Rhode Island - Hope

I'm John Hodgman.

And I'm Janet Varney.

Welcome to ePluribus Motto, the show dedicated to celebrating the official mottos, birds, snacks, and symbols of every state in the Union, no matter how strange or boring.

Our next stop is the biggest little state in the union, Rhode Island, Rhode Island, come and see.

From its minimal exposure in pop culture,

From its minimal exposure.

I mean, I won't sing.

I won't sing this part.

From its minimal exposure in pop culture, mincing up a stuffy and the very simple motto that just might be perfect.

Perfect.

And we'll hear from Julian Fellows, creator of Downton Abbey and the Gilded Age.

And he's got some thoughts on the history of Lil Rhodi.

So let's go.

Hey, I'm John Hodgman.

You're Janet Varney.

You're leading the dance on this episode, so why don't you take it away?

Well, first of all, I would like to ask, because I am a very formal person, sir, may I have this dance?

I've had the time of my life, and we haven't barely begun the podcast, so yes.

Okay, well, let me lead you out onto the dance floor.

I know that I am ostensibly leading this dance today, but I already have a feeling, based on the very beautiful photos that you sent me over the weekend of your own personal experience in Rhode Island, a state I have heretofore not yet been, but will be going to Providence for the first time this summer.

I feel that you already, I mean, I know I can say with confidence, you've had a lot more personal experience with Rhode Island and that I've had exactly zero.

So you're absolutely right that I did take the train

from New York to Boston last weekend.

And I did take pictures as we were passing through Rhode Island.

Okay.

And I sent them to you.

Okay, so that really was just like, here, this is what's outside of the window.

That's at the train window.

Okay.

Yeah.

I sent you a picture of the Amtrak platform in Providence.

That makes more sense, Dal.

Some scrub land

behind a main street in some other town.

You didn't explain anything.

So I did take it as your sort of comment on your feelings about Rhode Island, because in my mind, you had visited and spent some time in Rhode Island and were like, well, this is about what they have to offer.

And just sent me some the blandest photos.

I was just taking pictures from the

trail.

And we'll post them somewhere so you can see there's one.

That's so boring.

There's one of a smokestack in the middle of an industrial staging area.

That one is the real fooler, you see, because that looked intentional enough that I could imagine that there might be some fascinating history baked into that smokestack.

There was one of a warehouse that had a vaguely historic look to it, but was so clearly in a disgusting low-use area on the side of the train tracks

that I would hope that you would know that I was going to send it to you and say, here's one of the very famous Newport, Rhode Island mansions.

But now I wonder if you'd be like, wow, those mansions aren't as fancy as I thought.

I might have.

I mean, it's just funny what your brain does because I really thought, okay, well, he's going to have a lot of, he's going to have a lot to say, some gentle ribbing of this, this state that he felt he could only find a couple of sad photos from his own personal experiences in.

No, no, I, look, I don't know a lot about Rhode Island.

It is in New England, my home region.

I've been there probably

six times.

Okay, six times more than me?

In my life, not recently,

but I can sing

the advertising jingle

that Rhode Island came up with for itself.

Okay.

Probably circa, circa, I want to say 190.

That was so sing-song.

I thought you were already singing it.

And then it was a song.

Probably circa.

It's called Probably Circa.

It's a little jingle to start out with.

Probably.

Probably circa 1790.

Roger Williams was

excommunicated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for separating church and state and being for his time, given that he is a colonizer and invader, not the worst person.

That wasn't it.

But that was very true and good.

That was definitely my takeaway also.

Yeah,

not the worst.

Not the worst.

Which is the motto of Rhode Island, strangely.

Not the worst.

I'll tell you what, you're not wrong because it is a motto that from the non-real jingle that you sang, and I do hope you'll come to the real commercial jingle in short time, but from what you sang, its motto does seem apt because it is sort of saying, in its own way, not the worst, with the idea that it could even become a little bit better.

Because the one-word, non-Latin motto of Rhode Island, my dear friend, is simply hope.

Hope.

That's wide open to interpretation.

Roger Williams is the colonizer most associated with the European seizure of Rhode Island and its early European history.

But a lot of people don't know that Rhode Island was technically founded by Shepard Ferry.

Shepard Fairy.

Made the Obama Hope poster.

Yes.

Very famously.

Yes.

Only slightly less famous when it first appeared than his Andre the Giant obey sticker that appeared everywhere.

So he evolved from obey Andre the Giant to have hope for Barack Obama.

Obey, Shepherd Fairey was commissioned the state motto of Florida when he came up with obey.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

That was something as I was reading and learning about Rhode Island, a place I am now very excited to visit because now I can be the person who has a tidbit, a tad bit that I can share with people while I'm there.

