Tennessee - Agriculture and Commerce

Oh,

Tennessee Estate, we're talking about today.

I know nothing about it

because I forgot about it.

Janet Varney's taking it away.

Taking it away.

Would that be a glissando or just a mistake?

I

think glissando might be the Italian word for mistake.

But we play it off like it's what we meant to do.

Hi, this is Greg Mattola, director of Confessed Fletch, starring John Hamm.

You are listening to ePleuribus Motto with John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

And for the last time this season, thank you, Greg Mattola, for that introduction.

I'm Janet Varney, and welcome to ePluribus Motto, the podcast all about celebrating the official mottos and symbols of every state in the Union.

Our last stop for season one is Tennessee.

Does it have an amazing, perfectly tailored motto to close us out on a strong note?

Absolutely not.

But it does have a fun shape, Dolly Parton, and it's the home state of my improv buddy Mark Gagliarti, who we'll hear from later in this episode.

So, one last time this season, let's visit the southeast on ePluribus Motto.

Hello, Janet Varney.

John Hodgman, if I'm not mistaken, you are the other host of Epluribus Motto.

Here I am.

And you are the other host of Epluribus Motto, the podcast that we are recording right now for your pleasure, where we discuss all of the state and Commonwealth mottos, plus state birds, songs, mammals, reptiles,

soils.

State soils even.

It's been a minute since we had a good old-fashioned state soil.

And I may have to let you down today.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Are you mean to tell me that the state we're talking about today may not have a state soil?

I don't think it has a state soil.

This is one of those states that, to my mind, based on some other states we have covered, are a little tidier in what they assign to be a state symbol versus,

hey, you want to stay, hey, we're giving out state symbols today.

Tell us what you want.

Anything.

It could be anything.

We'll make it official.

Can I say this, Tila?

The song that I just sang is not the state song of Tennessee.

We could do a whole episode about the state songs

of Tennessee.

I know one of them quite well.

I used to close my act with it for very

reasons.

That's a tease.

I'll close the show with it.

Okay, good.

I'm very glad that you will.

There may have been restraint exercised in other places.

I'm happy to say, because it deserves it very much, that the state of Tennessee has welcomed in many songs and made them official because it's a very important state for songwriting.

I don't think that's going to surprise anyone based on the little that many or the much that many people may know about.

Well, Tennessee is a state in the United States.

Those are the ones that we're covering, as well as the Commonwealths and territories and districts of the United States.

And it is known for its music because Nashville is in Tennessee.

Is it not?

It certainly is.

Don't try to confuse me by saying, is it not?

That's a court tactic.

And Memphis is also in Tennessee, which is also associated with music, particularly.

And Knoxville is also in Tennessee and is also associated with music.

So, of course, there are multiple state songs, including the state song, which goes a little something

like this.

The official state soil of Tennessee is Dixon.

Dixon.

Dixon stoils are deep, moderately well drained, and formed in a silty mantle limestone residuum.

They have a firm fragile pan that's 18 to 36 inches below the surface.

Surface.

I can't believe that it has a state soil, and I just didn't plan on covering it.

It's not anywhere in my notes.

It's utterly absent.

Dixon soils are used for growing corn and soybeans, and pastures are used for tall fescue and white clover

that was established in 1923

in Dixon County.

Tel

C D D D D D D D D D D B

Tennessee

Dixon.

Great.

That style of music is not what Tennessee is.

No.

What would we call that style of music?

Bad vaudeville pattern, maybe?

Burr, burr, burr, burr, burr, kind of showtune style.

It's not country music, nor is it country pop, nor is it Memphis Blues.

It is.

That's called Dixon Soil honky-tonk.

You wish, it's called Hodge Podgeman.

It's called a Hodge Podgeman

of music.

But before we get too much more, deep into the great state of Tennessee, known for music and much more, we should just quickly revisit that the last state we discussed was Illinois.

And if my memory serves, its motto was state sovereignty, national unity.

Got to put the two together.

Two great tastes that

taste rather bitter in the mouth these days.

I know.

Well, it might be like a peanut butter and chocolate, but the chocolate might be very dark indeed.

It might be just a bitter, beautiful, bitter, 99.9% chocolate, making it taste a Scotch bitter.

And what else do I remember about our little conversation about Illinois?

I feel like I talked maybe too much about Sufian Stevens.

Started as a joke, but might have dwelt on it too long.

We talked about the devil in the white city, H.H.

Holmes himself.

You know what?

I re-listened to that audiobook after we had our conversation about Illinois.

So the White City referred to the World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago's World's Fair from 1893.

And The Devil in the White City is the book by Eric Larson that you're referring to.

Yeah.

I don't know who reads the audiobook.

I wish it were me.

But it's all about H.H.

Holmes, who built a hotel.

designed to attract and house visitors to the Columbian Exposition and then to murder them.

He was arguably our first serial killer.

We could argue.

One could argue.

We could argue.

I'm not going to get into an argument with him because I don't want to be murdered.

I certainly don't want to be murdered.

But I will say this: if you feel that you have a curiosity about the World's Fair in question, but you're not a huge fan of hearing about how people created murder castles, when I revisited the book, I will say, and I'm pleasantly surprised to say,

the vast majority of the book is indeed about the World's Fair.

It is not as much about H.H.

Holmes as one might expect, considering how gruesome and ghastly his story is, and the fact that it does line up perfectly with and was served by all of these strangers coming in, wandering in, looking for work or looking to be entertained at the World's Fair.

It is worth reading or listening to, in the case where you may be driving to and from Arizona for Thanksgiving.

It is worth

just hearing about how extraordinary that World's Fair was.

And of course, that's where the Ferris Wheel was born.

And the Ferris Wheel was like,

and this may be a slight exaggeration, 10 cities.

One city per car.

I mean, there was a lunch counter inside every car of the Ferris wheel.

Really?

Oh, so it was like kind of like the London Eye, if you've ever been in that Ferris wheel.

I know

where the pods themselves are quite spacious.

You stand around in them and mill about.

You can mill about.

You can mill about.

And maybe get a toasted cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup from the lunch counter even.

You really could.

I think it was like...

I couldn't do that.

And again, check my math on this, folks who know.

But I feel like it was like 65 people could fit in each car and there was a lunch counter.

Well, we're just going to say it, and there's no way to find out.

There's no, certainly no way to prove me wrong.

First of all, I love that book, The Devil in the White City.

I love that whole story about the Chicago World's Fair.

I shared with you the surprise that it was more more about the white city than it was about the devil.

And that's why I have ongoing litigation with Eric Larson that is very, very expensive.

Okay.

The best of luck to you.

Thank you.

Interesting pet project.

Thank you.

Very interesting pet project.

I can't speak of it anymore because of the ongoing litigation.

And moreover, that happened in Chicago, Illinois.

We're here to talk about Tennessee.

Why are we talking about that Ferris wheel when we're not talking about the great smoky mountain wheel at the island?

The 200-foot-tall Ferris wheel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

So glad you made that segue.

Thank you.

Now, if only the Segway had been invented in Tennessee, we'd have a series of segues on our hands.

And that would be extraordinary.

I don't know if 200-foot-tall Ferris wheel is very tall,

but it sounds good, and it is in Tennessee, specifically the island in Pigeon Forge.

Your smoky mountain destination to eat, shop, play, and stay in the heart of Pigeon Forge, wherever that might be.

Talk to me about Tennessee.

Does it got a motto or what?

It definitely has a motto.

I would love to just hear, we've now we've talked about a thing you don't know about, and I don't either, about the 200-foot-tall Ferris wheel.

It sounds to me like you haven't been to Pigeon Forge.

I have not been to Pigeon Forge either.

And we've talked about music.

Is that sort of your main association with Tennessee?

Do you associate it with

a great history and legacy in many different types of music?

What else comes up for you when I say Tennessee?

When I hear the words Tennessee, what I think of

are

the time that I visited my friend and perhaps yours,

the author Elizabeth Gilbert, when she was at a writer's residence at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

And she was staying in

a historic haunted rooming house.

Ah, I love a historic haunted rooming house.

And I got a room in the historic haunted rooming house.

