Vermont - Freedom and Unity

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

Now available on Paramount Plus, Blu-ray, Major Airlines, and my living room by appointment.

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

And now here's Janet and John.

Thank you, Greg.

That was our official film director of ePluribus Mottos, Greg Mattola.

But my name is John Hodgman.

And I hope very much that that would make me Janet Varney.

Welcome to ePlurbus Motto, the podcast all about celebrating the mottos, the symbols, the muffins, the milks of every state in the Union, no matter how strange, pretentious, or, in this case, delicious smelling.

There's a bit of maple in the air, and don't worry, it's not a national emergency and you're not having a stroke.

This week, we're in Vermont.

Green Mountain Boys and Lake Monsters Await, plus a motto so good, it makes us rethink our opinions about all the other mottos that we have graded so far.

I know, I'm so sorry, New York, but it's possible Excelsior is inferior.

But you know what's not inferior?

That freshly tapped Vermont maple syrup.

From grade C commercial to grade B to grade A dark amber to grade A medium amber to grade A light amber.

We've got some grade A light amber Vermont trivia coming up for you right now.

So let's go to Vermont.

Last week, Janet told me all about the motto of New York, and here's what I remember about it.

One, the New York State muffin is the apple muffin, a muffin that does not exist.

It's just sheer, sheer copycatism.

of Kate Lorch's incredible effort to get the corn muffin named the state muffin of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I I don't like it.

I don't care for it.

I don't want to have an apple muffin.

No one ever.

Have you ever seen one?

No, I've seen every other kind of pastry but an apple muffin associated with apples.

And I'm not saying that apples can't be used in pastry.

Apple tarts.

You know what I'm saying?

Apple turnovers.

That's what I was thinking of.

Apple turnovers, classic.

If New York State wanted to have a state turnover,

I would be like, good for you.

Turn over a new leaf and find a delicious apple turnover.

It doesn't need to be a muffin.

I know.

Because

of

Trenton makes and New York takes.

The other thing I remember is a similar injustice of all the snacks that New York has to offer.

From the Nathan's hot dog of Coney Island to, oh, I mean, arguably a snack, a bagel and cream cheese or the buffalo buffalo wing.

Of all the incredible foodways that New York has to offer, the Finger Lakes Chicken Finger.

I bet you do probably some pretty good.

Pretty good Finger Lakes, chicken finger spots along the Finger Lakes.

Yeah.

And then I I also recalled that former Governor Andrew Cuomo loves cop dogs.

Working dogs.

Working dogs, but you know.

The working dogs.

You know what he meant, drug-sniffing dogs.

Body-sniffing dogs.

Body sniffing dogs.

Canine unit crowd suppression dogs.

Look, I love all dogs.

But I am not, as they were saying at the time, a Cuomosexual.

You're not a Cuomo head?

No.

You're not a Cuomosexual.

I never was.

But let's move on from the state of New York because it gets enough attention.

Let's move on because I am presenting to you, Janet Varney, and to you, fine listeners of e pluribus motto, the state of Vermont, the green mountain state, literally encoded in its name, Ver Mont.

Oh, yes.

I never thought about it.

And I speak a little French.

Vui unpe.

Of course, this region of this continent was first invaded by French Europeans a ways back when, probably in the 17th century, I would guess.

Obviously, we must note that before they or any of the Green Mountain boys of Vermont came along, seizing Ticonderoga forts and taking cannons, the region we now call Vermont was already home to Native Americans, primarily the Abenaki and the Mohawk people, who had lived in the Green Mountain Les Monvert.

Les Monver.

Oh, about 12,000 years.

They probably had a different name for the area.

So they were just settling in.

Just settling in.

They had just gotten settled in when the French came and said, ah, look, here are some mountains.

Let's name them in the most imaginative way possible.

Green.

Quel Suprise.

Hey, Janet Varney.

Tell me three things you think of when you think of Vermont.

Well, Vermont is part of a current thread that I am on in my textual life with a couple of ladies who have sort of raised Vermont to be the ideal place to live.

And so I have a friend who is out there right now from Los Angeles poking around at real estate.

I have friends who moved there during the pandemic.

I myself have been to Vermont.

I'm trying to think of the most time I spent in Vermont was that same, that self-same summer that I flew by myself when I was in the fifth grade, summer after fifth grade, to visit my friend Meredith in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

We also spent some time at Lake Champlain and in Vermont at her, I'm going to guess, maybe aunt and uncle's house.

I'll take that bet.

Okay.

But it was

probably.

I thought it was beautiful.

I loved Vermont.

I loved Lake Champlain.

I really took to it.

And then one of the nights that we were staying there in the Lake Champlain area, a wasp got stuck in the bedroom that I was staying in.

And I still feel, I feel like you could still see the emotional scars if you could look at me from the inside out.

Big wasp?

Big wasp never stung me.

Don't remember the outcome.

Just remember that there was a wasp trapped in the room and that that was one insect that it felt like the adults were like, well, it's a wasp.

We can't do anything.

Right.

They're too dangerous.

Yeah.

We can't bat at it.