A tidbit, a tad bit.

Rhode Island is a little bit of a state in New England.

You should come visit here.

Even that wasn't the song.

I mean, maybe now.

Here's the song.

Here's the song.

This is the commercial jingle for Rhode Island.

Rhode Island Tourism came up with for Rhode Island circa probably 1982.

Biggest little state in the Union.

Rhode Island.

Rhode Island.

The biggest little state in the Union.

Rhode Island.

Rhode Island.

Something here for everyone.

Everything beneath the sun.

And the biggest that is in the Union.

Rhode Island.

Come and see.

Out.

Well, it won't take long because, as we said, it's very small today.

I don't know.

Are we going to do this whole episode as an operetta?

I hope so.

I've got a great, I just remembered that I have a great Rhode Island song to sing to you at the end of this episode.

How exciting.

I don't know if it compares with the official state song of Rhode Island, which I listened to.

And

wow.

All I can say is wow.

Can't say hope.

Can say wow.

Can say wow.

Well, that's another tease.

You're going to sing a song to me.

I'll sing a song to you.

This motto of Rhode Island, I will note, certainly became the motto and became this sort of territory long before the American Revolution.

We're looking at over a hundred years before that.

And you're right, as you said in your beautiful song, it was founded by a sort of dissenter and then a person who was sort of tossed out, who left Massachusetts seeking religious freedom, which is always fun.

It's always fun when you see this sort of ripple effect of a group of people leaving one place for religious freedom and then someone within the place they've now settled leaving for their religious freedom, and then someone from their little little Russian doll style, then leaving that place.

It just sort of goes on and on, which is sort of adorable and awful.

And also, we're really talking some nuance here.

No,

and white Puritanism.

Correct.

Just a little bit of nuance.

Just the slightest shade.

It's like an American psycho when they're arguing over what color is the best for a business card.

Right, exactly.

It's sort of that

subtle of a difference.

And it's like, and where exile, you know,

might have meant in the old world,

you go a thousand miles to live in a hut on the Russian steppes or whatever.

That's right.

Roger Williams' exile was 25 minutes by Metro North train.

Not even Metro North.

They didn't have that at the time, and it's actually a Boston commuter rail.

A little teeny tiny piece of what we now call New England that was...

first the home primarily of the Narragansett people as well as the Wampanoag people and others, I'm sure.

But Roger Williams cut a deal with the Narragansetts to settle this territory and had a very close relationship with them his entire life.

And they did not hate him, it seems historically.

So, what did you discover looking into Rhode Island, a place that you've never been?

I've never been.

It's got a lot of nicknames.

I would say most of them are almost identical: Little Rhode.

Little Rhodey with a Y, Little Rhodey with an IE, Lil,

one of my favorites, apostrophe Lil, Rhode, and Little Rhode.

Little Road.

I've never heard that one before.

Little Road.

Not totally sure where the name, the official name Rhode Island, came from.

There are a couple of different theories.

One is that the explorer, who I'm sure was also a tremendously good human being, Giovanni di Verenzano, compared Rhode Island to Greece, to Rhodes Island, which is off of Greece, or the Dutch who came through described it as a sort of reddish-looking island, Rhodelyk Island, maybe Rhode being derivative of that.

And when we talk about Rhode Island, the island, this gets a little confusing, and anybody who has been there or lives there knows this already, but Aquidneck Island is the island upon which Rhode Island was settled.

And Aquidneck Island is also Rhode Island.

But that is not the entirety of Rhode Island, the state.

You're saying there is an island that is called Aquidneck Island.

Yes.

Where the Providence Plantations, aka what would become Rhode Island, was established.

You mentioned the plantations.

Completely unloaded, neutral term.

Perhaps we should have known, John Hodgman, that up until 2020, the official name of Rhode Island was Rhode Island, Providence, and Plantations.

Really?

Yes.

Over many years, the conversation about the origin of the story of why it was called Providence and Plantations and the fact that there was a sort of a little bit of a delightful moot back and forth between people who were saying,

don't think of plantations in the conventional sense.

I mean, when we say the plantations, we're not actually thinking of plantations, but then all you have to do is say, yeah, but were there slaves in Rhode Island?

And that person has to go, well, yes, there were.

But in this case, I think we should keep the word plantations.

So it just sort of becomes an unnecessary argument.

But it really wasn't until 2020 that legislation was pushed through to officially remove Providence and plantations from the annals of Rhode Island history.

Wow.

Okay.

So finally they were like, let's get rid of that word because it's no good.

Yeah.