I was not haunted, not by any ghosts, anyway.

I'm sorry.

This was many, many years ago, back when Liz was primarily known as a fiction writer and magazine journalist, and not yet the author of Eat, Prey, Love, and Everything That Came After.

And I really enjoyed it.

And then we went on a hike along a river, and it was very pretty.

And I remember we went to a diner and I had my first pimento cheese sandwich.

Aha.

Pimento cheese is a kind of tangy, spicy cheddar cheese salad that is common throughout the South.

Many different recipes, but it is primarily shredded cheddar cheese, often a mix of white and yellow cheddar cheese.

Pimentos, as in what you stuff olives with, cayenne pepper and other spices, and mayonnaise.

And you can have it on a cracker, which is delicious.

And you can have it

on bread that is either toasted or not toasted.

You can have a grilled pimento cheese sandwich.

It's very delicious.

I just remember it.

That's great.

I love it.

I don't know that that's a Tennessee thing in particular, but it was something I definitely ate in Tennessee.

And then my other association with Tennessee is they tried to get me to fly into Memphis once on a book tour.

Worse than that, they tried to get me to stay in Memphis.

on a book tour and I have nothing against Memphis, but I was unhappy with this because my book event was not happening in Memphis.

It was happening in Oxford, Mississippi.

But all of the hotels in Oxford, Mississippi were sold out, it turns out, because of guess what, a football game

at the University of Mississippi, a different state.

Luckily, I called a friend of mine who lived there, and he called a few friends.

And within an hour, I was offered

private bedrooms in private homes, three different private homes, including the mayor of Oxford.

Oh.

And I chose that one to stay in.

And that's a story for our Mississippi episode.

But

I just remember going, I'm not going to Memphis.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not going to.

So

you have a memory

answer song to Graceland by Paul Simon.

I'm not going to Memphis.

Weren't going to Memphis.

I'm glad that one of your stories was about not going to a place that I've asked you about.

And then, of course, my other big association with Tennessee is one of its state songs,

which I will sing at the end of this episode.

My enjoyment of singing that song oftentimes with our mutual friend, Mark Gagliarti, who is

a Tennessean

by upbringing and birth and attended the University of Tennessee and is a volunteer, a Tennessee volunteer.

That is the name of the sportos who play sports for the University of Tennessee.

And it extends far beyond that.

And I'm also, this is how confident I am.

And we'll be hearing from gags later in this episode.

Another tease.

Yeah, it's not just a sports team that is known as a volunteers, but we'll get to that as well.

Only thing I'm going to just do a little tag on the end of your stories is I'm a little disappointed that you didn't choose all three private bedrooms and just move in the middle of the night twice.

Of course I had to say yes to each.

Southern etiquette.

requires you to accept every invitation.

No, that's what I'm saying.

You've heard of a progressive dinner.

This was a progressive slumber.

I should have gone to all of them, but I.

You really should have.

I did.

If you were classy, you would have.

Tennessee absolutely does have a motto.

Gosh, I wonder if we'll stumble upon a state that just doesn't have a motto at all.

Do you want to hear the motto?

You want to talk about the state shape first?

It's not, let me say this.

I'm not putting off the motto because it's going to knock your socks off.

Is the motto, keep your socks on.

It's just Tennessee.

Yes.

How did you, oh, I gave too much away when I brought up the whole socks.

I would rather talk about that.

That's on me.

That's I'd rather talk about the motto than the shape at this point for two reasons.

One, the show is not called Eplerbis Shapo.

It's called Eplerbis Motto.

And two, the shape, I mean, all right, let's just talk about it for a second.

This is like a

fluff, like an extra fluffy pancake.

Okay,

I spent some time on this.

And what I arrived at is that it looks like either a handsaw

or

if you put a little more imagination to it, I feel it looks like an aloof spaniel with a scraggly beard.

Aloof Spaniel, scraggly beard.

Good luck.

Let me take another look at the map.

Why don't you just take another look?

Tennessee, we're talking about the state of Tennessee.

You're saying an aloof spaniel.

Mm-hmm.

I don't see any of this

at all.

Some might say I work too hard to find.

A little life in the shape of a state.

Some might say.

All right.

So

everyone go to their world atlases right now

and thumb through to the page featuring Tennessee.

This is a state that is, with the exception of a little, a little northerly jog, which is curious to me, but is mostly flat on the top, flat top, flat bottom.

And then it's kind of got a wiggly, got a wiggly line, which is the, I guess that's the Mississippi River.

I bet you, yeah, it is.

Its western border is the wiggly line of the Mississippi.

And its eastern border is a wiggly line that cuts through the Great Smoky Mountains.

That's why Pigeon Forge is over there in the east because Pigeon Forge is in the Smoky Mountains.

That's why that Ferris wheel is called the Great Smoky Mountain Wheel.

Right.

By the way, it's not that great.

200 feet.

Sorry.

The World Columbian Exposition Ferris Wheel, 263 feet.

Yeah.

But you're evading my incredible description of this looking like an Oloo Spaniel.

Now, I want you to look at the little on to the west, but just up, kind of near Clarksville, but a little further west, there's a little tiny ear.

It's a little tiny spaniel ear.

That little jog northward that I made a reference to.

That's the ear.

And then that sort of could put the eye around Nashville.

And then if you follow the ear straight out, you're going to end at the northeasternmost point, and that's its nose.

And then it just sort of muzzles down into a beard from there.

It's like a 1960s cartoon of a dog with its little tiny ear, and then it's sort of, you know, got its, it's.

What makes it aloof exactly?

Well, I guess it's not, I guess it's pretty much on a plane.

I, in my mind, I sort of imagined it with its nose up a little bit further than maybe it is.

Because if it's straight across from the ear, then maybe it just smells something interesting and it's kind of a pointer dog.

Yeah, I definitely, it definitely has the vibe of a pointer for me.

But then you've got a scraggly beard.

So it's a, it's not aloof.

It's just smelling something that it's kind of leaning into and is fascinated by.

That is the best I could do to come up with something interesting.

The Smoky Mountains are to the east and to the west, non-mountainous.

It descends to the floodplain of the Mississippi River.

But the Smoky Mountains, I have been in them

and they're gorgeous.

It's a gorgeous part of the world.

Beautiful.

Absolutely.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful.

One of the things that I think

was for me very interesting about Tennessee and sent me into a spiral of, wait a minute, there are multiple states that have different time zones.

That never occurred to me.

It never occurred to me that any of the states would have multiple time zones in them.

I thought a state gets a time zone, and that's that.

And that's that.

And that is not the case.

Tennessee has two.

Part of the reason that, and it's not that, you know, there's many other states that have multiple time zones, but.

They're eastern and central.

It would have to be.

Exactly.

Right.

Because to the east of Tennessee is North Carolina.

Just east of the border, more or less, is Asheville.

And I hope everyone's doing okay there.

North of Tennessee is famously Kentucky.

And famously Kentucky and West Virginia.

Is that West Virginia or just Virginia?

Well, I can't say that.

Virginia.

Virginia.

Yeah, Virginia, right.

And then it is bordered south by Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi.

Yep.

Because in the lower left corner or the southwest corner is Memphis, which is the major airline hub that they tried to get me to fly to and I refused.

A little bit of of Arkansas to the west, a little bit of Missouri to the west.

I mean, that's a lot.

That's a lot of states to be touching.

It's true.

It's touching a lot of states.

It's touching a lot of states.

Is that why it's called the touch-me state?

It's called the touch-me state, right next to the show-me state.

This is not something that I was familiar with.

I'm sure it was touched upon in school when I was learning about the Savoy.

I'm sure, because Tennessee's touching everything.

The idea that it is legally, officially divided into three capital G, capital D grand divisions, Three grand divisions of Tennessee, the East, the Middle, and West Tennessees.

Huh.

Because

their

agriculture was so different, because their topography was so different,

and then culturally different,

it was important from almost the jump for Tennessee to have three distinct grand divisions.

I mean, that's very specific.

I called them grand.

That's a little

self-aggrandizing, if you will.

Well,

all right.

So, obviously, the eastern grand division has to be those grand smoky mountains.

That's right.

