He’s now the governor of the great state of Illinois, but I know through experience that the man loves all types of automobile racing.
The story goes a little something like this.
My hometown of Barnes City, Iowa used to have a summer long celebration to raise money for the town’s Charity called Fun Days. The celebration began in June and lasted through September. One weekend a month the city was shut down for a day full of racing and a night full of dancing. Otherwise, known as drinking.
He walked in before hot laps as happy as he ever was and told the ladies taking tickets that he was excited for this new experience. They told him that he would see things in this small town that he probably had never seen before and probably will never see again. I know that because one of the ladies working admission was my grandmother. The other one was my great aunt.
He enjoyed watching the weekend duffers race their cars while munching on our infamous grilled pork patties which sometimes ended up more like hockey pucks. He also enjoyed our world famous buckets of beer which were essentially a 64 ounce plastic bucket filled with keg beer.
Like everybody else, he smoke cigarettes when the builder’s model style changed to a different set of heats. He’d smoked his last one. Even though my grandmother did teach 5th grade for 50 years, she did smoke cigarettes when she was at home. This particular day the governor had run out. He would flip her multiple hundred dollar bills for two or three cigarettes. He and my grandma were both Democrats. So, they naturally began striking up discussions. He sauntered back to the admission table late in the day, and my grandmother had to tell him that she was out as well. He just smiled and asked her if he could take her new minivan out for a spin.
He drove it around the small town and in the adjacent countryside for about 15 minutes. He tossed the keys back on the table and smiled at my grandmother telling her thank you. When my grandmother finished her days work, she was in for a big surprise. He had filled the console with hundred dollar bills. She said there was probably about $10,000 in there.
As for what brought him to the tiny town of Barnes City Iowa? He said he had to do some thinking before he proposed to his wife. I’m not sure it was the Figure 8 races that did it, but she said yes.
As for something that he had never seen before and probably will never see again? He was present at the still talked about legendary dance that sold 36 kegs of beer as the keg tapper was pulled at the beginning of the dance and was never pushed back as beer flowed out of the tapper the entire night. He was also impressed that the bartenders would give away free beers to random people and equally impressed at the bartenders were drinking during their shift because they laughingly called the beers in their hand the mistake that the customers didn’t deserve.
That was the day a billionaire came to Barnes City. That’s something they will never see again.
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