•December 13, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

I attended a spiffy wedding (cruel and unusual punishment) in Dallas this past Saturday, at a park on the Texas State Fairgrounds. After the reception, at a dinner table for eight with Dallas executives, both male and female, we played the “Where are you from; what do you do?” game.

I said, “From Illinois, was in politics and government much of my life.” I could swear I saw at least a couple of grimaces, and one noted the corruption in Illinois’ government. I could sense around the table all had their perceptions of Illinois—and they weren’t good.

Very briefly, I told them about all that we have in Illinois, the hard-to-beat infrastructure, the booming Loop in downtown Chicago and, to get in a dig, all the bounteous water we have. “Oh, guess I didn’t know that,” responded one of them.

And they don’t “know” that. They and all of us live largely in a world of perceptions, all having probably a grain of truth or more, but certainly not the whole, or even correct, picture.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.