And we also have the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And then we have, and then we have other areas that were.

And this becomes very important in this Civil War because

when you start talking about slavery and when you start talking about the products that are supported primarily through slavery, if you are in a mountainous region where almost none of your

where your income is coming from is a plantation, for example, you may be more inclined to side with the Union.

Right.

The Appalachian Mountains did not have economies that were supported by the enslavement of humans.

Correct.

And so it was an area, along with part of Alabama, that was very much opposed to seceding.

It's one of the reasons that Tennessee was the last state to to secede into the Confederacy.

And indeed, there was such pro-Union sentiment during the Civil War and afterwards that there was a conversation happening in East Tennessee.

It was a move, a full-on movement to rejoin, to secede.

So Tennessee secedes from the Union, and then East Tennessee wants to secede from Tennessee

and become the state of Nickojack and to rejoin the Union as its own state.

The state of what a what?

The state of Nickojack, which

if you could imagine that it's a bastardization of an Indian word, you would be right, as usual, as with many things, including the word Tennessee.

N-I-C-K-A-J-A-C-K.

The state of Nickelback?

So glad to say it's not the state of Nickelback.

So pleased to report that it is not the state of Nickelback.

But North Alabama was also wanted to join the state of Nickojack, and they wanted to go back into the Union.

Isn't that interesting?

Go back to Nickojack.

That is very interesting.

I mean, that, of course, is exactly why, if my memory serves, West Virginia was formed too.

Because West Virginia being

a mountainous state, an Appalachian state.

And if I'm saying it the wrong way, write me a letter.

Appalachian, Appalachian, Appalachian is what I hear most commonly.

Same.

That Appalachian mountain range that goes all the way up to Maine.

But of course, West Virginia was like, no,

I don't want to be in this fight.

We'll stay in the Union.

And Virginia, of course, was like, like, well, we do

agree to disagree.

Exactly.

That's why they called it the Civil War.

It was so.

What a misnomer.

I am so concerned.

And this is probably a good time to give a little PSA reminder.

If you're listening to this with young people or family or people who don't know much about the United States, I must strongly, nay, beg you, do not use our podcast as a learning tool.

Use it as an enjoyment tool, A curiosity tool.

Yeah, we're talking about state mottos and weird things.

We're not giving a real history lesson.

But it's an important thing to remember that, of course,

all of these state boundaries and divisions are completely arbitrary, imposed upon a land taken from native peoples who lived there for centuries before Europeans ever arrived.

And then to add insult to injury, we enslaved a bunch of humans from Africa.

That's right.

It's a challenging history, to be sure.

That's right.

Anyway, what's the state motto?

The state motto is

a big.

We'll reveal the state motto right after this break.

Oh!

Claxon, claxon, bulletin board flying in.

There is a bulletin board flying in.

Why, John Hodgman, you sound a bit different than usual.

I mean, so do I because I'm sick.

But is it possible that you're out on tour with your wonderful podcast, Judge John Hodgman?

Janet, I'm in a different time and place than you.

Live from my room at the Doubletree Suites in Portland, Oregon, right across the street from the Lloyd Center.

where Tanya Harding first learned how to ice skate.

But that's Oregon trivia for a later time.

Let's get back to Tennessee specifically, our wonderful local Tennessee small business, which is called Folk All Y'all.

Well, I would make time for a business with that name all day long and twice on Sundays.

Folk All Y'all is a Memphis-based concert series representing world-class singers and songwriters with a focus on amplifying underrepresented voices.

If there's one thing everyone loves about Tennessee, it's the music.

And Folk All Y'all has hosted such great artists as Lizzie No, Leon Timbo, Snaps for Sinners, and dozens more.

It's all volunteer run and community supported.

We do thank Folk All Y'all for their support for this podcast.

Find them at folkally.com and at folkall y'all on all the socials.

That's F-O-L-K-A-L-L-Y-A-L-L dot com.

Go meet the folkers and find out more about their next concert.

Thank you, Folk All Y'all.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother meet 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 and goes rotten.

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

And we're back.

It's eploribus state motto.

Janet Varney is telling me all about Tennessee.

You were going to tell me the state motto?

It's very straightforward.

It's not aspirational.

At least not from my perspective when we're coming off of, you know, we've had mottos like hope and

agriculture and commerce.

That's it.

Boo.

Agriculture and commerce.

That's our motto.

Our motto.

You know, for three grand divisions, they should have had three things in that motto.

I know.

I really felt the air quotes when you said grand.

Really felt the air quotes.

Let's talk about the grand divisions.

One of them has to be the mountains to the east.

Then the middle is what?

What's the other parts?

Is that the agriculture?

The middle is, hang on, let me just open back up my little grand divisions page on your friend of mine, Wikipedia.

One of three, the Grand Divisions, roughly the central portion,

state's capital, contains Nashville, Clarksville,

Murphy's

Prince.

So sorry, everyone.

I feel like it's the first time I've ever seen that word.

That may not be true.

Middle Tennessee, composed of the Highland Rim, completely surrounds the Nashville Basin.

The Cumberland Plateau.

The Cumberland Plateau or Plateau.

The Cumberland Plateau is located in the eastern part of the middle part.

And yes, indeed, commodity crops such as cotton and tobacco were cultivated by settlers.

That's the agriculture part.

And indeed, based on what you're describing here, it looks to me as though the county of Dixon

is located in the central division.

That's the birthplace of Dixon Soil.

Dixon Soil.

I've never been able to do that.

I'm shamed by not knowing about Dixon Soil.

Whatever.

That's fine.

I'm so angry.

And you mentioned Clarksville was in there too.

Mm-hmm.

Now, which train should I take there?

Last one.

Take the last train to Clarksville.

And you know what?

I'm going to do you one better.

I'll meet you at the station.

Oh, thanks.

But I do need you to be there by 4:30 because I've made a reservation.

Don't be slow.

Oh, no, no, no.

Oh, no, no, no.

I'll take the last train.

I was going to take the last train and then take a lift, but I'm glad you're going to.

Thank you very much.

And I can only emphasize this last piece to a certain degree, but

now, is that a state song of Tennessee?

I wish.

I don't think it makes a list.

It was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart,

an American duo of singers-songwriters, well known for songwriting for The Monkeys.

They were born in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Well, Tommy Boyce was.

Bobby Hart was born in Phoenix, Arizona.

Oh!

Which you know as being your home state.

Yeah.

Tommy Boyce died in 1994, age 55, in Nashville, Tennessee.

And as far as I can tell, Bobby Hart is still alive

at the age of 85.

Last trained Clarksville.

Can't guarantee he's going to replace Mark Gagliardi as our guest.

Cannot guarantee that that is going to happen.

Can almost guarantee it won't.

Can nearly guarantee that it won't.

So that's the central.

That's the middle part.

The east, we've already talked about it.

It is entirely located within the Appalachians.

Right.

Very much a union supporter.

And then

the western portion.

I'm going to say that's where the commerce comes in.

Do you know why?

You want to hear my educated guess?

Yes, please.

Because of that old man river, the mighty Mississippi.

Mmm, rich soil, vast floodplain areas.

Yes.

But also the I-95 of its day.

It was just massive amounts of cargo went up and down.

Yes, indeed.

Mississippi.

So maybe that's where the commerce comes in.

So if you're going to go left to right, the motto should be commerce, commerce, agriculture, and

moonshine bootlegging in the mountains.

That's right.

We'll see if we can get that passed.

We all know it's either extremely difficult now because of children or probably still easy because of children to get changes made in the identities of states.

You're referring to the fact that

for many years, eighth-grade classes around this country, including in Massachusetts,

would petition their various state and commonwealth houses to nominate state muffins and other state things.

And the legislatures got really mad about it and they said, all right, here's a new law.

Shut up, kids.

Yeah.

I'm not sure that extends through all the states, but I know it did.

Nowhere in the rule book does it say that a podcast can't nominate a new state song.

God, I just can't.

I mean, check it out, state legislature of Tennessee.

Yeah.

See what you think after we've talked about how many songs there are and see if you feel that we need another one.

But I hear you.

The word Tennessee comes from a Cherokee word, Tenasi.