You're going to have to sleep in a different room and that wasp is going to have to die in that room on its own.

Let's get back to

the front.

The French who settled in Vermont and then they ceded that land that they claimed to own, but it actually taken from native peoples to what you may call England and British Canada.

And then, of course, it became revolutionary war times.

Now, last time we spoke about New York, I talked about Fort Ticonderoga, or as my friend John Kimball would say, Ticonderoga.

A Deer and Deck.

Fort Ticonderoga, aka Fort Ticonderoga, a classic star fort, star-shaped fort built on the southern shores of Lake Champlain by the French in 17 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ceded to the English after the Seven Years' War and held by the English in 1775 when an upstart band of Green Mountain Boys, a Vermont-based militia led by a person named Ethan Allen,

took Fort Ticonderga

for the then Continental Congress and the Revolutionary Forces.

Hey, do you know who Ethan Allen's best pal was in the raid of Fort Ticonderoga?

I'd love to hear it.

It's the name that you'll recognize.

A good old person named Benedict Arnold.

Mm-hmm.

Trustworthy.

If you look on the Fort Ticonderoga Wikipedia page, there's an image of Ethan Allen demanding that the fort be surrendered as the British commander comes out in his little nightcap with his little candle.

He's like, what's going on?

And Ethan Allen's there in his like coonskin cap going, get out of here, you rat.

And just behind him is Benedict Arnold about to stab him in the back

or stab the incipient nation in the back.

I mean, sides.

Like, they're all just white guys fighting with each other.

Like, who cares about these sides?

Yeah.

But the point is, the Green Mountain Boys were led by Ethan Allen.

And there's a reason that I bring it up because Ethan Allen, do you think he was an only child?

I doubt it.

He was not.

He had several brothers, one of whom, younger, was Ira Allen.

And Ira Allen is known for having written the state motto of Vermont

and inscribing it in the state seal, which he designed.

And do you know the motto of that state, Vermont?

I must because I absolutely illustrated a Vermont motto for a listener.

I'm going to have to look up to see who that was to give them a shout out.

But I got to think about what it is.

I feel like I can conjure it, and I promise I'm looking for the person and not the motto because those two things won't be together.

But I feel like I liked it.

I feel like I thought it was pleasant and kind of general.

Was it the Freedom and Unity one?

No.

Actually, it's pleasant and general is the actual motto of Vermont.

Freedom and Unity is correct.

Freedom and Unity.

A motto of pleasant and general.

Adopted in 1788 and engraved upon the state seal designed by Ira Allen, who is Ethan Allen's younger brother, and they attribute this to him.

Now, if you haven't checked out the state seal of Vermont lately,

get thee to a webpage because it's hot.

This definitely looks like a seal that was designed by a guy in the in 1788.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I mean, it's very bucolic, if I may.

It's very bucolic.

And I'll talk about what it depicts in a moment, but it's also very sort of rudimentary.

Like the let, like it kind of looks like, the lettering kind of looks like the lettering that you'd see on a sign in an old Vermont country store.

You know what I mean?

Yep.

It says Vermont Freedom and Unity, almost arts and craftsy in its design.

And the whole thing kind of looks a little country, looks a little rudimentary for a state seal.

It's still the state seal.

It kind of looks like something that would be like carved into the side of a barn to ward off witches, you know?

And

the seal itself,

and I will be doing some paraphrasing because why move these words around when they're already so well described on the internet?

Yes, indeed.

But it centers around a pine tree, which has 14 branches,

symbolizing the original 13 colonies plus Vermont because Vermont was not one of the original European colonies, which is important.

That is important.

Yeah.

Also, there's a cow representing Vermont's connection to dairy farming.

And guess what the state beverage is, Janet?

There's no way it's not milk.

Milk.

Milk.

Milk.

There are a whole bunch of green trees.

It looks like a fleur-de-lis on its side, off to the left, perhaps representing some of Vermont's French heritage.

That's, I'm not really sure.

I think you might be onto something.

I'm not really sure what that is.

And maybe it's on its side because it's over with.

Toppled.

Honestly, I cannot find a description, and perhaps I will later.

And the upper left, it's a round seal, but sort of in the upper left quadrant, there looks like to be a golden torso.

What do you think that is?

I mean, I just don't know the answer.

Is it a torso or is it like a...

I mean, it's not a mushroom.

It kind of looks like a mushroom, doesn't it?

Yeah.

But it can

be a mushroom.

I think that those are sheaves.

Sheaves of wheat.

Wheat sheaves.

I think it must be wheat.

It's very funky looking.

It's really cool.

I'd buy a t-shirt with this on it.

Yeah, and I bet you can.

And I bet you can.

But the other thing about it is that it has wavy lines at the top.

which are of indeterminate meaning.

Some suggest that they represent the Connecticut River, which is the eastern border of Vermont.

It goes from north to south.

You remember the Connecticut River when we talked about Connecticut and its rich, loamy soil?

Rich, loamy soil.

I hope people are ready for some soil talk because later on we're going to be talking about some soil.

I know I am.

