Rosalea Barker: Illinois

Okay! Time for some fun! Want to read the history of Illinois?—click here. At the last minute, I’ve decided to spare you any dire stories about Indian wars, Abraham Lincoln, the Haymarket Riots, the Pullman Car Strike, the Great Migration, the Blues, the skyscrapers, the shoddy politics… no wait! Here’s a story straight out of this week’s news that will segue very nicely thank you into this week’s column:

So much for a drawn-out, ugly battle for Illinois Republican Party chairman.

Pat Brady was elected to replace Andy McKenna this morning in a closed-door meeting of the Republican State Central Committee. McKenna had announced his immediate resignation a couple hours earlier.

McKenna expected the party would pick his replacement within 60 days. Instead, it did it much more quickly. Reporters didn't learn of the selection until Republican Day Festivities moved from a Springfield hotel, where Brady was selected, to the fairgrounds.

The story is courtesy of the GateHouse News Service State Capitol Bureau, and is dated Thursday, August 20, 2009. For someone with my imagination, the last line of the report conjures up a picture of drunken fellows in stovepipe hats and bushy beards, rollicking arm-in-arm down Main Street with brandy flasks a-swinging, trailed by a downcast chappy severely in his cups, morose with disappointment that his sudden resignation hadn’t made the other blokes agree to whatever he was demanding in order to have him stay on as chairman. Around this little cavalcade, a flurry of gents with tickets saying “Press” in their hats and huge flash bulbs on their cameras—yes, I know that’s anachronistic—are circling gleefully like moths to a flame-out.

The Republican Day Festivities the report refers to were part of the Illinois State Fair, which ends this weekend. Said festivities included open goat, swine, sheep, and dairy shows, harness racing, and entertainment from the Bucket Boys, Cats on Holiday, and the Heart of Illinois Brass Brand. To be fair, the previous day was Governor’s Day—and by implication, Democrat Day—and the events were pretty much similar, apart from the Tractor Pull, in which former Illinois Governor Blago was torn limb from limb in a tug-o-war between the two finalists.

But I jest—of course I jest! Who can blame me for being lighthearted? These are the heady days of the waning US summer, a time when state fairs are held all over the country. Here’s a great Saturday Evening Post online article about the tradition. It includes a calendar of all the states’ fair days. One commenter on the site writes: Growing up in Illinois, the state fair there was a destination of joy.

But which state fair, dearie? You see, Illinois has two state fairs, and it is to the second state fair that I now direct your attention. Du Quoin a phrase: This state fair is the best state fair, don’t miss it, don’t even be late. (With apologies to Messrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein.) Du Quoin is a small city in Southern Illinois—population about 7,000—but it has been holding a state fair since 1923, for the first 63 years as a commercial operation. Today it’s under the auspices of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, just like the major state fair in the capital, Springfield.

The Du Quoin State Fair, too, has a Republican Day, which will be on Tuesday, September 1, and includes the alarmingly named Mystery Sack Cooking Contest, and Governor’s Day on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend. The highlight will no doubt be the World Trotting Derby. Last year, one of the horses arrived with an Illinois State Police escort and 4x6 color photos of him were distributed to the first 1,000 racing fans to arrive in the grandstand. (Were they autographed, I wonder?) The horse’s name was Deweycheatumnhowe, which I somehow misread as Dewey Cheat ‘Em and How!

Du Quoin is named after Jean Baptiste Du Quoin, who was the son of a Frenchman and a Tamaroa Indian woman. He was named chief of the Tamaroa in 1767. The original site of Du Quoin is on an important trail that was used up until railroad tracks were laid 50 miles away in 1853. Present-day Du Quoin is by the railroad, and the photos on its official city and tourism websites show a nice little country town, not unlike the one I grew up in. The town’s welcome billboard features a trotter and driver and the words “A Change of Pace”.

Sounds like an idyllic spot to retire to: small town with a penchant for puns AND a state fair! I’m sure the fair’s much bigger than the local A&P Show (Agricultural and Pastoral, for US readers) I used to go to as a kid and teenager. It might even be bigger than the Alameda County Fair, which I attended just this past Fourth of July, for the second time since arriving here. The Du Quoin State Fair has all the usual agricultural, floriculture, textile, culinary, art, and hobby competitions, along with livestock and farm machinery exhibitions.

And though it’s got nothing to do with Illinois—except for some pictures of a former US Senator from there—just to give you a taste of what a state or county fair is like in the US, here is the daft video I put together of my trip to the 2009 Alameda County Fair in California:

--PEACE—

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

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