it the recognition in more mainstream media, so thank you so much, Asher, for providing this information.

Fisk University was founded in 1866 as Fisk Free Colored School, one of the earliest historically black colleges and universities in the Deep South.

They are also the alma mater of important historical figures, W.E.B.

Du Bois, Nikki Giovanni, and the late great Representative John Lewis.

It is the founding place of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, and some of the earliest successful sit-ins of the civil rights movement.

Love this information.

Thank you so much for sharing it, Asher.

Thank you for sharing it, Asher, and also for sharing that video of raccoons, which sounded cute to you, sounded terrifying to me.

I would love to take a look at it perhaps on our social media.

Maybe we'll make that available.

But the point is, yes, we're going to miss a lot.

And we really are grateful to you listeners for bristling and correcting us and giving us more information.

I love to be corrected because I only learn more.

And that brings us to the end of this listener mailbag.

Thank you everyone for continuing to send us all of your thoughts, your corrections, your bristles.

Remember to reach out to us at emailpluribusmato at maximumfund.org when we make a mistake or in anticipation of a mistake we might make.

And again, to set mistakes aside for a moment, because so many of you were also incredibly complimentary, sometimes during, before, or after your corrections or bristles, Please let us know if you have a connection to, recommendations for some of those season two states.

And just to reiterate, here are the states we'll be visiting in the upcoming season in no particular order.

Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada.

I really want to say Nevada.

Nevada,

Kentucky, and our first non-state and non-commonwealth, the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.

Nevada, I promise I will start calling you Nevada.

I grew up in Arizona.

I have stood at the four corners actually many more times than just once in my life.

I love you, Nevada, Nevada.

You did it again.

You can't help it.

Look, there are a lot of people who say Nevada.

And I've never even been there.

Well, I have been there.

Look, there are a lot of people who say Nevada, and I bet there are some people who think that that's the right way to say it.

I don't know.

You let us know.

Let us know about your state and Commonwealth and your district and your territory, cryptids, sandwiches, state facts, interesting observations, fun memories, whatever it might be.

And you can send them all into email pluribusmotto at maximumfund.org.

And you're welcome to send voice memos as well.

Or send us a voicemail.

If you've got a memory or a song or a regional accent,

we've tried to make it easy for you.

Just go to speakpipe.com/slash epluribusmato.

That's speakpipe.com slash epluribusmato.

Press that record button, start speaking into that pipe.

We'd love to hear your actual voices.

But as you can imagine,

brevity is the soul of voice memo.

That does it for this episode of E Pluribus Motto.

This show is hosted by myself, Janet Barney, along with John Hodgman.

It's produced by himself, Julian Burrell, and Laura Swisher from Maximum Fun.

We'll be back very soon for the rest of season two.

Until then, remember our motto, homegrown.

is my home.

Insert eight school fulls of children groaning loudly here.

Exactly.

Translate that to Latin if you're a Latin teacher and let me know what it sounds like.

See you next time, everybody.

Bye.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.