And/or it could represent the western border of Vermont, which is Lake Champlain, primarily up in the northern part, Lake Champlain, which we're going to be talking about a little later on as well.

It is unusual to have water at the top of a seal.

Doesn't make a lot of sense.

When you have a tree underneath.

Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think that it's basically saying, like, we got to get water in here somewhere, but it's something we think about more than we see.

Oh, you really classed that up.

I really like that.

Although, you know, we must acknowledge that very, very sadly, Vermont's been thinking about water a lot lately because

despite all of your friends encouraging every Los Angeles carpetbagger to move to Vermont immediately,

it has been like it is not, it is not immune to climate change and severe weather.

And of course, there's been terrible flooding in Vermont because the soil, even in the Green Mountains, even at high elevation, you experience extreme flooding because the soil becomes saturated with water and it can't absorb anymore.

It goes into all those little streams and brooks and rivers and then overflows.

And I've seen it happen in western Massachusetts, and it was very, very terrifying.

And I really, really feel bad for the folks in Vermont who have had to deal with that.

That is sad.

Of course.

But don't worry, everyone.

You can get out of there and sell your houses to Janet's friends because they're on their way.

Everybody loves a Los Angeles invasion of another place.

Ira Allen is interesting too, because Ira Allen was a member of the Vermont legislature and he played a very important role in Vermont's Declaration of Independence, which was in 1777.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, now wait a minute.

I thought we already had a Declaration of Independence, 1776.

Ah,

hang on.

That was the Declaration of Independence of the 13 colonies from England.

Vermont wasn't one of them.

Yeah.

Vermont was a disputed territory.

They were not declaring independence as much from the English as they were declaring independence from what was then the Continental Congress, specifically New Hampshire and New York, which had been vying for control over Vermont.

And in fact, technically had been selling the land of Vermont to European settlers twice.

The original New Hampshire land grants, which is what Ethan Allen and his brothers had bought, and then New York started selling the same land because they felt that Vermont belonged to them.

Ownership of land is dumb, everybody.

Yeah.

So there was a lot of territorial dispute there.

That's why Ethan Allen founded the Green Mountain Boys, which was to chase the New Yorkers off his claim.

Yeah.

And

that's why the new Green Mountain Boys, or Green Mountain Rangers, as they're now called, are going to chase out those Los Angeles coming to invade their perfect utopia.

You've been warned.

You've been warned.

Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys were stirring up trouble and defending the imagined territorial borders of Vermont.

Meanwhile, little Ira Allen was declaring independence from everything in 1777, establishing the Republic of Vermont, which, though no one recognized it diplomatically, was its own little country from 1777 until 1791 when it was admitted to the United States.

And even then, even right up until 1791,

Ira Allen was playing footsie with the British government, saying, you know what, if you recognize that we're one thing, we'll become a British colony.

I'm not saying that's good, but you can understand the reticence to play ball with the folks who are just selling your land out from your quote land out from under you.

I don't know.

I mean, you know, it's Vermont is, Vermont, I don't think in the public imagination has a reputation for being a truculent populace or a combative populace necessarily.

Right.

But they value their freedom as much as their unity.

And even after it was admitted as a state, Ira Allen was still sneaking around talking to the French government in 1795, asking if they would militarily support Vermont's seizure of Canada

to become a new country called United Columbia.

This guy had ideas.

Did you say sneaking around or stinking around?

Either both.

He was a sneaker and a stinker.

I heard stinking around and I loved it.

And then I thought, I wonder if anybody's ever said that about me.

There's Janet stinking around trying to get around this thing.

He's considered to be the father of the University of Vermont because he promised a bunch of money to found the university and donated some land, but he never gave the money.

And

he died in exile from Vermont in debt.

But the point is, Vermont has never really been sure whether it wants to be part of the United States or no.

And if you ask people around Burlington, up on the shores of Lake Champlain, Burlington, Vermont, home of our lone socialist Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders,

the ambivalence about being a part of the United States persists, I believe.

It's a same little place.

And I love it, Vermont very much.

And its love of ambiguity is reflected in its motto, freedom and unity.

It was written that way on purpose, a conjoining of two opposing concepts, individual freedom and community obligation, thus leading to its second, less known motto, cur non utrumque, which is Latin for why not both.

That can't be true.

No, it's not.

Porque no lesos.

But in 2015, they did adopt an alternate Latin motto for some unknown reason, which is stella quarta decima fulgiet.

May the 14th star shine bright, the 14th star.

Sure.

The 14th of the original 13 European colonies in the northeastern part of the United States, land that was taken by the people who lived there for 12,000 years before, just to say.

I know that this is maybe something that's a little out of left field here in this moment of the podcast.

I would like to propose that we have, here's what I'm going to say.

We have a normal dozen.

We know what a baker's dozen is.

I would like to submit to you that a Vermont dozen is 14 of something.

I love it.

Right?

I love it.

You can't be too out of left field when you're talking about Vermont.

That's said, let me be very plain, that Vermont is a rural state and has a lot of, it has, well, you know, Bernie Sanders is notoriously a little bit hesitant on gun control.

Yeah.

