MumbleVille

The Ms was asking me about traditions the other night… and it got me to thinking (which could be dangerous). We do have some family traditions of our own: we play the same cassette (recorded off of KBCO in Boulder back in 1983) every year while we decorate the Christmas tree; and every year we buy each other a kitchen gadget and a special ornament for Christmas gifts. We name all of our cars. We at least try to split up the kitchen chores: if one of us cooks, the other washes dishes. I guess you’d call those traditions – and it that’s the case, I really like the idea, since it’s a part of our history.

So why is it that when I run across a group tradition that it so often leaves me cold?

I’m thinking about a couple here. First, there’s the Texas A&M bonfire, which killed twelve people before it was “officially” ended in 1999. Wikipedia, though, says that there’s still a bonfire, only it’s not officially sanctioned. We’re not talking about a big pile of logs here, people, we’re talking about “wedding cakes” made of telephone poles that, at one time, reached 109 feet in height. Guess it’s “an Aggie” thing (and no, I’m not a “tea-sip”).

The Second group tradition that leaves me cold is Chief Illiniwek, erstwhile mascot of the University of Illinois – the closest educational institution to my house. There had been arguments about the Chief since the 70s before it was finally officially retired by the university in 2007. The tradition dated back to 1926, and took two forms. First was a stylized image of an Indian chief wearing a giant feather headdress. The second was a mascot who danced at halftime of varsity sports events, wearing the school’s official “regalia.” That the “regalia” had been obtained from a Lakota Sioux in South Dakota instead of a representative of the Illini Federation of Tribes never seemed to matter to those who considered the Chief a valued tradition. Both the Chief symbol and the dancing mascot have been officially retired by the University, and sales of items bearing the seal have been banned since the University owns (or claims to own) the symbol – there’s a lawsuit at the moment brought by the designer who created the image, although as a “work for hire” I doubt he has a leg to stand on.

Locally, the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette continues to stir the pot, having taken an extreme pro-Chief stance over the years; and all the frat boys who played the Chief over the decades (“The Council of Chiefs”) are attempting to create a student-sponsored chiefdom not unlike the unofficial Aggie bonfire. And then there are the donors (The University of Illinois Whining Alumni), who en masse said, “Ugh. Illinois take-um away Chief. Me no give-um wampum.”

What do I think…

1. Why can’t they just let it go? If the newspaper and the ex-chiefs would shut up, in four years no one would give a rat’s ass any more.
2. The dancing Chief mascot at football games looks like an actor out of a 1950s episode of “The Lone Ranger” doing that Cossack dance where you cross your arms and kick out your legs as close to horizontal as possible. Tres silly.
3. If the local paper and local AM radio talking heads hadn’t enlisted the automatic support of knee-jerk conservative dittoheadss by calling the protestors “politically correct,” the Chief would have disappeared in 1995.
4. At a guess, if the protestors had said that the Chief looked outdated and deserved to disappear like rumble seats, raccoon coats, and shouts of “Boola-Boola!” it’d have been gone in 1995, too.

Let’s get one last thing straight: As far as I’m concerned, the cutesy little decal of the guy with the big headdress wasn’t offensive – inaccurate, yes, but not offensive. And the dancing mascot wasn’t as offensive as he was just silly.