Normal: An Illinois Town & The Center Of The Bell Curve

Once upon a time (actually, just last year), Karen "Bigfoot" Hughes called her book George W. Bush Love Letter Ten Minutes From Normal. Clever title? Not really. Hughes found her future book title when a train conductor informed the president's entourage that they were ten minutes from the Normal, Illinois station. Hughes even writes that she's proud to claim that she's always been "normal." What a laugh!

Which brings us to Normal, Illinois. Note: Bloomington and Normal are twin cities, pretty much "centered" between Chicago and St. Louis.

I had both the good and bad fortune to live in Bloomington for several years. The good: very little crime (except for the occasional ax murder and coordinated I-55 "driving while Mexican" drug bust). The bad: Almost everyone born and raised in the area is disturbingly normal. And by normal, I mean smack dab in the middle of the proverbial Bell Curve. In other words, not very smart.

The local newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph (No, not pantograph) is (cough) affectionately referred to as "The Daily Paragraph," and school teachers have given up awarding extra credit points for finding grammatical errors in the paper because the points amassed were causing GPA's to skyrocket.

Which brings us to today's blog post topic: How normal do you have to be to blame a driving range when you hit the ball sideways, it ricochets off the pole dividing the tee off areas, bounces back, and hits you in the head?

Pretty damned normal!

Golf injury prompts lawsuit

By Brett Nauman
Tuesday, November 29, 2005

BLOOMINGTON -- A Normal man who says he suffered a severe eye injury two years ago while teeing off at a driving range filed a civil lawsuit on Monday that claims the facility's operators were negligent.

Gene Sperry Jr. was driving a bucket of balls at the All Seasons Golf Learning Center, 1304 Cross Creek Drive, Normal, when one of the golf balls hit an unprotected metal stake in front of the tee box and ricocheted back into his eye. --snip--

Sperry, who is represented by Bloomington attorney Timothy Kelly, is seeking more than $50,000 in damages for the "severe" and "permanent" injuries caused by the errant golf ball during the Nov. 26, 2003, incident.

Errant golf ball?

Here's the final paragraph:

Sperry said he was hitting off the second level of the range when one of the golf balls ricocheted off a metal stake in front and to the right of the tee. The stake was part of a partition between the cubicles used by the range's customers.

Those urban/suburban driving ranges look like this:




How much do you have to suck at golf to hit the damned pole with your errant golf ball?

That's Normal for you.

By the way, The Daily Pantagraph's editorial board is also (cough) normal:

Don't trust government? Then be better prepared

If you don't think the government will provide adequate help to you before or after a disaster, then be prepared to help yourself.

Even if you do think the government cavalry will ride to the rescue, be prepared -- in case you guess wrong.

File this under: Ten minutes from Normal? For your own sake, keep driving.