And it sounds like it was unsurprisingly perhaps prompted by what was happening in the summer of 2020 with Black Lives Matter, with George Floyd.

And I think enough was enough.

Well, that seems like a good punch-up, a good adjustment there, Rhode Island.

Good job.

Yeah.

Rhode Island was the last of the original 13 colonies to become a state.

I think they forgot it was there.

I think they forgot it was just overlooked.

Simple as that.

So tiny.

Hoping it would be.

So teeny tiny.

No county government, just divided into municipalities, but we're not here to talk about the municipalities.

We're not even here to talk about Rhode Island being home to the Tennis Hall of Fame.

We're not here to talk about the world's largest bug.

Why not?

Why aren't what?

No, John, no, John, no.

We're not here to talk about the world's largest bug that's on the roof of New England pest control in Providence.

Janet, put a pin in the world's largest bug, please.

I'd like to come back to that.

I'm excited.

Well, that is what you do when you have a large bug you want to show off.

Put a pin in it.

You show it off.

Very excited to come back to that.

I don't know the right place to put this, so I'm just going to say I went down a fun mini rabbit hole when I was reading about Rhode Island and found out that it, too, fell prey to something known as the New England Vampire Panic in the 19th century when

an outbreak.

Yes.

I'm glad you don't know about this.

I don't know about the New England Vampire Panic.

The New New England vampire panic came about during a particularly grim outbreak of tuberculosis.

Well, there are very few fun outbreaks of tuberculosis.

Touche, that's a very good point.

In the 19th century, in Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, southern Massachusetts, Vermont, and other areas of New England states, tuberculosis was thought to be caused by the original person in the family dying.

It's not clear of what they thought that person was dying.

It was thought that that that person's dead body was sort of siphoning the life out of the rest of the family that lived in the house, and then that it was that it would spread throughout these communities.

And so it really, they weren't really using the word vampire back then, but then later on, as history was re-examined and people started saying, you know, this was sort of this vampiric fear

where they really thought that something paranormal was happening and that tuberculosis was really just like a dead person's spirit sucking the life out of its family members.

How could I have grown up in New England?

All I get is which trials, which trials, which trials?

Yeah, vampires.

And I didn't even know there was a vampire panic.

Let me know next time.

Heath School in Brooklyn.

Unfair.

Let me know about the vampire panic.

Unfair.

The Wikipedia page for New England vampire panic.

Yeah.

I guess a satirical cartoon from the Boston Globe that says, believe in vampires.

Rhode Islanders are sure that they do exist.

Yeah.

And then it shows a picture of a man standing next to a horse saying, a member of the anti-vampire party.

How did I not know about this?

I'm just mad.

Instances told of where the living have been attacked and preyed upon by these representatives of an unseen world.

Very diplomatic description, by the way.

Representatives of an unseen world doesn't even sound that bad.

That's just UFOs.

I can't just ETs.

There aren't even any counties in this place.

It's just too small.

Too small for counties.

County-free.

It's county-free.

So let's talk about the shape of the state.

Oh, yeah.

You like to talk about the shape of the state.

Talk to me about the shape of the state.

It's square on the west and the north, and then it jogs down to the ocean where it's just eroded.

It looks like

a vampire tore at the neck of this poor state.

Yeah.

Because there's just so many inlets and little...

I mean, it's a, you know, it's also nicknamed the ocean state.

The ocean state.

Because the ocean gets pretty deep in there.

Yeah.

you know what i mean the ocean gets pretty deep in here is that the song

there is ocean all up in my shit

that's only got 1545 cute square miles yeah look at how petite that is of which 169 square miles of those are water ocean is all up in my rhode island shit well

you follow me from Block Island to Providence and shit.

I don't know.

That's not a great song, but there you go.

Yeah.

Shape of the state is: it's this little tiny square of

land and water, kind of in the armpit of Cape Cod of Massachusetts.

Rude.

Shoved in there between Hartford and Boston.

And though it is super duper teeny tiny, it still has two senators, just like all

states do.

Even if they're small, even if one person lives there,

like Wyoming, they get two senators.

Yeah.

Creeps.

We can't go down these bitter roads when we're just delighting in the petite, adorable qualities of Rhode Island.

Again, home to the Tennis Hall of Fame.

May try to visit there.

I don't even have strong feelings about tennis.

I do enjoy tennis.

I don't know that going to the Tennis Hall of Fame is going to be, would be a huge memory maker for me, but I'm open to it.

I'm surprised.

I don't know that I didn't know that Rhode Island had a particular connection with tennis, but there it is.

It's located in Newport, Rhode Island.

Now, you brought up the fact that it is known as the Ocean State.

