All hail to the tribe of Illinois

I had planned to continue our discussion of interesting state facts today with my home state of Michigan, but my research turned up only one thing about Michigan: It is boring. This merely confirms what Joe, who is not from Michigan, has always suspected. If he had to give Michigan a motto, he never would have picked "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." His motto would be something more along the lines of "You couldn't find someplace more boring, except possibly Iowa."

However, the news for all you Illinois readers out there, particularly those of the male persuasion, is much better. Your state's name is a mixed marriage between an Indian word and a French suffix and means -- this is true -- "the superior tribe of men."

Yes, males of Illinois, I am sure this confirms what you have always suspected. I can hear the whooping and hollering from here. Of course, that could be coming from my own house, in which resides a male from this "superior tribe." Of course I think he is superior.


This is also good news for single women. A co-worker of mine, for instance, is convinced that all available males in Maryland are defective in some respect, despite the manliness of Maryland's motto, "manly deeds." Now I know, thanks to my research on state names, that she is right, and that she should move to Illinois.

The list of men who hail from the superior tribe of Illinois is certainly impressive. Walt Disney. Harrison Ford. Charlton Heston. Rock Hudson. Burl Ives. Bob Newhart. Ronald Reagan. Not to be outdone, Maryland has: John Wilkes Booth.

Possibly because of all this manliness, Illinois also broke with tradition, indeed federal regulation, when naming its state song. No standard "Illinois, My Illinois" for this tribe. They are so proud, so self-assured, that their state song is simply "Illinois." I wish I'd thought of that.

Illinoisans are also much more decisive than, say, people in Tennessee, which has no fewer than six state songs (which I'm sure is against some federal regulation), one of which is "Utah." The residents of Mississippi, in an effort to help those of us from other states with our perpetual difficulty in remembering how to spell their state's name, have simplified things by dividing the title of their state song into syllables: "Miss-iss-ipp-i." There are no words to this song, but chanting the title has become such a ritual for children everywhere that it is now a requirement in most school geography programs. You are probably chanting it right now.

Well, this concludes our look at interesting state facts. I hope all you single women will get a chance to check out that superior tribe of men from Illinois. If you're lucky, "superior tribe of men" means "men of great culinary ability."