Phthursday Musings: Happy National Illinois Day!

Friends, I must confess, I had nothing, absolutely nothing, this week.

And then, I learned, at about 8:21pm, much later than is probably useful, not that this is useful, but I’m sure you get my point, that today, December 7, is somehow, according to someone, National Illinois Day!

This naturally led to me searching for national illinois day in my nearest cut-throat monopolizing browser, which in turn led me to such wonders as ilikeillinois.com where I helpfully learned that “Illinois is known for its prominence in the Midwest”, and that Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs also likes Illinois!

According to the obviously very definitive site whatnationaldayisit.com, this might possibly have all started in 2017 when “a whopping 159 mentions were detected”.

I wish I would have had weeks to prepare for National Illinois Day. I would have written at least 105 listicles to commemorate our 105 years of statedom. Alas, having had no lead time, and, you know, this being Phthursday Musings, I guess I’m just going to have to wing it.

As you might know, I ran for Illinois State Representative in the 88th District in 2004 and again in 2006. There are a lot of things I could say about those experiences, but perhaps the most important thing I learned was during the 2006 Labor Day Parade.

See, I marched in that parade, alongside my supporters, all three or so of them! Maybe more! I have blotted most of it from my memory! Because this happened:

My opponent, the incumbent, Dan Brady, using whatever the Illinois equivalent of the franking privilege is, got a whole lot of Illinois-themed coloring books printed off. They weren’t campaign literature exactly, but his name was on them, not as a candidate but rather as an officeholder. How was I supposed to defeat a man who was using the power of his office to drown out my messages through the cunning use of free Illinois-themed coloring books?

What I learned then, and have spent years trying to figure out how to execute, was that I needed my own Illinois-themed coloring books, but mine needed to be tougher. Specifically what I needed was for my Illinois to have big beefy arms, demonstrating how strong and mighty the Prairie State truly is.

Well, today, I was finally forced, with no advance notice, to start executing my plan. With no markers in sight, I was reduced to using my iPhone. Here is Big Beefy Illinois, ready for any tussle you will throw our way!

Sure, with more time and precision, this could turn out better. But you know what Nelson Algren said about Chicago: Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

And Chicago is only part of Illinois. My god, is there so much to love.

You are no doubt aware that the eastern milksnake is the official snake of Illinois, and, well, why wouldn’t it be? Look at this magnificent creature:

Now, I am stealing this story from Governor JB Pritzker, but I’m sure he won’t mind.

It seems that when the Illinois Senate was taking up the resolution to designate the eastern milksnake as the official snake of the State of Illinois, the debate somehow degraded into… politics. One can only imagine what exactly this means. I mean, it’s not like they were making the calamitous decision to designate popcorn as the official snack (obviously the true snack of the State of Illinois is Beer Nuts). But legislatures will do what legislatures will do.

In the midst of this serpentine gridlock, Senator Scott Bennett took the floor, and is said to have asked his colleagues:

Does your milksnake bring all the boys to the yard?

This apparently settled the whole matter, the chamber got back to business, and the eastern milksnake joined such luminaries as the violet, fluorite, Drummer silty clay loam, the Illinois Saint Andrew Society Tartan, milkweed, and square dance in representing this very fine 21st state of the Union.

Now if we can just do something about the popcorn. No offense, my should-be-buttery friend, but… we all know better.

Oh and I recommend you download this booklet of state symbols, write in big letters on the back AS RECOMMENDED TO ME BY PHIL HUCKELBERRY, and draw your own Illinois with big beefy arms on the front.

It so happens that just this morning, I was thinking about how I should try again to write the piece I’ve long been wanting to write, about how Illinois just needs to get it together and be a state full of friends.

Look: Every surrounding state has some sort of state pride about something. I’m not going to claim to understand what all of these things are, but Wisconsin definitely has it, and Kentucky most definitely has it, and even freaking Indiana has it.

Illinois, though, it seems like our thing is that we’ve always got someone internally to gripe about. Everything breaks down into rivalries. Chicago versus downstate. North Side versus South Side. Everybody versus Decatur. You know what I mean.

I want to break us out of all that. I want to walk into a gas station and see a display saying ONLY IN ILLINOIS! and have it be something cool, something other than a picture of all the governors we’ve sent to prison.

What I think doesn’t work is for a tourism bureau to be all like oh gosh have you visited Prairie du Rocher yet? Do I think it would be a cool place to visit? Yes. But do I also think that a roadhouse in Cambridge would be a cool place to visit? Yes, I do. Do I actively think in terms of how I’m going to run a 5K in Edgar County? Yes, I do.

Illinois, as I’ve written numerous times, is notoriously flat. Some intrepid pioneer should be able to emerge from the prairie and mulch and figure out how to turn that into something. Not that people haven’t already done so!

Have you seen the Peoria-centric scale model of the Solar System, for example? Have you driven to Kewanee to find Pluto? We should all be driving to Kewanee to find Pluto. Come on!

Here’s one off the cuff ridiculous proposal. We’ve got 102 counties, right? Let’s put 102 works of art, 1 per county, all across the state. How about artworks of 102 indigenous flora or fauna? How about the installation in Chicago be something huge and crazy like a full scale wooly mammoth at the Field Museum, where you can get maps of the other 101 scattered across the state? Obviously you’d have to put a white squirrel in Olney, but everywhere else is fair game, right?

Or do something berserk and construct a wooden thimble rack in the shape of the state, with slots for 102 thimbles. As I write this paragraph, I realize this is probably the greatest idea I have ever had. Each thimble will only be available in its respective county, and will feature the county name, some nature thing the locals like, and some pithy statement about how wonderful the county is. Moultrie County: Never thought you’d wind up here, did you?

As you should know by now, I’m perfectly capable of perpetuating this madness for another couple of hours. But I want people to get a chance, a sliver of a chance, to celebrate National Illinois Day, and if I don’t get this sent out now, then what?

I do want to share with you some songs which are at least sort of kind of about places in Illinois. Or about the whole dang state. Do you know all these?

You really weren’t expecting a Slobberbone appearance, now were you?

Pretty much have to include Tom Waits, right?

Skip James is a must here:

I could include the entirety of their wonderful album Illinois River Valley Blues, but I’ll stick with just one Brokeback song here:

We of course have to include the two greatest bands which ever came out of Illinois, singing about their home state. Uncle Tupelo’s “Sauget Wind” absolutely qualifies:

And I’m just going to give you the entirety of Rockford because why not:

And while putting all of this together it occurred to me that many of you might not know of the existence of Sufjan Stevens’s album Illinois, where every single song is about something in Illinois, including “Come on! Feel the Illinoise!”:

Finally, be on the lookout for my next album, Songs from Jo Daviess County, due out some time in 2029, give or take a few years, featuring the single “East Dubuque To You Too, Pal!”

Incidentally, did you know that in the 19th Century, Illinois was also known as the Sucker State?

I managed to convince some people at the World Affairs Seminar many years ago that Illinois was also well known as the Mulch State.

But the wonderful thing about Illinois is, you can call it whatever you want!

Well, this was certainly a good time. Maybe I’ll do it again next week. What do you say, people? Should we celebrate National Illinois Day every Thursday?