Our towns: July 2008 Archives

Help, Swami!

I want to take my kids to the Lake County Fair this week, but I'm not sure what would be the best day to go. Last year, I took them to see the motocross, and we spent the whole time watching guys getting carted away in an ambulance. Can you suggest something less depressing?

Pat's Blue-Ribbon

Dear PBR:

Less depressing? Hmmm, the livestock release on Sunday is always a drag, because the 4H kids who raised the animals from the cradle have to say goodbye and send them off to a Rotary Club steer roast ...

You also might want to steer clear of the Mutton Bustin', in which human children try to ride atop a sprinting sheep. Your kids will want to do it, and A) it costs more money and B) all it ends up being is arms and legs flying around for three seconds, followed by lots of "walk-it-off" pain ...

And the commercial buildings are fun to a point, because there's lots of free candy being handed out by the duct-cleaning companies, but there's also lots of politicians handing out stickers -- and, this being an election year, some old crank is bound to start a brawl over Obama being "a Mooos-lim" ...

Tell you what -- head on over Wednesday at 4 p.m. for the judging of rabbits. That should be safe enough, and you have not seen judging until you have seen rabbits judged.

Swami,

What is that stinky smell at the corner of Washington Street and Route 21 in Gurnee? I got stopped at a light there the other day and I had to roll up my windows because it smelled like someone had lost their lunch on my tires.

Pepe Le Pew

Dear Pep:

When it comes to that particular stretch of Washington Street, we need to be very specific about what smell we're referencing. To do this, we'll have to be graphic.

To wit:

A) Is the stench something like what you get when your kid forgets to flush the toilet, and you then go on vacation and come back a week later and open the bathroom door?

Or ...

B) Is it something like either the regurgitation you mentioned, or cotton candy that's sat in the sun for a month?

If the answer is A), then you have picked up a whiff from the North Shore Sanitary District plant at Washington and O'Plaine Road, a facility that has undergone more odor control endeavors than Bigfoot's laundry bin, but still reminds us from time to time that it is, after all, a sewage processing plant.

If your nose says B), then you are enjoying the bouquet that is produced by the discarded food at Six Flags Great America, which has immense bins filled with gunk, hidden from sight behind the trees that line the northwest side of Washington and Route 21.

In both cases, all that stuff has to go somewhere. If you play, you pay, or sentiments to that effect.

But rest assured that both of them could be worse. And, with the dog days of summer heating up as of this writing, they most likely will be.

Dear Mr. Swami!

On behalf of the Lake County Rah-Rah/Yay-Yay Booster Society, we would like to gloat about the recent announcement that the county's tourism revenue topped $1 billion in 2007! We feel this is great and super! Please respond with an observation about how awesome this news is!

Sincerely,
The LCRRYYBS

Dear Boost:

It certainly isn't bad news. To paraphrase Bobbi Fleckman (Fran Drescher) in the classic motion picture "This Is Spinal Tap," money talks and baloney sausage walks.

But let's keep this in perspective: the only reason anything new tops anything old these days is because stuff costs more. Hotel rooms, restaurant meals, Gurnee Mills toys and clothes, tickets at the Genesee Theatre and the Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre, admission (and parking, and food) at Six Flags Great America ... all of these things cost more in 2007 than they did in 2006. And just wait until we see the tourism spending in 2008, when the trickle-down/avalanche from the higher energy prices will really kick in.

To stick with the movie theme, consider this: officially, the No. 1 film at the box-office all time is "Titanic," which has grossed $1.8 billion since it was released 11 years ago. But, adjusted for inflation, the No. 1 film is still "Gone With the Wind," which came out in 1939, when people paid, oh, a shiny dime for admission to the Oriental and the State-Lake. More people have paid to see Rhett and Scarlett, but people paid more to see Leo and Kate.

In other words, enjoy the moment, Lake County, but save the real excitement for when we catch and pass DuPage, which doesn't even have a theme park.