Not surprisingly.

We went ahead and adopted a word after we took it away from people.

Also, want to acknowledge other Mississippian peoples, including the Muscogee Creek, the Uchi, and the Shawnee, and the Chickasaw.

I'm so sorry.

Tanasi in the Cherokee language, there doesn't seem to be a consensus as to what it translates to.

What the internet is showing me is it might mean beautiful princess, it might mean where the river bends,

and some say that it has no meaning in Cherokee at all.

In fact, it comes from the Uchi people.

But perhaps that is research yet to be done.

In any case, Tennessee was the first state in the nation, and I don't know why this took me by surprise, but it was the first state in the nation to effectively ban the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol in a series of laws passed between 1907 and 1917.

I don't know what I would have said, but I just wouldn't have thought it was Tennessee.

No, I don't.

I was not aware of any major temperance movement in Tennessee, but there you have it.

Yeah.

And it's true that the

Appalachian Mountains, I mean, there was a lot of home distilling going on and bootlegging.

Yeah.

So I presume that that all gained a foothold

during Prohibition or a foothold that even got deeper.

I could have seen it going either way.

I could have seen it going like,

we probably don't have to jump on this bandwagon because we are making wonderful concoctions in our homes and potentially benefiting from the sales of those things.

But no, it was the very first state.

You know, I once heard that once two strangers went up to Rocky Top, Tennessee, looking for a moonshine still.

The strangers never came back from Rocky Top, and some reckon they never will.

That's a little preview of one of the state songs I was singing for with that.

Most assuredly.

Most assuredly.

Let's get back.

Let's, you know what?

Let's get back into music.

We can talk more about Music City, USA, Nashville.

Music City, USA, home of the Grand Ole Opry, which is the longest-running radio show in the country.

It's been broadcasting continuously since 1925.

Dolly Parton debuted on the Grand Old Opry.

Yeah.

At the age of 14.

Yes.

Introduced by Johnny Cash.

Popular music, country, blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel, home to Beale Street, Elvis, Cash, Roy.

Who did I mean by Roy?

Who do you mean by Roy?

Roy Orbison?

Rob Roy?

I guess so.

Yeah, I confused myself by writing Cash for Johnny Cash by his last name, but then writing Roy as if I knew him personally for Roy Orbison.

Here I am, a dope.

I did not know that Dolly Parton is indeed from Pittman Center, Tennessee.

That was her first

place.

Yes.

Up in the real, I feel like a real old dope.

Up in the kind of magical, tiny mountain town

that she's very proud of and speaks of often.

And have you ever been to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee?

I've never been.

Not yet.

I promise and vow it's on my list, and I will go to Dollywood.

It is a very important goal for me that I just haven't been able to realize yet.

Dollywood was previously known as Rebel Railroad, then Gold Rush Junction, then Gold Rush until 1976, then Silver Dollar City until 1985,

which is when Dolly Parton invaded and conquered

with charm

and created Dollywood.

Now, when you were reading about that Ferris wheel, when you said Pigeon Forge, I wanted to say at the time, okay, so it's in Dollywood.

But the fact that it didn't cite itself as being in Dollywood stopped me from doing so.

And I,

it's not there.

It's in a different amusement park called the Island in Pigeon Forge.

I don't know about that.

And Pigeon Forge itself is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee.

Island in Pigeon Forge, that's not Dollywood.

But it's like the song that she sings with someone who I forget who it is.

Ride along with me on a

side.

Oh, don't write me and don't at me.

I got it.

I remember.

It is not really big.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

One-third the size of one in Dubai.

Uh-uh.

Uh-huh.

We've talked about other attractions, of course, Dollywood being a huge one, but the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we've both been and seen how gorgeous it is.

Memphis has the National Civil Rights Museum.

It has Graceland.

We mentioned that.

I wanted to point out that there is a dead hockey team from Tennessee.

What?

I love extinct hockey.

The thing about dead hockey teams, if people don't know, I do not enjoy sports.

I just don't, I can't.

It just makes me anxious to watch.

And I do not feel part of that world, but I do love one sport, and that is hockey specifically.

Hockey teams that don't play anymore.

And there are a lot of them because hockey is, you know, a troubled sport.

It's hard to get Americans to like hockey.

Many people have tried.

Many hockey teams have failed.

Many logos and designs have been made for uniforms that now exist solely as remnants of a failed dream.

That is the kind of sport I care about.

A sport that is sad and which all of the outcomes are known.

And they're all sad, pretty much.

There might be more than one, actually.

I'm sure.

I mean,

when you think of Tennessee, what's the first thing you think of?

Hockey?

No.

Sadly, no.

Sadly, no.

Now, however, we do have the Nashville Predators and it's grown and it's actually very popular.

But that did take a while, starting in the mid-60s.

It took a while for it to take.

And the Knoxville Cherokees did not work out.

The Knoxville Cherokees?

Never heard of them.

The Memphis River Kings?

And that is one word, but the K is capitalized.

The Memphis River Kings.

The Nashville Knights?

They really tried to make a lot of hockey happen.

The Nashville Ice Flyers and Knight slash Nighthawks.

There was a Nighthawks?

Yeah.

Interesting.

There was in New Haven, Connecticut, there was the New Nahaven Nighthawks.

Yeah.

There were the Mississippi River Kings, it says here.

Oh, yes, but then they changed.

they're a minor league ice hockey team.

They were a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League on July 2nd, 2007, after 15 seasons as the Memphis River Kings.

They changed to the Mississippi River Kings.

And

now they're done.

They ended in 2018.

But we have the Predators.

We have

the NFL there.

We have the NBA there.

We have

Major League Soccer in Tennessee.

Well, no, it's a very major state now.

Yes, very much so.

Let me ask you this question.

I'll answer it.

Hodgman, do you like to drive?

You know what, Janet?

I love to drive.

I really do.

Do you like to drive really fast?

No.

Sure, it's exciting, but

I try to keep it 10 above the speed limit, typically.

Then I guess you're not the right person to compete on the Bristol Motor Speedway.

for the NASCAR Cup Series two weekends a year.

No.

But someone is.

In fact, many many people are the right person.

I thought you were going to tell me that there was no speed limit in Tennessee.

No, they saved the speed for NASCAR.

Don't you worry.

Are you dying to find out what the seal looks like?

Because I realize we coasted right past the official state seal.

It's three stars in a circle, right?

The three stars in the circle is the flag.

Oh, excuse me.

Which represents the three Grand Divisions.

Jeez, they are really,

really high.

It's a big deal.

The Grand Divisions are a big enough deal that they are pretty much all the flag is about.

Now,

the seal, you'll be excited to learn,

represents both agriculture and commerce.

Go on.

There is a Roman numeral 16 because it is the 16th state to enter the United States.

That's at the very tippy-toppy.

Then you have some fairly cute pictures.

We got images of a plow, a bundle of wheat, a cotton plant, word agriculture, a little bit tainted by its history, but but that's what's representing agriculture.

And then the lower half of the seal originally displayed a boat and boatman with the word commerce underneath.

Not dissimilar to how you were describing your sense of what commerce would be like or what

the different grand divisions would represent.

Here you have the, it was changed to a flat-bottomed riverboat without the boatman.

I don't know why they decided, like, we got to get rid of that boatman.

Got to get rid of the human figures.

Yeah, they got rid of the human figure.

So that's the boat is representing that particular part of commerce.

Surrounding the images in the original design were the words,

the great seal of the state of Tennessee.

I guess they decided they didn't need to say that the seal was a seal on the seal.

But again, they are very literal and

they're very direct and very straightforward.

Agriculture and commerce, period.

That boat surely is a a Mississippi Riverboat.

It's got to be.

It is.

Flat bottom Mississippi Riverboat.

Flat bottom boat, you make the commerce of Tennessee go round.

It's another famous Tennessee state song.

I am positive that we have, this is at least the second time that we've brought the band queen in for a

quick little riff on a song, and that makes me very proud.

Many, many songs in Venice.

Very proud.

Very proud.

Okay, so

we have our Aggie represented by plow bundle wheat cotton plant.

We have our commerce represented by a riverboat.

