Texas

which has a whole fictitious back-story behind it. Talking with him about it, I used Texas as an example of how a lot of nation's (or regions) self-identities are based on fictions and creatively invented stories. He's at the "I want to believe" stage with the whole thing, and tends to lean whichever way the last person he talked to pushed him. It's easy to understand the psychology of it, but hard for me to imagine being so pliable.