Did you know that the state license plate nickname, which also is where Ocean State is prominently featured, Rhode Island started licensing vehicles in 1904?

Mark your calendars.

Hang on.

Hang on.

I need to write that down.

Mark your calendars.

Mark your calendars.

Rhode Island started licensing vehicles in 1904.

Previous to being called the Ocean State, there was another, they're big on single words.

Another thing you would have seen before Ocean State on a license plate in Rhode Island.

Yes.

And again, I do want to emphasize it can only fit one car.

That's how small it is.

It's very small.

It's just very.

Was that the word we?

It wasn't we.

It was discover.

Boring.

I like the vagueness of it.

I like hope.

It's just

quite hope.

Hope is terrific.

I don't want to jump the gun.

We're going to rank this later.

We're going to rank the motto of Rhode Island towards the end.

But I have a fairly strong

good feelings about it.

I think it's going to go far.

Sometimes it's nice to keep it simple.

I agree with you.

I don't want to tip my hand too much either, but I like the simplicity.

It's a beauty.

It's a beauty.

That's a beauty.

This kind of made me laugh.

Again, when you realize the pomp and circumstance surrounding like official documents and official decisions about things like state mottos, state license plates, state flags, I had never bothered to read the official legal descriptor for a state flag of any kind before.

So I'm sure that they are all like this.

But I just want to share quickly with you the very important legalese describing what the Rhode Island state flag should be.

The flag of the state shall be white, five feet and six inches fly and four feet and ten inches deep on the pike, bearing on each side in the center a gold anchor twenty-two inches high, and underneath it a blue ribbon twenty-four inches long and five inches wide, or in these proportions with the motto, hope, in golden letters thereon, the whole surrounded by thirteen golden stars in a circle, the flag shall be edged with yellow fringe, the pike shall shall be surmounted by a spearhead, and the length of the pipe shall be nine feet nut, including the spearhead.

A pluribus unum.

You could put a nine-foot spearhead on there, and you get yourself a double-high pike.

That's a good point.

And still be legal.

It would still be street legal.

Really good point.

And still be street legal.

It's astonishing, but I'm sure that there are those kinds of requirements for all the sigilography of all these dumb states.

This is our tax dollars at work.

That's right.

Paying some bean counter to come up with the height of the flagpole.

Well, when you notice someone's homemade flag and it's a little wonky and you realize that it's because it's only five feet five inches fly.

But let's get back to Rhode Island.

You say you've never been there.

I've never been there.

And even in terms of how it's represented in media, say in films or television, I still have no strong association.

Like one could say of Baltimore, I feel like I have some sort of sense of it, accurate or not, because of a show like The Wire.

It's the character of Baltimore is there.

I did not know when, because what's one of the things we like to explore a little bit is are there pop culture iconic moments that we've seen in films or television about these various states?

I could not pull a Rhode Island reference in my mind.

I had to look it up.

There's probably one thing that people who don't know Rhode Island associate with Rhode Island most in popular culture.

And is it the Farrelly brothers?

That's number two, actually, on the official list.

I was going to say, Family Guy is set

in Rhode Island.

Yes, it is.

Yes, yes.

I don't really watch that show, so I don't know how Rhode Islandy it is.

But I think the point is we don't know what Rhode Island-y means.

Yes.

Growing up, I probably would have associated Rhode Island with the mansions in Newport.

The very famous

very famous summer cottages of the wealthiest families of the 19th century, your railroad tycoons and your Vanderbilts and stuff.

They had these big mansions.

And guess what, Janet?

They're still there.

I definitely read about the Newport mansions.

What did you read about?

What did you read about that?

I think I read that rich New Yorkers were known to summer in Newport in these resplendent mansions.

The Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age.

It was the Gilded Age when Cornelius Vanderbilt II commissioned to be built the largest of the summer cottages of Newport.

This one's called the Breakers.

Very, very big mansion.

And I believe that the original they shot.

They shot the 1974 Great Gatsby shop in.

Is that right?

I don't know if they shot it at the Breakers, but they definitely shot it in Newport.

In Newport, in those places, yeah.

The Robert Redford Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston version of the Great Gatsby.

And that seems like it was the right choice, right?

Based on the book, it seems like

that's probably the right place to do it.

Hodgman, speaking of Rhode Island and pop culture, one person who knows the state well is Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows.

That's right.

He used, yeah, he used those Newport mansions that you mentioned as the backdrop for his historical drama on on HBO The Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age.

So naturally, as you know, we know everyone in show business, including luminaries and legends like Julian Fellows.

So we just called him up to get his thoughts on Lil Rhodie.

