I lived in Illinois for about 15 years. And by Illinois, I mean the part that doesn’t include Chicago – that festering canker sore where criminals and Democrats live. Pardon the redundancy. No, I lived in downstate Illinois, where Republicans dwell and the air perpetually wafts of hog manure. Any correlation there is purely coincidental.

Let’s get something straight: it’s “Ill-in-NOY,” not “Ill-in-NOY-Z.” Adding that ‘Z’ marks you as a coastal interloper faster than putting ketchup on a hot dog. We can thank the French for this pronunciation quirk – the same people who’ll happily marinate in rancid cheese and eau de whatever but consider pronouncing the letter ‘s’ beneath their dignity.

The first settlers viewed Illinois as a treeless wasteland fit only for prairie dogs and Native Americans – two groups united by questionable real estate decisions. Initially, only fur-crazed Frenchmen ventured into the endless grass seas. They either moved on or became indigenous cuisine (there’s only so much prairie dog one can eat before seeking variety). The English settlers who followed proved more successful, mainly by reversing that particular food chain and clearing out the prairie dog competition. Then some genius figured out how to crack open the stubborn prairie soil, probably hunting for more prairie dogs, and discovered black gold underneath. Like vultures to roadkill, settlers swarmed in to farm the land and breed their own labor force – known in polite company as “children.”

Right on schedule, missionaries arrived to shame anyone showing signs of enjoyment. Finally, railroads carved through the prairie, essentially saying, “Here’s your ticket out of this grassland purgatory – now with 100% fewer missionaries!” (No doubt aided by the fact that missionaries don’t taste as good as prairie dog.) And that’s Illinois in a nutshell – or perhaps more appropriately, in a prairie dog burrow.