Before large newspapers cut much of their rural coverage and circulation, columns like Charles Salter's "Georgia Rambler" in the 1970s Atlanta Journal were more common. Salter visited a different rural Georgia town for each column and asked locals, "Who is the most interesting person you know?" For a late July episode of the wonderful radio show "This American Life" from Chicago Public Media, producers set out to duplicate Salter's idea, sending seven reporters to eight Georgia counties to ask the same question. Ira Glass, the host of the show, said they got too many stories to tell on the one-hour program, so they selected the seven best.
Among the highlights was a local debate in Meriwether County as to whether President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a fan of the local moonshine near his Warm Springs home during Prohibition and the "Soundoff" column in the Summerville News of Chatooga County, which suggests locals are supremely concerned with Krystal hamburgers. For the show's final segment, Salter's son Chuck, now a senior writer at Fast Company magazine, revisits the subject of one of his father's more memorable columns 33 years later to examine what effect the construction of a lake he was fighting ended up having on his farm.
You can stream the entire "Georgia Rambler" episode on This American Life's website here or access the show's complete radio archives for its weekly themed podcasts detailing stories from around the country.
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