Well, Rhode Island has really been my chief discovery on making the Gilded Age, in fact.

Of course, I'd read about it, you know, doing research, and I knew that the sort of Gilded Age Society had chosen Rhode Island and Newport in particular as their sort of play place where they would go for the summer and where they would build these houses.

And I knew all about that, but I didn't realize how complete it was as a survival.

I mean, I know some of the cottages have been knocked down and so on, but a great many survive.

And thank God for the Newport Preservation Society.

When you go into, you know, those vanderbilt houses, the breakers or whatever, you think, wow, these people, I don't know if they were giants, but they certainly thought they were giants.

And I just felt it so strongly, really.

I can't believe we got Julian Fellows to talk to us about Rhode Island.

I wish either one of us could take credit.

We got to shout out our producers, Laura Swisher and Julian Burrell.

They made that magic happen, and we love them for it.

Thank you so much.

And later on, we'll have one more word from Julian Fellows before we wrap up our chat about Rhode Island.

But what if I don't want to wait, Janet?

What if I'm a maximum fund member who doesn't want to wait?

Then I want to reassure you that you can go to your Boco feed right now and listen to the full conversation with him.

What will I learn?

Well, you'll learn a lot more about why he loves this state and what he knows about all those.

And you asked for it because you've asked me what more people will learn.

You will learn about all those vamps that call Rhode Island.

All those vamps.

Yep.

Yep.

Here's something I'd like to see someone explore.

I don't know if it's going to be us writing this script, but the first circus in the United States was in Newport in 1774.

I'd like to see what the first circus looked like.

I probably wouldn't.

I'd probably shudder at every choice made for the first circus in the United States.

But on paper, it sounds interesting and fun and strange to see it come together.

I'd love to learn more about that.

That was also in Newport.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

The Farrelly brothers, they are from Cumberland, Rhode Island.

So they've set, I think, all of their movies in Rhode Island, including movies like Dumb and Dumber.

I think me, myself, and Irene.

But again, they're so over top.

I don't remember thinking anything about it was in particular aimed at Rhode Island.

It was just aimed at goofballs and misfits and unPC characters.

I think that it's a place that,

in the popular imagination, it doesn't have one thing.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know, in Boston, it's

Ben Affleck holding 15 cups of Dunkin' Donuts.

Yes.

With bags under his eyes.

That's Boston.

That's New England for me.

They call him the Doc Ock of Duncan.

Yeah.

Somehow.

That's whole thing 15.

Here's another Rhode Island thing that I know about:

stuffies.

Yes, thank you, Stuffies.

Let me take it away, Stuffies.

I mean, I've never had a stuffy.

Have you eaten a stuffy?

Have you eaten a cohog that is a type of clam?

That's the.

Don't worry.

I'm sure it's the state clam.

Let me just.

Cohog?

It probably is.

I don't know.

It's the state shell.

The state shell.

The state shell is the cohog coming from the Narragansett Indian name Poquahawk.

And the cohog is a clam that gets cooked and eaten and enjoyed.

And tell me about how it gets minced and

enjoyed in other official ways.

I don't know how much I can tell you other than you take out the clam and mince it.

Stuffies mean stuffed clams, and it's um

you can get them throughout New England.

Okay.

I've never had a stuffy, but but stuffed clams in Rhode Island are called stuffies and and they're pretty famous.

Okay, so the state stuff, there's some fun stuff in here as well.

Again, rest assured, we have the cohog covered in being the state shell.

We also have just some adorable ways that things begun that become state symbols that charmed me.

Please.

So the state bird.

Yes.

The state bird is a Rhode Island red rooster.

Rhode Island red chicken.

A Rhode Island red chicken rooster.

Okay.

In 1954, a state bird election was sponsored by the Ottoman Society of Rhode Island.

1954.

A lot of the state symbol stuff shows up in the 20th century.

Right.

Also participating in the state election for the bird of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Federation of Garden Clubs, and the Providence Journal Company.

And the Rhode Island Red was in a tight competition with the osprey and the ruby-throated hummingbird, but did win the prize at noon on May 3rd, 1954,

as the bill was signed into law.

Let's enjoy the bill.

Yes.

Okay, terrible.

Now, where that led me to was, I told my partner Brandon this, I mentioned it because I was reading up on Rhode Island when he was nearby, and he said, I think Foghorn Leghorn might be a Rhode Island Red.

And what I was forced to tell him was that Foghorn Leghorn is not a Rhode Island Red.

He's something else that I can't remember.

You know what it is?

Well, he's a southern gentleman.

He's some sort of southern rooster.

Southern roost.

But

a southern cock.

