Friday 21 October 2016

McNabb, Illinois Is A Thing. I Am Institutionalised. Only Not How I Thought I Would Be...


Somewhere in deepest Illinois, sort of left of Chicago, there is a village of some 280 souls (down from 300, apparently) called McNabb. I have to confess, I do love their water tank. They even have a website. It's mostly concerned with sewage and stuff, which seems about right.

I'll go there one of the days, you mark my words. I'll probably be wearing a 'Hello, Illinois, my name is McNabb' t-shirt. There's a much slighter chance I'll go incognito.

It's nestled deep in a huge patchwork quilt of squared-off fields and right angled roads. On Google Earth it looks flat and dull and utterly boring. I hope to God it's not. I hope it's a mad and nutty place filled with joy and carousing, anarchy bubbling under and a constant middle finger raised to the world around, most of which seems to consist of squares of ploughed tillage.

Don't even ask me how I found it. I don't even know myself. But I now have a new Twitter icon which I am deeply delighted with. And if ever there were a place to open 'McNabb Books', this would be The One...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Soooo funny!

I, too, share my surname with a dot on the map, and I've had a rather intimate connection with it all my life. I grew up only 3 minutes outside its border. My paternal ancestors settled that rural paradise about 200 years ago, give or take some decades. The "township(?)" of Cornatzer boasts a Cornatzer Road, Cornatzer Elementary School, and a similarly named firehouse. As is per the usual in Small Town, USA, everybody knows everybody else's business. But I wouldn't trade living out my childhood in that quiet, predictable place for ANYTHING. In truth, I fantasize about the day I'll move back.

Cheers!

Alexander said...

I don't even know if there are any McNabbs still in McNabb or how a wandering McNabb came to settle here - if that is, indeed, why McNabb is called McNabb. But it must be pretty funky to have a physical connection to your 'nameplace'!!!

Katie said...

"Baseball" is an official category in the village board meeting's minutes. That's delightful.

From The Dungeons

Book Marketing And McNabb's Theory Of Multitouch

(Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I clearly want to tell the world about A Decent Bomber . This is perfectly natural, it's my latest...