Because there's a lot of hunting in Vermont, and there's a lot of people who, a lot of Second Amenders, we'll call them, in Vermont.

This phenotype of sort of libertarian, get your hands off my business kind of

stuff is expressed more openly in New Hampshire, but it exists in Vermont as well.

Yes, you know, it is an iconoclastic place, and I love it.

Yes, indeed.

All right, we're going to take a quick break from this history lesson.

And when we get back, we dive right into Lake Champlain and all the state symbols like it's a big pool of maple syrup.

Well, I already said Lake Champlain.

Mixed metaphors.

E pluribus model.

We'll be back after this.

Claxon, Claxon, Claxon.

Janet, I know I sound a little different.

That's because I'm beaming in from another time and place

because we've got an emergency bulletin board message.

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Just like Blade Shumway Excavating and Hardscape did.

Thank you.

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 Lollum.

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.

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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 on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Epilerbis Motto.

Janet, we're talking about the shape of Vermont.

Segment, the shape of the state.

The things that are coming up for me, again, very off the cuff, are Marge Simpson's hair.

Oh, I like that.

And then, I don't know, I'm very intrigued by the little hook over near the Adirondack Preserve.

The little hook that's poking out on the sort of middle, like lower middle left-hand side that I just want to know why.

You mean the Andiro Dak Preserve?

The Andiron Dak.

Oh,

well, I mean.

I know there's a good reason, but I don't.

I mean, I see bodies of water, but I'm not immediately seeing something that's like, oh, that's, of course, why.

Is it a river?

There is a river.

I see part of it is a river, but.

Yeah, it's a river.

It is a river.

That whole little bit of border follows the course of the Pulteney River, P-O-U-L-T-N-Y River.

And on one side of it is Vermont, and on the other side of it is New York.

And the Pulteney River just continues on down.

And if you're following along on your map, you'll not surprise that it doesn't terminate, but it kind of comes to its natural end in Pulteney and then picks up the straight up and down

north to south borderline between New York that was obviously drawn by a surveyor rather than a river.

So that's what it is.

All right.

So those are my thoughts.

What do you think?

One thing I thought of was like a ham, like a big prosciutto.

Uh-huh.

Big prosciutto, great.

Sure.

Hanging from the raft.

A whole big prosciutto hanging from the rafter of Vermont.

Hanging from the rafters of Montreal.

Yeah, very close to Vermont.

And there's a Montreal connection, which we'll talk about a little bit later on.

Let's talk about the state stuff.

Great.

The state flag of Vermont is ass.

Sorry, state flag of Vermont.

Like a lot of state flags, it's nothing but a version of the state seal in the middle, in this case, of a navy blue field.

And it's not even the good state seal.

Ira Allen's OG engraving.

It's like a kind of

cheesy

modernization/slash children's book illustration, coloring book looking, updating, because you got that tree, you got that cow, now you got those sheaves.

The cow starts to look a little bit less like a cow.

The cow's starting to look like a dachshund.

Yeah, it's true.

It's true.

And now those sheaves look more like sheaves than mushrooms or golden torsos.

Yeah.

Plus, there's like a stag on top.

Like, you don't think of stags as being part of Vermont.

Yeah.

And the flag overall is sort of very uninspired, much like, and I don't want to be mean about it, but much like

the existing Maine state flag is very unimagined.

It's a state at the seal of Maine on a white background, and it's boring, especially when there is a historic alternative, which we'll talk about whenever we talk about Maine.

But I would ask you to turn your page of the internet to

the flag of Vermont page on whatever

internet encyclopedia you choose

and scroll down to the Green Mountain Boys flag.

This is one of my favorite flags in the world.

And it was the flag flown by the Green Mountain Boys

and is still flown by the, I believe it's the Vermont National Reserve.

Look at you.

And it's a beautiful green flag.

Like, can you imagine?

Don't see that very often, do you?

Yeah.

The contemporary flag of Vermont isn't particularly green.

This is just a solid green field with a blue, like a baby blue square up in the upper left corner, kind of like we got in the U.S.

flag.

But instead of 50 stars, it has 13 stars.

I don't know why they're celebrating the 13 American colonies, but I think this is a beautiful,

beautiful old-timey flag.

It's cool.

I got to tell you, first of all, I don't think I've ever seen it.

I feel like this is my first time ever seeing the Green Mountain Boys flag.

Yeah.

And it's taking some getting used to.

Those Green Mountain Boys, they came through again.

Take it in the fork.

dag nab it.

I'm going to tell you something.

If you, like me, are seeing it for the very first time in the age of a green screen.

My problem is that what I see is a green screen.

You see it.

I'm struggling a little bit because that was what came up for me right away.

It is like the exact color of a green screen.

That's right.

The thing that my brain does, and I'm not proud of this, and I don't like that we live in the future.

My brain is like, something will fill in there later.

I guess what I'll do is...

Something will be added in post to that flag.

Well, that's the beauty of it.

It can be anything.

Do you know what I mean?

Oh, you're turning this to its benefit.

That's very stinky of you.