You said it.

The state flag, which was adopted in 1905, is a solid red with a navy circle with three white stars in the center.

Three white stars on a field of blue.

God keep them strong and ever true.

It is with pride and love that we salute the flag of Tennessee.

The first official salute written by Lucy Steele Harrison adopted in 1981.

And then it was replaced by a new one.

Miss John Bostick blew Lucy Steele Harrison out of the muddy water of the mighty Mississippi, presenting this one, this salute in 1987 that got adopted instead.

Flag of Tennessee, I salute thee.

To thee I pledge my allegiance with my affection, my service, and my life.

I got to say, Miss John Bostick's salute is thumbs down.

Lucy Steele Harrison is much better.

I agree.

You mentioned the volunteers and our mutual friend being a volunteer because of where he went to school, but the nickname of the state of Tennessee is in fact the volunteer state, stemming from military service dating back to the War of 1812.

How about that?

So when we're talking about volunteering, in this case, certainly as far as its origin for that nickname, we are talking about the military, service in the military, and much, much volunteering to join up from Tennessee.

To fight in the War of 1812.

That's, of course, when the

first attack on the Capitol by the British in 1812.

Well, speaking of volunteers in a different context, our mutual friend Mark Gagliarti volunteered to be on this podcast.

Of course, Max Fun fans know him from the fabulous podcast, We Got This.

And now you get to hear him discuss his home state of Tennessee.

Gag.

Well, I do declare, welcome to my porch.

Oh, no, you have brought me right into the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Have some tea right here underneath the,

what is it?

It's the Spanish moss.

That's what I love about it.

Spanish moss.

Now, I do hope it's sweet tea.

Can I have a tea?

Oh, it's sweet.

I do declare, would we have anything but the sweetest

teas?

You simply wouldn't.

Made in the sunshine, some would say

somewhat dangerously with all the pathogens out there floating around.

That's all right.

We just put a pitcher out on the table outside until it becomes tea.

This got real so fast.

Yeah.

Hi, Janet Varney.

Hi, gags.

Well, I'm sure regular listeners to Maximum Fund who have heard you on various and sundry podcasts have already remarked to themselves how beautifully thick and lush your Tennessee accent is.

So I'm sure many people may not know that you're from Tennessee.

Tell us where you're from.

Tell us about where you grew up.

I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee.

And then when I was a toddler, we moved for just under two years to Florida, to the panhandle of Florida for my dad's work.

And then we came back up to Tennessee when I was three.

So I was really, really, I don't remember my Florida time barely at all.

What I remember is growing up in Knoxville,

we were in the suburbs in a little suburb outside Knoxville called Farragut, Tennessee.

First, we lived in a neighborhood called Concord Hills.

Everything is subdivisions there.

In Knoxville, it's all,

at least where I grew up, it was always always like, this is a parcel that has been subdivided.

So we lived in Concord Hills when I was a little kid, Farragut Crossing when I was in high school, but both, you know, within a couple of miles of each other on the west side of Knoxville.

We were right across the street in Concord Hills from a very old cemetery that famously had the gravestone of Archibald Roan, the second governor.

of the great state of Texas.

Wow.

Yeah.

And if I may, a cemetery can't get much more subdivided than that.

Nope.

That is, yep.

Tiny little plots for one person each.

I mean, I guess maybe like cross sections in a lab would be subdividing further.

I stand corrected.

But

that's about as subdivided as you get.

I mean, you came in hot with some references to Severe County, to

this, the second, what is his name, Archibald?

The second?

Archibald Roan, second governor of Tennessee.

Second governor.

So this would lead me to believe that maybe you're more up on Tennessee state symbols and other moments of Tennessee pride in terms of like what they grow or who lives there animal-wise.

Do you feel like you have a sense of that?

Do you are you connected?

Because I will say,

if someone had just sat down and grilled me on Arizona, I think I would do...

fair to middling on what I remember from stuff when I was a kid.

How do you feel about Tennessee state symbols?

How confident are you?

I feel pretty good.

It's also stuff from when I was a kid.

Like I took Tennessee history in the seventh grade, I think was the year we took that or sixth grade.

And so, and I've always been a big history fan.

So I love the stories and learning about Tennessee that way.

We did the poster board where you had to draw like the state tree and little images of the state,

all those, those different moments of the state.

But I knew, I haven't lived there since I was 17 or 18.

So it was 18 because I graduated high school and left.

But I think I know a few of them.

Okay.

I feel like there's a quiz coming.

Do you happen to know the state slogan?

Now, this is different from the motto, mind you.

The only one I remember is the one from when the Simpsons drive to Knoxville.

And when they pass by the Big Tennessee sign on the freeway, it says, Tennessean is Tennebilevin.

So in my mind, that is what the state motto of Tennessee or what the state slogan is.

I have no idea what the state slogan of Tennessee is.

Gotcha.

It is

Tennessee, America at its best.

Oh,

America at its best.

You know what?

That deserves, you need a refill on this tea here.

That deserves a refill of this here tea.

Well, thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

If you can, would you mind looking up on your computer?

like the state shape like if you just look you know yeah oh i know the state shape pretty well.

Okay, do you, I,

I gave Hodgman a couple of thoughts about what I thought it looked like.

Um, and I, do you, when you look at it, and sometimes you get, we kind of have to use our imaginations when we're doing this podcast to think of interesting things that states look like because a lot of them are just sort of squares and rectangles.

Sure, but um, do you have an image that you could compare the state outline to?

Yes, um, I would say it looks like

it looks like it looks like the front half of the Titanic.

Ooh, that's good.

It looks like half a ship that's sailing,

I don't know, east or west, but to the right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But it, but it's, it looks like half of one.

That would be okay.

I like that.

Yeah.

I, I,

we came, we said it kind of looked like a hand saw, which was sort of boring.

And then I said, if you really are imaginative, it kind of looks like an aloof spaniel with a scraggly beard.

Like it's sort of, and then I think I think he's, and then Hodgman was like, It's, I don't know how aloof it looks.

And I was like, I don't know.

It kind of seemed like its face was sort of tilted up in a slightly snooty manner.

Yeah, it is a, there is a little, it's not just a straight-up parallelogram.

There is that little slight tilt up to it.

You know what it looks like to me?

It looks like it looks like a rectangular state that is telling another state he went that away adamantly.

What a tattletale.

Right?

Yeah.

Tennessee is such a telly.

He's over there.

Perfect.

Yeah.

In North Carolina.

Great.

Do you know what the state motto is?

Man, I am failing this.

Listen, no, no.

No one is going to judge you for not knowing this.

I got to be honest with you.

Is it in Latin?

It's a snore.

No.

And it's not aspirational.

Like, it's just like, well, wow.

I mean, here it comes.

Okay.

You ready?

Yeah.

Agriculture and commerce.

Doesn't it deserve better than that?

You know what?

That rings a bell.

And yeah, it does deserve better than that.

Isn't every municipal line drawn place on earth a combination of agriculture and commerce?

Yes.

That's literally the point of delineating them.

Well, they all need a little bit of agriculture and commerce.

Agriculture and commerce.

Agriculture and commerce.

Well, what does Tennessee have that other states don't have that we can make our motto?

Yeah.

Agriculture and commerce.

I know.

I know.

Do you have a suggestion?

Again, I'm really putting this

improviser to improviser on the spot.

Yeah.

Do you, from, again, you can be speaking from your heart, you can be speaking from your own experience or what you're fond of about Tennessee.

Do you have a suggestion for a better motto for the state of Tennessee?

Yes.

Considering that we have Dolly Parton in the East,

Elvis Presley, and some great musicians in the West, Elvis Presley historically, and other great musicians now in the West, the entire Nashville scene with Jack White moving in and bringing a lot of music that's not country, I would like Tennessee to change its motto or slogan to America's Mixtape.

Ooh, I love it.

I think that's what Tennessee is.

I love it.

America's Mixtape.

Oof, you heard it here, everybody.

That's right.

This is but a taste of the sweet tea that is my conversation with gags.

If you want to hear the whole thing, just go become a max fun member at maximumfun.org/slash join.

