Timothy Birdnow

Multiple counties in southern Illinois have voted to secede from the Land of Lincoln and Indiana has made them an offer to annex them into their fair state.

Illinois is entirely dominated by Chicago, that great People's Republic, and while southern Illinois isn't conservative it's not so leftist as the north, and the people there want out.

Can't say I blame them; high taxes, high gas prices, heavy regulations, and an open invitation to illegal aliens have all added up to sour the folks down south.

Southern Illinois is actually a delightful area. There are essentially two regions - the south and the Deep South, which includes "Little Egypt", the delta area where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet. Southernmost Illinois is the Ozarks, part of the ancient mountain chain that once was the biggest thing going a billion years ago. A beautiful region of streams, rolling hills, forests, and other natural wonders.

The wife and I discovered this area years ago and used to visit it on a regular basis. There is the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, full of small, boutique wineries and a few microbreweries tucked in the hollows and forests of the Illinois Ozarks. There is Bald Knob, with the Cross of Peace sitting on the highest hill in the region, a giant white crucifix which they light at night. It can be seen over a six hundred square mile area! There is also a very artsy, intellectual community nearby. They have a boardwalk with a wonderful surprise - a metal art shop's back yard, which you discover is an amazing wonderland of stone forts and pirate ships and other pre-adolscent dreams, like something out of Peter Pan and Neverland. You would never know it was there; there are no signs or advertising. Just a sign "please say on trail" and then you enter this little hidden garden.

There is a root beer saloon too, with swinging doors.

And Giant City state park. A place full of enormous boulders, the size of homes, and with the remains of a native fortification from way back. Oh, and some of the best fried chicken you will eat.

There is the Garden of the Gods. Nuff said. There are fishing lakes and a natural bridge and the Little Grand Canyon.

That's southernmost Illinois. There are many other things is southern Illinois to delight. An old French fort - Ft. Des Charrtes - just south of St.Louis. There are delightful small towns, true Americana although they have a decidedly German flavor. (My own Grandmother's family lived there, German immigrants who left Alsace when the Prussians took it from France.)

It's very different from what most people think of Illinois, which is either an industrial wasteland or a flat prairie full of corn. That's middle and northern Illinois. Northernmost Illinois is Mexico. I went to Rockford years ago and it looked like a border town, on the Mexican side.

I wish at least Southernmost Illinois would request annexation to Missouri. But the Mississippi acts a a huge psychological barrier; east is one side, west another. Missouri is west and never the twain shall meet.

I'm o.k. with Indiana taking south-middle Illinois; they get stuck with East St. Louis and the mill towns like Granite City. They would get Alton and the quaint little resort town of Grafton, an old community built into the bluffs of the Mississippi river, as well as Brussel's Island, the land between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers (which itself is delightful; a land of few people that is only accessed by a ferry or a bridge 20 miles to the north. Once called "The Apple Kingdom" the island was the second largest apple producing area in America and still is full of orchards and great, country-cooking restaurants.)

Hate to lose those, but Indiana would do a good job with them. But I want Little Egypt and the Ozarks!

I don't want them to become a new state; it would be entirely up for grabs and the Democrats could well win control of it. This is labor Democrat country (as well as being devout drinkers of Stag Beer, perhaps the worst beverage ever devised by the mind of man, but they seem to like the horrible stuff.)

At any rate the people of Southern Illinois should not be slaves to the city of Chicago, the feudal lords of Springfield, or any of the rest of the creeps who have run the state into the ground.

J.B. Pritzker, Illinois billionaire leftist governor and heir to the Hyatt fortune, sits upon an empire he has purchased with his money and with the power of Cook County. Outstate Illinoisans want out. If Democrats really do care about democracy, as they claim, they would honor this choice. But when did Democrats ever really care about democracy? Only when it serves their interests.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:16 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 817 words, total size 5 kb.