I drove down to the State Track Meet...

...Saturday, and I was struck by all the contrasts, dichotomies, and disconnects.

The first occurred to me as soon as I got behind the wheel of my car. I turned on satellite radio and was reminded once again of how much I like it. I started out by listening to old Irving Berlin tunes and ended up on the Grateful Dead channel. Talk about contrasts! And none of what I heard could be found on your AM/FM dials. I've often thought that comparing satellite with terrestrial radio is like the difference between a typewriter and a PC.

As I moved out of the Chicago metropolitan area, I was reacquainted with "downstate Illinois" and the chasm that separates it from where I live. The first thing you notice is the topology; central Illinois has the flattest land I have ever seen. The second is harder to pin down; it's just the "feel" of the place. For example, not long after crossing I-80 you begin to see a series of "Burma Shave"-style signs that have been placed by a group called the Champaign County Rifle Association. They say things like:

ON UNARMED FOLKS--THUGS DO PREY--ILLINOIS LAW--KEEPS IT THAT WAY;

WHEN GUN CONTROL--HAS US BEAT--CRIMINALS WILL--OWN THE STREET; and my own personal favorite:

NEVER WORRY--THUGS WON'T ATTACK--IF THE TEACHER--MIGHT SHOOT BACK.

I thought that last one was especially charming. The signs include the association's Web site, GunsSaveLife.com, which doesn't sound right to me. Shouldn't it be something like GunsSaveLives.com? Whatever. At any rate, I visited the site and found out that the president is a guy named David Pike. Essentially, the organization is "working to correct Illinois law to allow law-abiding citizens to carry holstered side-arms." Huh? Pike says that "When a criminal doesn't know who's armed and who's not, they're far more cautious and in many cases, give up the idea of committing that crime."

This is one issue on which I'm a bit of an agnostic. On the one hand, I've never been a big fan of gun control--I don't think it's practical. But on the other, I've only fired a gun a couple of times at Boy Scout Camp and didn't really get a big charge out of it. And I never did understand hunting and fishing. Why do some people feel the need to kill animals that aren't bothering them in the first place? I don't own any guns, don't expect to ever own any, and don't feel particularly unsafe in my home. The truth is, sometimes we lock our doors at night and sometimes we don't.

But what's interesting to me is how passionate these people are about gun ownership, especially in a part of the world that I would think is relatively crime-free. Take that last group of signs, for instance. Are small town schools in central Illinois really filled with menacing thugs? Do teachers really feel the need to carry side-arms? Hard for a suburbanite like me to believe.

Another set of signs makes reference to some pending invasion and citizens' preparedness. Do these people really believe that the Russians or the Muslims (or whomever is just dying to invade us) are going to march right past places like Lake Forest and the Gold Coast to take over some godforsaken little town in central Illinois? And if the invaders should get that far into the nation's hinterland, wouldn't the war be pretty much over by then? I think some of these people took "Red Dawn" a little too seriously.

As I drove on, I passed mileage signs for places like Arcola and Effingham. (Yes, there really is a town by that name. Whenever I mention it, people look at me with arched eyebrows as if I meant F***ing Ham.) I decided to take a bathroom break and get a cup of coffee. Needless to say, there wasn't a Starbuck's anywhere and what I ended up with tasted like a big cup of hot water with cream. Yum!

I finally arrived at the track meet, which was at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. It's a nice school with a nice stadium, but not exactly The Big House. And what always goes through my mind when I'm at EIU is that Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys played Division 1-AA there. It seems odd to me that a guy from Wisconsin could get overlooked by the hometown Badgers, get overlooked by the NFL draft, and still go on to lead America's Team to the playoffs (and date Jessica Simpson). This is while dozens of other star quarterbacks in college never make it in the pros. Is there that big a disconnect between playing quarterback in college and in the NFL?