You can hear from all the guests we've hosted so far for as little as $5 a month to help keep the show going.

You know, in fact, let's take a break so you can go do just that.

ePluribus Motto will be back after this.

Attention, this is John Hodgman literally phoning it in again from a remote location because, Claxon, we have some listener mail.

Before we wrap up, as we look forward to future episodes, possibly including a listener feedback and stuff we missed or got horribly wrong episode, we think we should shout out a couple of folks who saw fit to write in and make us aware of our wrongness.

Yes, my friend, that is a great idea.

First of all, we got so many comments about our Illinois episode.

We could do a whole other episode on Illinois.

But a few folks mentioned one thing in particular, so we're just going to represent them here with Faith's comment.

Also, every time y'all pronounced the silent S in Illinois or Illinoian, it hurt my soul.

I must assume this was an intentional attack, and I salute it with gritted teeth.

I wish I could say it was an intentional attack.

Faith, that would make us cool, if diabolical.

I think it was just an oversight.

But I don't know.

Clay wrote to say, quote, I would like like to hear the official name for residents of each state.

Granted, some would be obvious and boring, but some are more unique and surprising, like Sooners, right?

Sooners is the name for

Oklahoma's.

Hoosiers is the name for Indianans.

That's me talking, not Clay.

Clay goes on to say, for example, when I was a kid, we thought it was hilarious when we found out that people from Michigan are called Michiganders, end quote.

Well, Clay, I bet you already know that today's state might fall more on the the predictable side for you, since the demonym for the people of Tennessee is Tennesseans.

But we will keep our eyes peeled for the juicy ones for you.

And remember, Connecticutians are nutmegers.

Yes, indeed.

And Vanessa says, I'm really enjoying the new show.

I'm a huge travel and trivia nerd, and this is really hitting all my sweet spots.

One note about tribal acknowledgements.

I work closely with tribal communities in my current work, and I have heard frustration from tribal members that sometimes they feel they are only acknowledged as a thing of the past, a historic footnote, rather than active present communities.

I do hope that you will both acknowledge the historical communities that existed pre-European settlement and the current tribal sovereign nations that exist within many state borders.

Thank you again for a great, thoughtful show.

Vanessa, thank you for a great, thoughtful email.

It's a great note, and we'll put it into practice in future episodes.

While Tennessee doesn't have any federally or state-recognized tribes, there are certainly Indigenous folks, of course, dwelling in the state of Tennessee.

And I found the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee to be a really helpful online resource.

State symbols.

Would you like to guess what the state tree is?

The Tennessee pine.

Very good guess.

Very good guess.

Very close.

The tulip poplar.

Not close.

The tulip poplar.

Yeah.

Tulip poplar.

The tulip poplar is a very pretty tree, but I don't care for it.

Do you know why?

Tell me.

It's too poplar.

Everyone likes it.

Eww.

Father of two over here.

Father of two.

Dad jicks.

Father of tulip.

Father of tulip.

It's tulipy and poplar.

Some states recognize that having one flower is not enough.

What they're looking for is a cultivated flower and a wildflower.

And so the state of Tennessee said, let's do something different.

Yeah.

Let's give ourselves the cultivated flower of the iris.

We'll make it purple.

We're going to have the purple iris be our

unofficial yet official cultivated flower.

And then we'll do something so different, it would blow your mind for the wildflower, the purple passion flower.

Purple pash?

The purple pash.

I'm a little upset that they don't have three grand flowers.

That's a good point.

Well, I thought that when I first was, when I first started reading, I thought, oh no, are there going to be state symbols for each?

Are there going to be grand division symbols for each division?

Is it that disparate and separate?

But no, they all could agree, apparently, on the iris and the purple passion flower.

And yes, John Hodgman, it was chosen by school children voting in 1919.

The purple passion flower, it was a one-eyed one-hoarder flying purple passion flower.

As voted for.

A passiflora incarnata, commonly known as Maypop, purple passionflower, true passion flower, wild passion vine, and wild apricot.

I don't know.

There's no apricots here.

It's a pretty flower, though.

It's a pretty flower.

Oh, there is a fruit.

It has to be a flat flower.

I love purple.

How strange.

I'm not sure why purple made it for both.

Like why purple was, I mean, I guess

if it grows in abundance, then, but the cultivated flower is also purple, and that's cultivated.

So I don't know.

The fruit?

The fruit of the purple passion flower?

The state fruit is not of the fruit of the purple passion flower.

I just want you to know.

Yes?

The purple passion flower does have a fruit, the wild apricot.

Do you say apricot or apricot?

I say apricot.

Let's call the whole thing off.

The fleshy fruit, also referred to as a maypop.

This is

the fruit of the purple passionflower, by the way.

Doesn't that sound like a book, like a book from the seven, an erotic adult?

Yeah, like Erica Jong or from the 70s, like the Ruby Fruit Jungle.

Ruby Fruit Jungle.

The fruit of the purple passionflower is how women learned that they could, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

An upscale novel with erotic themes for

set at Storm King.

That's right.

A housewife takes herself on a journey to Storm King, only to find the fruit of the purple passion flower.

An unhappy wife who discovers that her husband has been cheating on her travels to Pigeon Island to ride in the Ferris wheel and contemplate the mysteries of the female orgasm in The Fruit of the Purple Passion Flower.

Subtitle, Eat, Pray, Purple Passion Flower.

Shout out to Elizabeth Guilford.

Hi, Liz.

We got back.

We got back to her.

I'm so glad that you said, let's call the whole thing off, because if you would take yourself back to the true lyrics of that song, you have two options for what the state fruit could be.

One of them is not a fruit, and one of them is.

So you stand a very high chance of guessing the state fruit of Tennessee correctly.

Is it a fruit?

A tomato?

It certainly is, my friend.

I see you say tomato.

First of all,

yes, tomatoes are fruits.

It's absolutely true.

How interesting that the state fruit of Tennessee would be a tomato.

Yeah.

And not the maypop.

Sadly, no.

Sorry, let me just go, before we talk about the tomato, let me just go back to this maypop for a second, the fruit of the purple passion flower.

Fleshy fruit, referred to as a maypop.

Maypop.

Oval, yellowish berry, about the size of a hen's egg.

That's big.

It's green to yellow green.

The pulp is gelatinous and encases the seeds.

Way to sell it.

It is the larval food of a whole bunch of different butterflies.

Hmm.

And it's called the maypop because it may pop when stepped upon.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

I guess that makes sense, like a little kelp thing that if you step on it when you're at the beach, a little pop like that.

Maypop is,

that's a really fun, sort of neo-futuristic kind of the maypop.

Like, yeah, we came up with that in the 1950s, the maypop.

Yeah.

But I'm sure it was much older than that.

Let's get to that tomato, though.

That's all I got for you.

There's no particular variety.

Just a tomato.

How strange.

Well, it only goes back recently to 2003.

Tomatoes were the state's largest fruit crop as of 2003.

Thanks to Granger County and the Ripley area and Lauderdale County.

Who knew?

I didn't.

It's funny because

I'm looking on the official Tennessee government website about the state symbols and I don't see the official state food, which I did see somewhere else.

And I don't think I was on Wikipedia because I usually try to go to the source for state symbols.

Are you talking about hot slaw?

Yes, I certainly am.

Don't sleep on hot slaw.

I just noticed that myself.

Stay help me.

Hot slaw.

Hot slaw.

Designated an official state food of Tennessee in year of our God or whatever, 2024.

Why?

It just happened.

Hot slaw finally made it.

It is so hot slaw off the press that it has not shown up on tn.gov's list of state symbols.

That's how hot off hot slaw off the press it is.

May 18, 2024, dateline, Cleveland, Tennessee.

Attend a barbecue, church potluck, or summer dinner in the small city of Cleveland in eastern Tennessee, and somewhere on the table there will be a dish of hot slaw.

This is Emily Cochrane writing in the New York Times newspaper.

Where I go for all my Tennessee news.

Quoth Emily Cochrane, Cochrane,

who attended the annual hot slaw festival in Cleveland, Tennessee in May of 2024.

Quote, people here slathering on hot dogs, plopping on pulled pork, or simply reach for a heaping spoonful.