You'll always have that beautiful blue star-spangled corner up there on the left, but the flag itself might be, I don't know, Moss Isley or

the skyline of Coruscant or something.

It could be anything.

It could be anything.

Yeah.

It could be moving.

It could be a moving image.

It could be a moving image.

That is perplexing that it's 13 stars.

I can't believe it's not a Vermont dozen.

It seems like it ought to be, or it should be, given its history, one star for just like Vermont, just its damn it.

Yeah.

But there you have it.

I mean, the reason that I am so down on so many of these state flags is that, you know, so many state seals that get featured on these flags are trying to emulate European heraldry.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And that's not appropriate for a new world flag.

Shields and such.

Like shields and filigree and everything else.

Whereas you look at the Green Mountain Boys flag, that's something that someone sewed, you know,

out of quilt materials or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, it speaks to a kind of rustic handicraft that is much more Vermont to me in the same way that the Ira Allen state seal has the look of a needle, like a

needlework.

Yeah, a cross-stitch kind of thing.

Something that's cooler and more specific, and I like it better.

Oh,

I would love if that was a cross-stitched flag.

That would be so cross-stitched flag.

A little embroidery, cute cross-stitch flag.

No, from time to time, European heraldry kind of works.

Like in the Maryland state flag, when we get to it, I mean,

that's sort of using aspects of European heraldry, but it also is so wildly contrasting that it causes seizures when you look at it.

It's great.

It's so messed up.

But I just think that this is so much more Vermont than the current Vermont flag.

And when we get to Maine, we'll have a big, long ching wag about the movement to replace the state flag with the

current state flag with the original state flag.

That's the kind of drama I can get on board for.

I want to shout out, before I forget, I do want to shout out listener and supporter of Maximum Fun and of this podcast, Kate Thomas, who did receive from me a freedom and unity image.

I will post it on the internet when this this episode comes out.

But I believe I did the state bird and then a couple of things going on in the background.

It was very fun.

Kate lives in South Burlington, Vermont.

She sure does.

She's a wonderful artist.

She visited me on Get Your Pets, my occasional animal talk show.

And you're right.

So let's talk about some of this state stuff, right?

So if you go to legislature.vermont.gov/slash statutes/slash full chapter slash 01 slash 011.

Okay, just finished typing all of that in.

You will be treated to

the full and unredacted text of the Vermont statutes.

Title I, General Provisions, Chapter 11, Flag, Insignia, Seal, etc.

And the wording is just so gracious and funny here.

When we get down to the state bird,

section 497, state bird.

The state bird shall be the hermit thrush.

Yeah.

Section 498, state flower.

The state flower shall be.

the red clover.

The state insect, the state insect shall be the honeybee.

State beverage, the state beverage shall be milk.

And everyone's always trying to figure out what kind of photo to use of milk to make it more attractive.

Like, I'm looking at it when I looked at the state symbols.usa or whatever that site is, they just have an image of like milk that someone's just dropped a drop of milk into.

So it's sort of just a sad droplet of milk on the surface of milk.

And some people do a carton of milk.

Some people do a glass.

Just a glass of milk.

The state beverage, milk, was added in 1983.

Vermont, I think you can do better.

Yeah.

I don't know how much money was paid by the dairy lobby to get this, but I mean, you think about

what they've been drinking in Vermont.

I'll tell you something.

The state fruit shall be the apple.

And I'm like, well, I mean, what else are you going to do?

You know what I mean?

Vermont isn't known for its fruitery.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

But that said,

how about the state beverages?

Cider.

Sure.

Or how about the state beverages?

Hard cider.

Maybe they decided that they just could not have a state drink be boozy.

But I mean,

why have these things at all if they're not interesting?

Like, I got nothing against the northern leopard frog, but Minnesota already has the northern leopard frog.

I mean, obviously, Minnesota probably took it from Vermont, but I don't know why that northern leopard frog gets to be the frog.

It was added in 1997.

They held the frog position open that long.

Maybe if it's not interesting, you don't have a state amphibian.

Yeah.

But here's something that's both interesting and justified.

Are you ready for it?

The state soil.

The state soil shall be

the Tunbridge Soil Series.

Is it the Tunbridge Soil Series?

It's called the Tunbridge Soil Series.

Fascinating.

Or the Tunbridge Series.

Soils are described as series.

I guess I didn't know that either.

And we've discussed soil.

And I'm not even sure why.

Tunbridge Soil is a...

I'm quoting here from a pamphlet I found on the soil.

Don't say that.

That makes it sound like you found a pamphlet on that soil, picked it up, dusted it off so there was less soil on it, and then read about it.

I just found this on the soil right outside.

I literally got it from a PDF called Vermont State Soil Booklet.

Great.

Published by the Soil Science Society of America.

I'm saluting.

From the website soilsforteachers.org.

So you can check my work.

Soilsforteachers.org makes me very happy.

The Tunbridge soil is a well-drained, loamy, acidic soil

formed in Wisconsin-age glacial till.

Now, I don't know why they're talking about Wisconsin.

That's a new human invention, the idea of Wisconsin, but I'm sure it's older than Wisconsin.