The reason that that was in Brandon's head was that there was an episode of Looney Tunes called Raw, Raw Rooster in 1956, in which Foghorn Leghorn's old roommate, Rhode Island,

came to visit him.

And I, so I was also, I watched that, that Looney Tunes, and it was, it was unclear why they had the rivalry they did, and why, upon his arrival for his visit, his unbidden, unwanted visit to Foghorn Leghorn, Foghorn's immediate response was to try and kill him.

But that's definitely what was going on.

There was a lot of trying to kill Rhode Island Red happening as Rhode Island Red sang some sort of collegiate songs, like he sang a song about Freddy the freshman that was a little weird.

I'll have to check that out.

Who's got all the girlies chasing him around?

Freddy, the freshman, the freshest kid in town.

Who wrecks all the parties, turns them upside down?

Freddy, the freshman, the freshest kid in town.

The Rhode Island Red should not be confused with Foghorn Leghorn.

That is his rival and friend.

All right.

Would you like to guess what the state flower is, John?

State flower of Rhode Island is

the Rhode Island Red Rose.

Great guess.

All right.

The violet.

The violet.

How about that?

As voted in by schoolchildren

in 1897.

1897.

It was voted as the state flower by schoolchildren in 1897, but it wasn't until 1968 that people finally realized we have got to sign this into our laws.

You mean it wasn't codified?

Make this official.

The violet was living in sin with Rhode Island as the state flower.

Wow.

Until a very long time later, until over 70 years later.

70 years, another flower could have just walked in there and taken the stone.

Exactly.

So I'm glad they came to their senses in 1968.

The state tree.

Do you have a guess there?

Let me say, if you'd like to guess, you might look back towards the state bird for a clue.

Oh.

Could it be the Acer rubrum?

I don't know what that is.

It sounds like a piece of technology.

Oh, that's the Latin term for red maple.

You

sneaky?

I think I.

You are dangerously close to the kind of rivalry that Foghorn and Red experience in Real Rob Rooster, so watch it.

I didn't mean to.

Or I'm going to hit you with a co-hog the size of my fist.

Don't hit me with a co-hog, please.

I didn't mean to peek ahead.

Yes, my friend, the Red Maple, also voted in in the 1890s, once again by school children.

Yeah, of course.

It wasn't until 1964

that people said, we got to pin this baby down.

You have got to pin it down.

Do you think the entire legislature of Rhode Island in the 1890s was children?

And they were like, what do we do?

And the adults were like, we don't feel like doing it.

You kids do it.

And they're like, I guess let's just vote in some state trees and flowers.

Which, by the way, what a peaceful era you'd be ushering in to any state government if you're just voting on wonderful pieces of nature.

There's clowns in Congress.

We should replace them with children.

There you go.

There you go.

There is a carousel that exists in Rhode Island.

I would like to visit it someday.

It's in Crescent Park.

Of course, I didn't write down what city it's in.

It doesn't matter.

You don't have far to go anywhere in Rhode Island.

There you go.

But it was part of, I think.

Maybe it was Providence, but it was part of a Victorian-era amusement park.

And it was a Danish designer, which makes me laugh because the Danish designer designed a carousel that is now the official American folk art.

All right.

A little confusing.

The state drink

something called coffee milk.

Coffee milk.

Have you had coffee milk?

Yeah, have you not?

No.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

For cog's sake.

It's terrible.

If you haven't, I'm going to have to have it.

Would you say that it's similar to chocolate milk?

Well, there's one difference.

It's a small, it's a slight difference, but it's pretty meaningful in terms of the outcome.

Uh-huh.

Tastes like coffee.

Oh!

Makes your milk

taste like sweet coffee.

Okay.

I mean, that sounds good.

This was one of those things that would stray a little bit, just like Moxie would stray from Maine, even though it was invented in Massachusetts.

It's more popular in Maine, but it would stray down into the Boston area.

So, coffee syrup for coffee milk would stray into the Store 24s and the Cumberland farms of the Boston area as well.

And I believe that one of the brands that they use,

you get a syrup and then you mix it into the milk, you know, like chocolate milk.

But instead of chocolate-flavored syrup, it's a coffee-flavored syrup.

Okay.

One of the famous Rhode Island brands, I believe, is called Autocrat.

Because what else would you associate delicious coffee milk with than authoritarian government it's so strange what if i told you and i'm not saying i will but what if i told you that cumberland also has a very important tie to a very important part of the state symbols well if you were to tell me that it would be kind of a dream come true but okay i don't want to get my hopes up what if i told you that there is a heavy black or dark brown rock with white markings that was found south of cumberland And this is a rock that will attract a magnet.

