State Symbols (Part 1)

State Dance
Illinoyances chose the Square Dance as their state dance. So did the citizens of 22 other states. In fact, due to its popularity, our esteemed legislators in Washington, D.C. have introduced 30 different bills in the past century to make this this official national dance of the United States. For various reasons, the bill never gets passed. If a Republican authors the bill, Democrats claim it demeans women and marginalizes non-white minorities. If the bill comes from a Democrat, Republicans fear it signifies another form of governmental control over our lives. I mean, if the government can tell us what dance to dance, where will it end?

Deirdre

Better question: where did it begin? Square dancing, I mean, not Big Government. Seventeenth century England, of course. Come to think of it, that would answer either question. The early English settlers brought from England the rural dance craze known as the Morris Dance. Everybody was doing it.

Morris Dancers:

Simon Knights

Only, the Morris Dance had specific steps that the dancers had to memorize, which wasn't very democratic, so Americans had one person call out the steps to the dancers. Sound familiar? By the 1800s, the Morris Dance had evolved into a form very similar to the Square Dance we know and love today. But, as the 1800s progressed, the Square Dance fell out of favor with the kiddos. They prefered the Polka and the Waltz, dances which allow you to cozy up next to that special someone without raising any eyebrows. Let's face it. The Square Dance just isn't as sexy as the Polka.

Enter Henry Ford. When he wasn't inventing cars or making rubber out of Goldenrods, he was cultivating an appreciation of America's past. He wanted to preserve New England heritage and at the same time modernize it. He's the man responsible for the edgy and hip modern form of the Square Dance. Popularity swelled until the 1940s when it became a full fledged fad. We're talking on par with the Macarena or the Electric Slide.

Public Domain

The renewed interest in Square Dancing fueled a thirst for other parts of folk culture and led to the Folk Revival of the 1950s. The Folk Revival gave us singers like Burl Ives, Harry Belafonte, the Kingston Trio, and yes... Bob Dylan.

State Fossil
The Tully Monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium). Coming from Texas, where we have the Chupacabra, I was intrigued at the idea of an Illinois Monster. Then I saw a picture. Francis Tully discovered the first fossil in 1958 in Grundy County (not the Grundy County of John Michael Montgomery fame, it pains me to say: that one's in Tennesee).

Ghedoghedo

Since then, over 100 fossils of this little monster have been found along Mazon Creek, a tributary to the Illinois River that flows through Grundy County. Due to the importance of the Mazon Creek Deposits, the government declared it a National Historic Site.

The area features a large shale deposit. Shale is basically fossilized mud. That's important. If a T-Rex croaks on the savannah, scavengers and bacteria eat everything but the bones. When you go to a museum, you can see its skeletal structure, but you don't know anything about its skin, organs, feathers (yes, they had feathers, but that's a different discussion altogether). Those things that get eaten away are called soft tissues.

If a critter kicks the bucket and sinks into some soft mud, where the scavengers can't sniff it out and the bacteria can't breathe, the soft tissue gets preserved. That's why Mazon Creek is so important: it used to be a giant mudhole. So, we have soft tissue preserved for prehistoric organism that aren't found anywhere else in the world.

At Mazon Creek, scientist have found ancient mosses, ferns, ginkos. They've also found worms, jellyfish, crustaceans, snails, and Tully Monsters.

The Monster itself measured about a foot long, had a weird little proboscis with teeth and wimpy little arm things. The teeth indicate that the monster was a savage killing machine, so I'm sure there were creatures smaller than a foot that were terrified of it.

Apokryltaros

For more information about Mazon Creek:
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/mazon_creek/MazonCreekSite.html