It has schist, gneiss, phyllite, or granite bedrock at a depth between 20 and 40 inches.

Now, why, Janet Varney,

do you think the Tunbridge soil of Vermont is so prized that it would be one of three official state soils in the United States?

Don't mask me the other two.

I don't remember.

Great.

We'll get to them when we get to them.

Agriculture?

Yeah, you're on to it.

Well, so remember the Connecticut state soil was

what?

The Windsor soil, remember?

Indeed, old chum.

The rich, loamy soil of the Connecticut River Valley,

which was very good for growing a cash crop called Connecticut Shade Tobacco.

What's a cash crop of Vermont, do you think?

And I'll give you a hint.

It's not cows cows or sheaves.

I mean,

are we going back into

the tree stuff?

We're going back into the trees.

Maple syrup?

Yes, it's good for growing maple trees.

Okay.

Guess what the official state tree of Vermont?

I'm going to guess it also is the sugar maple.

It shall be the sugar maple.

And this one I've never encountered before, but it's right here in section 510 of chapter 11 of the Vermont State Statutes.

The state flavor shall be maple from the Vermont Sugar Maple Tree.

The state flavor.

I will say right now, I don't know if we're going to come across another state flavor.

I don't know if we're going to come across another

state flavor, right?

Yeah.

That's very specific.

And I hadn't thought of it, but like, is there a state that is more associated with a specific flavor than Vermont?

I mean, we talked about New York definitely produces a bunch of maple syrup.

Yeah.

As does Eastern Canada, as does Maine, as does Massachusetts.

Yeah.

Back when I was romping through the glens and hills of western Massachusetts, we had maple trees on our property and we tapped them and we tried to make some maple syrup and it did not go well.

Okay.

I bet it's not a thing you can do the first time well.

Oh, yes, you can.

Okay.

So, you know, to make maple syrup, all you got to do is you stick a peg in a maple tree

when the sap is running.

Yeah.

And it's a hollow peg.

It drains out the sap into a bucket that you hang over it.

Yeah.

That's it.

What did you do wrong?

How did you mess that up?

There may have been a temperature issue because all you do is you boil the syrup and you distill it, basically.

You are distilling the water out of it.

Excuse me.

You boil the sap.

And you

are boiling the water out of it until it becomes concentrated into a sugary syrup.

That's all you do.

Now, I do think that there's a temperature issue because what we ended up with, I think we might have been running too hot because it just ended up as like a sticky, like a candy almost.

Oh, well, that doesn't sound terrible.

It was edible.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

But

it wasn't Gray Day amber.

Yeah.

Right.

Which would be a great nickname for someone named Amber.

It's out there.

I'm confident of that.

Yeah, you got to have that tumbered soil.

Well-drained, loamy, acidic.

Great.

Formed in the Wisconsin glacial till.

Do you think sugaring is going to be an industry affected by climate change?

I doubt it.

No, forever.

I doubt it.

Forever.

I'm sure it's fine.

I'm sure also the state insect, the honeybee, is going to be just fine due to climate change.

I wish you well, Vermont.

They are, as you know, the highest producer of maple syrup in the United States.

Yeah.

And their flavor is maple syrup.

And maple syrup, they have recently unified the Canadian and United States in maple syrup grading.

Finally, there used to be grade A and grade B,

but now it's all grade A.

A little shifty.

I don't know that I would know

what flavor I was looking for with maple syrup in terms of how much or how little I've consumed in a lifetime.

That being said, I do enjoy maple syrup very much.

I am also not a huge sweet tooth.

And

I think that maple syrup is great because it works well in the sweet and salty department.

It is a sweet that works very well with salty, and that is the temper that I want for my sweet.

People really like to dip their breakfast sausage in maple syrup.

I'm not that kind of person myself, but I can see how that savory and sweet

could go together pretty well.

I will say this: there is a native plant in California called California Everlasting.

Not sure why it's called that, because it turns into a dry, powdery

desert flower that crunches beneath your fingers and immediately turns to dust for half of the year.

But at a certain time of year, wherever it is in its process,

it smells to me just like maple syrup.

And it was something that I would smell while being in the desert and I would think I was going crazy.

I would be like, what?

smells like maple syrup.

This is crazy.

And then finally,

I tracked it down with my gray day sniffer.

and

sure enough, when I did a little research and found out it was the California Everlasting, I saw that I am not the only person that thinks it smells like maple syrup.

I mean, I really do think people need to start naming the state flavors of their state.

Well, I wouldn't already love to hear what people think their state flavors are.

I would absolutely love it.

You know how to reach us.

Email plurobismato at nextmonthfund.org.

My name is Phoebe, and I grew up in Vermont.

I have a few fun Vermont facts for you.

Did you know that Montpelier, Vermont, is the only capital city in the country that doesn't have a McDonald's?

In a similar vein, our tallest building in the state is shorter than our tallest tree, and not by a little bit.

It's like a good 20 feet or more.

For many years, my mother used to ask people to guess the the state population to the nearest million, and they would say one or two, and she would get to say zero.

Sadly, that one doesn't work anymore now that we've crossed half a million, but it was a good bit.