And what if I told you that it had a very clever name?

You're not talking about Cumberlandite, are you?

I'm afraid I am.

Wow.

Cumberland.

Cumberlandite.

Cumberlite.

Cumberlandite.

Hey, call it like it is.

You know what I mean?

Keep it simple.

Our motto is hope.

We're going to call this rock Cumberlandite.

What do you want from us?

Weirdly, it's my birthstone.

Great.

That comes as, and you were born in Septeriary?

That's exactly right.

I hope.

I hope.

Shout out to the motto.

Fantastic.

It also has, not to be outdone, there's also a state mineral.

And the state mineral is Boenite, a relative of Jade.

Guess what the last name of the person who found Bowenite was?

Knight.

Oh, Bowen.

Yes.

You forgot the rules.

That's okay.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

So, those are the state symbols.

That's the state stuff of Rhode Island.

That's the state stuff of Rhode Island.

It's pretty robust.

It's a pretty robust list.

Well, you know what?

There's some more stuff.

There's also a tartan.

I'm not going to get into this.

There's a yacht.

There's this tall ship and flagship.

There's a quarter design that's official.

There's a state fish.

John Hodgman, I hope you're in the

mud.

In the mud, ta-da, ba-dee-ba-dee-ba.

John Hodgman, I hope you're in the mud for a musical treat.

Oh, I enjoy a musical treat.

Do you have one for me?

I'm glad to hear it because we do have one for you.

It's the state song of Rhode Island with lyrics by Charlie Hall and music by Maria Day.

Let's listen to Rhode Island's It for Me.

I see the lighthouse flickering to help the sailors see.

There's a place for everyone, Rhode Island.

Rhode Island's it for me.

Rhode Island, a Rhode Island, surrounded by the sea.

Some people roam the earth for home.

Rhode Island's it for me.

I love a fridge.

I can't play all of this.

No, thank you.

I don't want to hear any more.

When was that song written?

That has a vibe of

maybe 1968.

Yeah, everything that cheesy, I assume.

But that could also be the 70s.

Oh, that is.

You're right.

It has a 70s vibe to it, a little Captain and Tennille vibe to it, I feel like.

Yeah.

Rhode Island, written by T.

Clark Brown, was the official state song for over 50 years when it was replaced.

Whoa,

that's no good.

And this is a shorty.

Here's to you, beloved Rhode Island, with your hills and ocean shore.

We are proud to hail you, Rhodey, and your patriots of yore.

First to claim your independence, great your heritage and fame.

The smallest state in all the Union, we will glorify your

I

have a better song.

This is a song that was written by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz.

Great.

It appeared in a Broadway review in the 1940s called Inside USA,

celebrating each of the then 48 states.

Yes.

And this song, as it happens,

has been adopted by the podcast Crimetown

for its multi-part exploration of the criminal/slash mayoral career of Buddy Siancey.

Oh, I got to listen to this.

Crimetown's great.

But I know it from the version recorded by the great

jazz vocalist Blossom Deary.

Wonderful.

Who also sang a lot of the schoolhouse rock songs.

Yeah.

Including figurative.

And you know, she's got that, she's got that really sweet, high, sort of thready, wispy voice.

And this song is called Rhode Island is Famous for You.

And when I sing this song, Janet,

that's the end of the podcast.

Great.

Because you'll see there's nothing, there's nowhere to go from here.

So

let's rank the motto.

Let's rank the motto.

Thank you.

Yes.

And remember, we're ranking it against itself.

We're not ranking it yet.

in total with all of the states we have investigated yet.

We are only ranking it against itself on scale from one to ten.

And we did, like for Connecticut, we did a one to ten scale.

And I believe it broke her to one.

Let's make it one to ten stuffies.

Stuffies, great.

One to ten stuffed Rhode Island cohogs.

Great.

With a sense of dream and aspiration and heart as big as a cohog's fist.

It's simple.

I don't know if cohogs have fists.

They do.

They do.

It's the best part.

The best part of the plan.

The meatiest part.

Lobsters have knuckles, cohogs have fists.

It is simple.

It is in English.

It is one word.

It is not referenced obliquely in any way.

It makes no oblique or overt reference to genocide in it.

It is inclusive.

It won Barack Obama, the White House.

It's hope.

And I know exactly how many stuffed co-hogs are going to rate it.

What do you think, Janet?

Do you have anything you want to add?

I'm prepared to go.

I mean, I'm going high.

Do I want to give it the very, very best without knowing what else is out there for us?

I guess that's not the idea.

The idea is.

We're ranking it against itself.

We're ranking it against itself.

I don't have any problems with it.

