A Guide to Illinois
Illinoisans have two pastimes--building towns right next to each other, even though there's plenty of room to spread out* and experiencing odd things.
We'll get to the odd things in a second, but let's dwell on the twin cities phenomenon. Now, anyone who's ever looked at a road atlas can easily discern that the farther east you go in the Midwest, the more accommodating and easy to get along with people are. Ohio? Who doesn't get along with people from Ohio? Indiana? Yes, it's disconcerting that their Amish people drive trucks** and that everyone knows either Axl Rose or John Mellencamp or both, but, over all, okay place. Then you have Illinois, where we get a little grouchier--downstate*** hates Chicago, Chicago hates downstate; everyone who didn't go to the University of Illinois hates the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois hates them; coal miners hate the farmers; people of northern Italian descent egg the houses of people of southern Italian descent; people whose families came over from Germany 250 years ago still refuse to speak English; and so on, but as long as everyone stays in their designated area, there's very little overt hostility. Then there's Iowa, where it seems nice and peaceful, but only because there's no one in the state who's still talking to each other.
So, the twin town thing in Illinois is peculiar, but I suspect it's born out of our inherent grouchy tolerance. You can almost imagine how it happened in, say, Bloomington/Normal. The settlers were like "We need a name that will let people know that this is a happening place. Things are busting out--this is a booming town. No, that implies industry. We don't want industry. Let's call it a blooming town. Yes, that's it. Bloomington." "Industry? You jackasses don't want any industry? What kind of freaks don't want any jobs in their town? Fine. You do things your way. We'll be here on our side of this creek in 'Normal people's town.' You can call it Normal for short."
And the towns, separated more by ideology than inches, soon grow intertwined until you can't tell where one town starts and the other stops.
But, if you're going to basically tolerate the people you don't like who live near you--thus ruling out a great deal of ethnic and religious violence****--you end up with not a whole lot to do.
Which is, I suppose, how some lucky towns end up with some strange thing, like the Watseka Wonder or the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Or they end up implementing really strange community improvement ideas.
Take for instance, Aledo, Illinois (home of Suzy Bogguss). Even though the town has, maybe, 3,000 people in it, they decided to rename all of the streets to make it easier for folks to find their way around town. Only two streets were left with actual street names--College Avenue and Main Street. All the other streets were given numbers--with streets being east-west roads and avenues being north-south roads.
You're still not seeing the lunacy, I know, but bear with me. Each street or avenue was numbered, starting with 2nd, from either College or Main. So, there was a North 2nd Street and a South 2nd Street and a West 2nd Avenue and an East 2nd Avenue. Which means that, in a town small enough you can walk across it and still meet friends for lunch up at the Garden Family Restaurant, you can stand at the corner of 2nd and 2nd at four different places in town.
Really, you almost must see it to believe it.
*See Urbana/Champaign, Bloomington/Normal, LaSalle/Peru, Rock Island/Davenport/Moline/East Moline/Bettendorf/Milan (better known as the Quad Cities. Yes, everyone knows there are six cities. Don't be petulant.), etc.
**It's a little known fact that most traffic accidents in rural Indiana are caused by Illinois drivers going "What the fuck? Is that an Amish dude driving that truck behind me?" and turning around to take a look and ending up in a culvert.
***"Downstate" constituting anything south of I-80 or west of Aurora, thus leading to the peculiarness of Galena somehow being downstate of Chicago.
****Though it'd surely be something to watch the Lutherans and the Methodists take on those young upstart Assemblies of God.
posted by Aunt B at 1/24/2006 07:11:00 AM
11 Comments:
First...OMG...and I thought our city planners weren't too bright. Did they do this street naming thing just to make it more confusing? They figured, hey, it is too hard to get lost in this town, even for strangers, so lets create a confusion factor to add to the equation. More confusion means people stopping to ask for directions, and that means more opportunities for business (aka Profit).
Secondly, I just recently left the Assemblies of God church in favor of a more traditional feeling. We are now going to a Lutheran church, how is that for irony.
* Everybody knows it's really Champaign/Urbana, except for the people naming the University. And even though I went there, I don't hate everybody else. I might feel superior, but I definitely don't hate them.
* Let's not forget Homewood/Flossmoor, where I grew up. Lord knows the Flossmoor people feel superior to the Homewood people just because their houses cost more. The nerve.
*** I'm already Downstate? That will make my transition SO much easier. It's also odd that even though, currently being south of I-80, we share the same area code as Rockford, which is a two hour drive to the northwest (depending on traffic conditions).
I like the peculiarity of area codes in the Chicago area. 630 includes suburbs right by O'Hare, but it also goes out to places like Elburn and Little Rock, which are still sort of farm country to me.
I'd be willing to bet your average midwestern Lutheran isn't much for religious violence...hopefully there's some religious aspect that prevents it, but as a group we aren't much for anything where there's not time for coffee and there's not an opportunity to sit in the back and be stoic, which seems to go against the nature of a religious battle.
Of course, you could ask your dad because he told me he is an expert on "those Lutherans." :)
David, perhaps you're on to something with the street naming. Otherwise, I just don't know. I don't think the town ever recovered from losing out on being home to Western Illinois University.
Peg, I totally forgot about Homewood/Flossmoor, even though Flossmoor has to be the greatest name for a city--it's like having your dentist nag you all the time.
See, I do these posts just so you can be prepared for the transition.
I don't think the Methodists could say "Hey, Lutherans, let's go kick the butts of those Assembly of God folks." But, if the Methodists used a little subtrifuge... "Hey, Lutherans, those Assembly of God folks are talking smack about potlucks!!!" We both know it'd be ON then. You don't mess with the old school Protestant potluck.
Don't be hatin' on the red jello and party potatoes.
*drool*
potluck....
*drool* *drool*
[Off topic alert: look who's nominated! Go Aunt B!]
Holy Shit! Seeing Tiny Cat Pants on the same list with I Blame the Patriarchy makes me dizzy. There must be some mistake. Twisty's good and she blames the patriarchy. I talk about tits and cooters. But wow, anyway.
And I'm glad to see Theology and Geometry on there, too. Lindsey kicks so much butt.
Those truck-driving Amish might really be Mennonites, who are often mistaken for Amish but are slightly less hostile to modern conveniences like zippers and internal combustion engines (but are right there with them on the evils of things like moving pictures and colorful clothing).
Are all the streets in Robinson, IL still one-way like they were in the seventies? Now THAT was weird...especially for a semi-drunken Chicago teenager.
Fellow Land of Lincoln ex-pat (currently living in Indiana) here. Anything outside of the Chicago metro area, no matter which direction it actually lies in, is "downstate". This can include things like Rockford, which is dumb, but there you go. (Full disclosure: my hometowns are Glen Ellyn and Naperville, both 630 area code.)
You may already know this, but the "Normal" in Bloomington/Normal originally had something to do with a teaching school located there. Schools where you learned how to be a teacher were called "normal", for some bizarre reason. So I don't think "Normal" was named that in the psychological sense of the term, but in the we-have-a-teaching-school-here sense. I could be wrong though.
~Mychelline
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