And we're almost just about, we're wrapping it up here.

Just to let you know, and I have no comments on this, but it's interesting information.

I mentioned that the state fruit is apple.

The state pie shall be apple pie as well.

Of course.

the state sports shall be skiing and snowboarding.

Okay.

The state vegetable shall be the gill feather turnip.

That one surprises me a little bit because I don't have strong feelings about turnips in general.

I'd be curious to know.

And I don't know what makes a gill feather a gill feather.

I'm going to give a listener some homework there.

Tell me why the gill feather turnip.

If you're in Vermont, tell me why the gill feather turnip is so Vermonty that it shall be the state vegetable.

The state mineral shall be talc.

And

finally, section 517, the state fly fishing fly shall be the Governor Aiken Bucktail Streamer.

Oh boy.

If we've missed any.

What's that?

Is it good looking?

We don't know.

It looks like a governor.

Great.

Looks a little like a governor.

Great.

One thing that's not on this list, of course, that I must mention is the state cryptid.

There should be state cryptids for everyone.

By cryptid, I mean a Bigfoot or an SE or any other kind of undiscovered legendary animal, as as you call them, cryptids in the field of cryptozoology.

We both have been on the shores of the dwelling place of this famous cryptid.

Do you know the name of this cryptid, Janet?

I don't.

Champ.

From Lake Champlain.

I did know that.

From Lake Champlain.

Champ.

Yes.

Or Champy.

Champy.

I've heard Champy for sure.

Supposedly first described by

Champlain himself, the European guy who gave this ancient lake his own name because he was a jerk.

Of course.

Not seen very often, but certainly celebrated throughout the Burlington, Vermont area.

And indeed,

after

the Montreal Expos ceased being the Montreal Expos and moved down to Washington, D.C.

to become the Nationals, so their minor league counterparts, the Vermont

Expos, ceased being the Expos,

and they had a contest for what to rename them

or a poll or something.

And the top contenders were the Green Mountain Boys, naturally,

and the Lake Monsters.

Great.

And the Champs.

Yes.

Everyone loved the Champs best, but it was decided

it was inappropriate given that they had never won a championship of any kind.

It can be aspirational.

So the minor league team playing out of Burlington now is the Vermont Lake Monsters.

As it always shall be.

Charming.

That's true.

That's true.

Shout out to Champy.

They're no longer associated with any.

What is their mascot?

What do you think?

Well, what does it look like, though?

It looks like a hermit thrush.

Why?

State bird, obviously.

The lake monsters.

The lake monsters?

They have two mascots.

The hermit thrush and talc.

No, it's a guy dressed up like a sea monster.

I love this place.

Champ.

Champ, champ, the sea monster.

So it looks like a Nessie or any other.

It sort of looks like a sea serpent.

Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah, it looks like a sea.

When you say lake monster, that could also be like, you know, looks like, yeah, it looks like a sea serpent.

A guy, like, that could be a guy.

That could be like the creature from the blue lagoon, the blue lagoon.

The sexy,

nubile, teenaged creature from the blue lagoon.

I came here to see a horror movie,

not to see that sea monster's junk.

Oh,

it's a guy dressed up.

It kind of looks like a dragon

with

blue scales going down his back.

It's like

a Phillies fanatic, but with a normal mouth.

Great.

Great.

Freedom and unity is the motto of the state of Vermont.

Yeah.

One out of ten lake monsters.

Yeah.

Where do you rank it?

I mean,

I like it very much.

Is it as catchy as Excelsior?

The ones that we like the most so far, the ones that have rung out with a certain amount of poetry and a minimal amount of genocide,

are Hope for Rhode Island, Excelsior for New York,

Freedom and Unity.

Yeah.

You know, here's what I'm going to say.

Excelsior really suits New York because New York thinks it's the shit.

Sorry to swear about things, but you don't call yourself the Empire State.

Right.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Unless you think you're the shit.

Yeah.

And insofar as Excelsior ever upward is, that's an optimistic phrase, to be sure.

Yeah.

As I've reflected over it over the past week or so, I was like, yeah, it's it's

a little braggy.

It's kind of like how I always felt about the Yankees.

And it's like, I don't follow sports and I don't care about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox particularly.

But it always feels like rooting for the Yankees is like being on a playground and rooting for the bullies.

Yeah.

So Excelsior feels a little manifest destiny, just like the Empire State just feels a little like, okay, easy does it, buddy.

Yeah.

I think I taking it outside of,

which is, I'm not saying the right thing to do since this is about state mottos.

I think I was removing the New York of it all and making it just Excelsior without the stink of the braggy on it.

Sure, Excelsior without the stink.

Yeah.

But you make a point, which is that you can't really disentangle those because they are, this is a state motto conversation.

So I don't disagree with you that I could knock it down a peg or two.

I like Vermont very much because I like there's a contradiction.

There's sort of an implied contradiction there.

And I like that that feels very aspirational in the sense of, hey, you don't have to give up your freedom to take care of one another.

Exactly.

It is swiftly becoming my favorite

of our favorites so far.

