Please allow me to give a huge thanks to the reader who alerted me to this story (via a comment on a previous post).
This esteemed reader landed on my blog because he or she had Googled the word “Forgotonia” after hearing it mentioned on the syndicated public radio news-magazine show Here & Now.
It turns out that our very own forgotten western Illinois region was mentioned on the show because it is featured in a new book: Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It.
On the radio show, the host and author talk about this region as being “just corn”–and why our title still applies (i.e., why we’re still “losers.“)
(As always, I find that it’s both exciting and unsettling to hear our region described and articulated from the outside perspective.) You can listen to the host’s interview with the author, Michael J. Trinklein, via the Here & Now web site’s archives (scroll down to “The States that Didn’t Make the Cut” and click on the “Listen” icon.)
I went a’Googlin’ after I listened to the clip. I didn’t find a lot of information on this author or his background, but I did check out his Lost States blog. (I think that in addition to the fact that we are both interested in concepts like Forgottonia, we would also be friends because he makes fun of Sarah Palin. Points!) If you’re curious about which other proposed states Trinklein covers in the book, you can take a quick tour via this Flickr page with images of the proposed states.
Also, I ordered the book as a gift for my dad (a lifelong Forgotonia resident) for his birthday. Last weekend, when I was in Iowa City, I saw a copy in Prairie Lights and had to sneak a peak. When I flipped to the Forgotonia section, I saw a picture and cutline that (as on the radio show) made some kind of quip about Forgotonia residents not having much more to love than corn syrup. (It filled me with that same mixture of feelings I got when I had read Barbara Ehrenreich’s description of my birthplace and homeland as “industrial-agricultural wasteland.”)
I desperately wanted to read more while I was in the bookstore, but figured I should preserve the experience of sitting down to pour over it. So now I’m excitedly waiting until my dad’s copy arrives in the mail today so I can read it before giving to him for his birthday.
Did you hear the Lost States story? Do you think we still deserve the Forgotonia title? Do you think we are unique because we still don’t have that interstate? How do you feel when you see or hear our region mentioned in the news, pop culture, or literature?
Let me hear from you in the comments below.
Tags: national_news, radio, Rural People Read Too