The rest of the state, and here we again, we encounter the grand divisions.

This is an eastern Tennessee thing.

It says here, the rest of the state and most of the country does not hot slaw.

What was this dish, the article continues, that had vaulted over moon pies, the hickory smoked barbecue of Memphis, and Nashville's hot chicken, all of which are very famous foodways in Tennessee.

And wonderful.

It's not.

So let me see.

It's all about spice.

A tart smack of mustard followed by the slow burn of jalapeno pepper.

I'm into it.

Brad H.

Benton, whose family has a place in Cleveland hot slaw lore, it says here,

says it's uniquely its own.

And it looks like it's like a yellow relish.

It looks like.

I love mustard.

I like jalapenos.

My favorite mustard is cilantro jalapeno mustard.

I'm on board for the hot slaw.

I've had spicy slaw.

I feel like I've had it in Mexican food for sure.

I recognize that it can be delicious.

I'm also a big sauerkraut fan.

So all signs point to me loving this hot slaw specific to East Tennessee.

One medium-head cabbage, one large yellow onion, one cup jarred pickled.

Hot

jalapeno slices finely chopped.

One and one-quarter cups yellow mustard, one half cup mayonnaise, one teaspoon sugar.

Hot slaw, I like it.

Yeah.

But can we talk for a moment about the other forms of

the other foods

in the Grand Divisions?

I mean, you got hot slaw.

This is incredible, the way the Tennessee settles out this way.

In the east, there is hot slaw.

In the central Grand Division in Nashville is that famous Nashville hot chicken.

And then in the west, in Memphis, there's Memphis-style barbecue.

which very famous.

Very famous.

Which is the dry rub style of barbecue.

If you were to get Memphis-style barbecue ribs, and it's primarily pork ribs,

they would have a dry rub and they would not be sauced.

That's Memphis-style dry rub barbecue.

So, Nashville hot chicken is fried chicken

that then has added to it a hot chicken spice paste,

which which is primarily made of cayenne pepper and lard.

Uh-oh.

I forgot about the lard.

Yeah.

I got the pepper right, but that was a pretty easy guess.

Three grand divisions in famous foodways.

And by the way, according to

tn.gov slash about hyphen tn slash state hyphen symbols dot html,

there is indeed a third flower.

Did you know that?

I didn't.

All I have is the purple and the purple.

You got iris, you got your purple passion flower.

Yeah.

And then you got your Tennessee cone flower.

It's found only

here.

I mean, it's found only in the limestone and cedar glades of middle Tennessee.

It was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the 1960s.

It's the chelacanth of flowers.

It's like a cryptid.

You know what the chelacanth is?

This is weird prehistoric fish that they thought didn't exist anymore and then they found them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's all about.

Sorry, I was looking at the pterotrigonia that's the state fossil.

Yeah, the site that I was on missed entirely the Tennessee coneflower, but you're right, here it is officially

where you may not find hot slot, but where you will find the Tennessee coneflower, right there, tn.gov.

Now, there are a lot of state animals in Tennessee.

There's the Tennessee walking horse, which is a horse that I guess can walk.

Rarely, rarely can horses walk.

This one can.

It's akin to

the West Virginia strolling donkey.

It's got a couple of, it's got three insects naturally, the firefly, aka the lightning bug.

When you were growing up there in

Arizona, did you have

lightning bugs?

Nope.

Had never seen one.

Did not see one until I was a full-grown adult.

Oh.

I was never even in a place where I saw any in the summers.

You must have been scared because that's weird.

to see.

They're weird to see.

They are weird to see, but I had, I had the, I had the mystical relationship to them that someone who who didn't grow up with them might indeed have, which is I had never seen one close up.

And although I had heard anecdotally that they're kind of weird and possibly could be considered ugly looking when you look at them close up, I just understood them to be, like my experience with them was they are in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland.

Right.

Yeah.

That's right.

And that seemed very magical to me.

When you're floating through the Blue Bayou restaurant

and that anatronic old man is picking on a banjo,

they have a bunch of fake fireflies.

I grew up calling them fireflies.

Other people call them lightning bugs.

There is a second state bug.

I mean, what an identity crisis Tennessee has.

The ladybug.

And then the third is the honeybee.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, this grand division thing is making its way into the symbols, but it still has fewer symbols than South Carolina.

I know, but I mean,

truly, Tennessee cannot decide, even within its own, even within specific categories on one thing because it has three distinct geographies and that's arguably three very distinct cultures I mean the Appalachian culture to the east of Tennessee is distinct from

like you know West Virginia is its own planet if you've ever been and I can't wait to talk about West Virginia because that was a real trip when I went through that time but what about any other animals does it have any wild animals as far as I can tell and you can tell me if I'm wrong there's only one official state wild animal

and to me unbeatable.

The raccoon.

The raccoon?

Yeah!

Oh, no.

Don't tell me you like raccoons, even.

No, I love them.

I did not grow up with raccoons, so I never had to deal with, like, well, the raccoons have made a home in our attic, and they poop in the same place, and that's why the entire ceiling of the attic fell through.

And now one of us is covered with raccoon poop.

I didn't have to deal with any of that.

First of all, that's a horrifying story that you just told.

True story for many.

Two things I know from experience.

One, when a raccoon poops in the same place over and over and over again,

that's common behavior for a raccoon.

Tidy.

They're very tidy with their poops, especially when they're pooping on your deck.

They're tidy in their place, so you don't mind pooping on your deck over and over again.

That's called a raccoon latrine.

Yeah.

And you do not want to get near a raccoon latrine.

No.

Because raccoon poop,

95% of them are infested with a parasite.

You can contract through contact with their poop.

And if it gets into your body, it will cause many, many bad symptoms, including dizziness, vertigo, blindness, and death.

So stay away.

I don't know why you would make that the state animal.

Smart, mischievous, cute, becoming as smart as humans, going to take over one day.

I agree.

They're cute.

Oh, I love them.

But again, I've never had to tangle with one, and I've never seen a raccoon latrine.

I'm just so impressed by how smart they are.

And I think it's a very interesting animal because it is an animal that, like other urban animals, which also, by the way, of course, exists comfortably in far less populated by humans areas.

But being a city raccoon, You're just going to get smarter because the city keeps trying to figure out ways to keep you from getting into the trash and stuff.

And it has been proven that raccoons are thus getting smarter.

So we are creating a smarter raccoon by creating puzzles that they then must learn to solve so that they could get what they want, which they inevitably do.

They are amazing animals.

It's impressive.

I've told this story before, and I'll tell it again, right now, in fact.

Please.

One time, my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, and I were sitting down at our table in Brooklyn, New York, playing a game of Scrabble.

We have a sliding door that leads out to a little outside space.

We're on the ground floor of our apartment building, and the screen door was, or the door was slid open.

The screen door was closed because we're enjoying the evening air.

Perhaps some lightning bugs were out there.

I don't know.

I've seen them.

It was a nice night, is the point.

I had hired an old man to plink on the bancho.

By the way, I'm not sure that guy's animatronic.

I think he might just be sitting completely still.

Yeah, it could be.

And I'm about to throw down, you know, an annoying two-letter word that's going to clog up the board and keep us locked in a game of a war of attrition, of Scrabble attrition for another couple of hours.

Like, we're very mean players.

And I hear this

and I turn around and I see a raccoon's little hand sliding open the screen door.

And then I see a raccoon's big old face poking in, looking at us.

And then the raccoon said to us in English, you know I could kill you at any time.

Yeah.

And then it left and it did not close the door.

Yeah.

Gotta love them.

But don't, I mean, listen, I know you're gonna, some of you are gonna write me and say I couldn't be more wrong, but I appreciate that you respect what I respect about them.

I fear what you fear about them.

Let's call the whole thing off.

Raccoon Raccoon.

Raccoon Raccoon.

Let's call the whole thing off.

Yeah.

Sure.

We got to get quickly into the songs, and then I fear that will be the end of the episode.

But I did neglect to mention the state slogan of Tennessee, as chosen by the General State Assembly of Tennessee.

What is that?

Tennessee.

America at its best.

1965.