And swiftly becoming a message that we need to hear more strongly in the public sphere in the United States of America these days.

And also, you know, the USA

is, you know, problematic fave.

It's got contradictions.

It's got aspirations that are noble and crimes behind it that are execrable.

Yeah.

And so as

someone who is very happily working through dialectical behavioral therapy right now, I appreciate being, you know, the insistence that we hold

inconsistent thoughts together.

Yes.

And recognize that they are not necessarily inconsistent.

Yes.

Freedom and unity.

And I think it also speaks specifically to the history and the mission of Vermont itself.

It wants to be of itself, but it wants to also be a part of the world.

And it respects individual liberty, but also clearly respects, I mean, if you travel on its roads, taxes.

When you drive

over the line, between Vermont and New Hampshire, you all of a sudden understand what taxes pay for.

It's very, it's like all of a sudden you're like,

it's like, aha, there is a reason.

There is a reason that we raise taxes to maintain infrastructure, and Vermont is it.

Yeah.

So

I'm going to say, I don't remember how to do this.

Do we say it at the same time or what?

I think we've usually happened to say it around the same time.

Say, we'll go three, two, one, and then we'll say our ranking.

Yeah.

Three, two,

one.

11 lake monsters.

Oh, you stinker.

You stunk all the way to the end of this episode.

You snuck and stinked your way up to an 11.

I'm just going to say 10.

I'm going to say 10.

Yeah.

But

I got to give it 10.1 or whatever.

It's at the top of the tens.

Yeah.

Maybe we gave out a 10 too quick with Excelsior.

I mean, Book is still up there, too.

I think we did.

But you know what we can do is, like, look, if we end up with,

you know, a top five or a top 10 contenders, then we can have an internet poll and boy, I'll hold it everyone.

We'll have a good time.

100%.

But I am saying right now, I am willing to knock Excelsior down to like an eight.

Okay, let's do it.

Let's knock.

I'm with you there.

We'll put this at 10.

Eight is extremely respectable.

Right.

And let's put, and let's put this at and put Excelsior at eight.

And wherever hope is,

let's keep it there and we'll figure it out later.

Agree.

Feeling great about Freedom and Unity.

I want to finally, before we say goodbye, shout out any Louise Penny fans out there.

Louise Penny's Three Pines is just on the other side of the border between Vermont and Canada and

in a fictional town that for those of us who enjoy her, I wouldn't say cozy mysteries because there's a lot more complexity going on there in her books.

But certainly the place Three Pines is very charming and wonderful and full of interesting characters.

That is another thing I think of when I think of Vermont.

I think of that just on the other side is a place that does not exist on maps.

Three Pines, Canada.

Three Pines.

Oh, so she's a Quebecois.

Well, yeah, I mean, sorry, I should say she is not like traditionally Quebecois.

I think she moved from elsewhere, perhaps.

Louise Pine Pinch.

Is a Quebecois.

She's a Quebecois.

And Armand Gamache is

the.

Oh, I'll read that for sure.

Inspector, yeah, and then he, Chief Superintendent.

Yeah, he's.

So the.

We're accepting that when most of the characters are speaking to each other, it's in French, but but it's all in English.

But we sort of, and it is a place where Anglos and Quebecois live side by side.

I think that's really interesting.

I mean, I will shout out to, I mean,

I used to spend a fair amount of time in Brattleboro, Vermont,

which is actually in Vermont, unlike your recommendation.

So it seems a little apt.

A little stink on that as well.

Stinky and sneaky.

I'm going to sneak in a recommendation for Boomerang, a really great thrift shop.

I would say vintage and secondhand.

And curated vintage clothing shop in Brattleboro, Vermont.

And if you go to

Sam's outdoor supplier, they have free popcorn and it's really good.

I think I'm moving to Vermont.

I think I'm going to.

It's a terrific place and I look forward to spending more time there, but we must move on.

This is the end of this episode of ePluribus Motto.

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

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

Our wonderful music was composed by Zach Burba, and the E.

Pluribus Motto artwork was arted by the great Paul G.

Hammond.

We'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on the Green Mountain State, Vermont, its motto, its maple syrup, or any of the states we've visited so far.

What did we miss?

What did we forget?

What did we get wrong?

You can let us know by emailing us at the wonderful email address called emailpluribusmato at maximumfun.org.

I'll say it again because it's just that dumb.

Emailpluribusmato at maximumfund.org.

You can also find the show on TikTok and Instagram at ePleuribusMoto, and you can leave a comment there.

You can also send us pictures of the states to that email address so that we can include them in our episode Art.

You might see your photo show up in your podcatcher when that state's episode airs.

I'll say it again.

Email Pluribus Motto at maximumfund.org.

Next week, I am so excited for us to visit the wonderful state of Georgia, where John will tell us all about the perils of its cities.

Mother always told me Savannah was a trap.

That's.

Every car that we got into, we heard a different, interesting monologue from a different young guy.

It was pretty interesting.

I liked it.

Intrigued?

Until then, remember our motto: let the Green Mountain Boys design your flag.

They're good at it.

Gotta love those mountain boys.

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