I don't have any problems with it.

I got to give it 10 stuffies.

10 out of 10 stuffies, for sure.

Right?

10 out of 10.

Well done, Rhode Island.

Good job, little Rhodey.

Well, look at that.

It only took two episodes for a state to achieve a perfect motto score.

Okay, we're done.

Amazing.

This has been great.

What a great run we had.

No, we're not done.

We're going to keep going to every state and commonwealth and district there is.

Yes, indeed.

And with that, let's just hear about what Julian Fellows thinks about that motto, hope.

I hope he doesn't hate it.

Hope is a pretty good motto for any life, I think, until hope becomes impossible.

I mean, it interests me that the most successful people in America at that time chose an island with the motto hope,

where they would spend their, I don't know, about free time, but certainly where they would go to play.

I mean, they didn't have much to hope for by the time they were building the breakers, because for most of us, they'd already got it.

But I like hope, it's optimistic and upward-looking.

There's too much gloom around these days for me.

I like a happier take on life, and I think that expresses it.

Rhode Island, you've earned one final musical treat after this break.

Ioplarubismata will be right back.

Musical treat!

Hi, John and Janet.

This is James, and I live in Rhode Island, where the state symbol is the anchor, which is fun because you see it all over the place.

Companies will put in their logos, and you'll see it on beer koozies, coasters, that sort of thing.

The state motto is Hope, which is the shortest state motto for the smallest state.

It seems like every one of the 39 cities and towns in Rhode Island has some sort of Hope Street or Hope Avenue, Hope Lane, that sort of thing.

In Providence, we have Hope Street, which is one of the main streets in town, and it intersects with Power Street, which is a shorter street, but it has a few mansions on it, including one which used to belong to our illustrious mayor, Buddy Ciance.

And so we like to say that the rich live on power and the rest of us live off off hope.

Thanks.

Love the show, even though I haven't heard it yet.

I think we've teased it enough.

John Hodgman, I must insist on hearing your rendition of Rhode Island is Famous for You by Blossom Deary.

I don't know if this is a musical treat or a musical trick, but here it goes.

I'm going to toilet paper your ears with Rhode Island is Famous for You by Blossom Deary.

Copper comes from Arizona.

Peaches come from Georgia.

And lobsters come from Maine.

The wheat fields are the sweet fields of Nebraska.

And Kansas gets bonanzas from the grain.

Old whiskey comes from old Kentucky.

Ain't the country lucky?

New Jersey gives us glue.

And you,

you come from Rhode Island.

And little old Rhode Island is famous for you.

Cotton comes from Louisiana.

Goatfords from Montana and spuds from Idaho.

They plowland in the cowland of Missouri

Where most beef meant for roast beef seems to grow.

It's really good.

Grand Canyons come from Colorado.

Gold comes from Nevada.

Divorces also do.

And you,

you come from Rhode Island.

Little old Rhode Island is famous for you.

Here's a big finish.

Bump a dump bump.

Pencils come from Pennsylvania.

Vests from West Virginia.

And tents from Tennessee.

They know mink where they grow mink in Wyoming.

A camp chair in New Hampshire, that's for me.

And minnows come from Minnesota.

Coats come from Dakota, but why should you be blue?

For you.

You come from Rhode Island.

Don't let them ride Rhode Island.

It's famous for you.

All right, it's no Blossom Deary, but it's a great song.

Oh,

so great.

Rhode Island is famous for you.

I have so many questions, but they're going to have to wait.

No, that's the end of the podcast.

How could anything?

This is the end.

Listen to the Blossom Deary version.

Eve Pluribus Motto is hosted by John Hodgman, along with myself, Janet Varney, and is a production of Maximum Fun.

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

Our theme song was created by Zach Burba, and ePleurivus Moto artwork is by the wonderful Paul G.

Hammond.

Friends, we'd love to hear from you.

You can find the show on TikTok and Instagram at ePlurivusmato, and you can reach us via email at emailplurivusmato at maximumfun.org.

Again, that email is emailplurivusmato at maximumfun.org.

If you think it's confusing, that's because it is on purpose.

Join us next time as we journey to John Hodgman's home state of Massachusetts.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I'm so sorry.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts coming up next time, also home to some of our most celebrated writers.

That guy lived in a shack on Walden Pond.

He had nothing there except like a flute that he had carved and an eagle feather or some dumb.

Nature this, nature that.

And then when he got hungry, he walked half a mile to Emerson's house to get a pie.

He was in the moocher.

And until next time, remember our motto: dope.

Yes.

Boo and yay.

Boo and yay.

Soap.

Every motto is us revealing regermaphobes.

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