I mean, it's certainly America at its best is more aspirational, if a bit more braggy, than agriculture and commerce.

Maybe it should be

Tennessee.

We're one better than Nynasi.

I think it should just be called,

I don't need a slogan and I don't need a state seal.

I think it should just be called Dolly Partons, Tennessee.

Look,

you're right to bring us right back to Music City, Nashville, because indeed in 2003, that same General Assembly that came up with a terrible state wild animal,

in my opinion, a terrible state slogan in everyone's opinion, did come up with the right answer when they designated songwriting as the official state art form of Tennessee.

Yes.

And let me ask you this.

Does it have, does Tennessee have 10 official state songs?

No.

This one goes to 11.

It actually goes to 11, just like Spinal Tap taught us we must when it comes to music.

And it's a great way to understand what's going on in the state because each of these songs touches on different parts of the state and different different parts of the culture.

That's exactly right.

My Homeland, Tennessee.

When it's Iris Time in Tennessee.

Also, Stop Iris Time by M.C.

Hammer.

My Tennessee by Frances Hannah Tranum.

That's the state's official public school song.

The Tennessee Waltz by Red Stewart and Pee Wee King.

And the Sam Cook version of the Tennessee Waltz.

It's one of my favorite songs in the world.

Yes, indeed.

Felice and Budlo Bryant coming in with Rocky Top song of

Knoxville song of the University of Tennessee Volunteers.

And that's the one that I'm going to sing at the very end of this episode.

It's a big one, and I

will not sleep on amazingly fast, wonderful banjo picking.

I think, to me, that is a very magical instrument and ability.

Tennessee by Vivian Rory.

Yeah, by the way, when I sing it, I'm not going to be picking a banjo at any speed.

I'm not an animatronic man or the Osbourne Brothers, the famous bluegrass act from the 60s and 70s

and into the 80s and 90s and 2000s, who made that their sort of signature hit, the Osbourne Brothers.

Yeah.

All right.

I just said Tennessee by Vivian Rory.

The Pride of Tennessee by Fred Congdon, Thomas Vaughan, and Carol Elliott.

Smoky Mountain Rain by Kai Fleming and Dennis Morgan.

Became a hit for Ronnie Milsap.

And then Tennessee by John R.

Bean of Knoxville.

The Tennessee in Me by Debbie Mathis Watts.

That's as recent as 2023.

And the great Steve Earle song Copperhead Road, which is about moonshining and marijuana growing in Tennessee, became a state song in 2023 as well.

I'm sad that the song Tennessee by Arrested Development isn't on this list.

Well, you know who is?

There is a rap song on here by Joan Hill Hanks of Signal Mountain entitled A Tennessee Bicentennial Rap, 1796 to 1996.

And Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee was recorded in Nashville's Music Row, became the official holiday song of Tennessee in 2024.

A lot of heavy hitters on this list of official state songs.

Can I just say one thing?

There are three Grand Divisions in Tennessee,

but when it comes to beverage, there can be only one.

That's right.

Milk.

No.

Milk is back again.

Top of the charts.

State beverage.

You're telling me.

You're telling me you couldn't put Moonshine on that list?

I know.

You're telling me you couldn't put Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey?

Yeah.

You know what the difference is between Tennessee whiskey and bourbon?

They're both

corn sour mash liquors that have been aged in barrels, oak barrels.

I believe both in newly charred American oak barrels.

The only difference is that Tennessee whiskey is filtered through charcoal before it is bottled and it is only made by one company, which is Jack Daniels.

Oh, wow.

There you go.

It's just branding.

Sometimes it's as simple as that.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's as simple as that.

We got to rank this motto.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Here we go.

You know, what's funny is that from all the things we've talked about, the takeaway that is lingering with me most is the Maypop.

The purple passion flower fruit, the Maypop that might burst under your toe if you step on it in surprise.

It was originally called the Might Burst and they're like, well, Maypop.

Yeah.

I think that this motto is

pretty mediocre, but

its greatest, I dare say, grand failure is that there is only two things in it.

Right.

When clearly the rule of threes in Tennessee is very powerful.

That's very true.

That's very true.

I mean, I appreciate that it doesn't,

that

the taking over and exploiting of land is more implied than threatened.

That it isn't like, get out of here, we're tough, and you're going to die by the sword.

I like that's not a violent motto.

But it is to me,

I just want a little more aspiration.

I just want a little more joy.

I want a little more joy.

I just want one more thing.

And you just want one more thing.

Maybe it's agriculture, commerce, and joy.

Agriculture, commerce,

and white lightning.

AKA moonshine.

That's what I would say.

Great.

I'm on board for that.

How many Maypops do you want to give it?

Out of 10, with 10 being definitely pops.

Yeah.

And

one being this one's a dud.

Yep.

I'm going to give it three and a half Maypops.

Yeah.

I'll see you three and a a half.

If they added one more thing, it's automatically a six.

And if that thing were moonshine,

then it would be

a nine.

Listen to that.

All that math checks out as far as I can tell.

Give us a third great thing.

Make it moonshine.

You're going to get yourself a nine.

I'm sure the state assembly of Tennessee is listening.

I mean, if you want to be 10,

it should be

agriculture, commerce, and dolly parton.

Very, very supportive supportive of that.

Very on board for that.

We should have just said, How many Dolly Partons does this motto rank?

All right, Rocky Top.

You want to hear the song?

I do.

Mark thinks I sing this wrong.

I learned it myself.

There's a whole story about why I learned this song in my book, Medallion Status.

I won't bore you with it.

Go and buy the book if you want.

Wish that I was on old Rocky Top down in the Tennessee hills.

Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top, ain't no telephone bills.

That's how you define utopia, no telephone bills.

Once had a girl up on old Rocky Top, half bear, the other, half cat.

Wild as mink, but sweet as soda pop.

I still dream about that.

Rocky top, you'll always be home, sweet home to me.

Good old Rocky Top, Rocky Top, Tennessee,

Rocky Top, Tennessee.

One more verse.

Once two strangers climbed o'er Rocky Top, looking for a moonshine still.

Strangers ain't come down from Rocky Top.

Reckon they never will.

That means they were murdered.

By raccoons.

Corn won't grow at all on Rocky Top.

Dirt's too rotty by far.

That's why all the folks on Rocky Top get their corn from a jar.

That means moonshine.

Rocky top, you'll always be.

Here, you want to do it together properly?

Home, sweet home to me.

Good old Rocky Top.

Rocket Temple.

Rocky Top Temes.

Rocky Top

Temple.

Temo

Dixon Soil for Dixon.

Okay, that is the end of this episode and first season of ePleuribus Motto.

The show is hosted by John Hodgman along with myself, Janet Varney, and it's a production of Maximum Fun.

The show was edited and produced by the great Julian Burrell along with senior producer, the great Laura Swisher.

Our music was composed, oh, our delicious music was composed by the great Zach Burba, and our wonderful ePluribus Motto artwork is by the great Paul G.

Hammond.

John, anything that you would like to say from your tour of Judge John Hodgman before we wrap this season up?

Janet, I can't hear what you're saying because I'm still in this hotel room in Portland, Oregon, and I wonder if perhaps I might be trapped here forever.

I hope not because I cannot wait to get back out on the virtual road with you to visit all of the remaining states, Commonwealths,

districts, and territories that await us as EPluribus' motto continues in the future.

Please rescue me from this double tree sweets.

It's been so much fun, Janet.

I can't wait to see you in person.

I hope soon.

And hey, even though for right now, this is the end of the states, we have a lot of plans for the podcast between seasons and going into Max Fun Drive.

So continue to send your state artwork, your symbols.

We've loved your emails.

We are loving them truly.

We're going to get better about being on social media with a podcast.

We've just been so slammed, both of us.

But there are things I am very excited to post from many of you.

And we want to hear from you.

Want to hear what we miss, things you love about your state.

You can do all of that.

You can send all of that to us at emailpluribusmotto at maximumfun.org.

That's email pluribusmatto at maximumfun.org.

Until next season, remember our motto:

Dolly Parton, Agriculture, Dolly Parton, Commerce, and Dolly Parton.

Maybe we should just be the United States of Dolly Parton.

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