P eoria, Illinois. When I moved to this city of , in June, I expected to find myself living among all things all-American. County fairs featuring tractor pulls, livestock shows and country western music. An agriculture report on the afternoon news. Packed town hall meetings to discuss the local high school cheerleading squad.
Minor league baseball, frequent pledges of allegiance and lots of singing of the national anthem. Soccer tournaments, Girl Scout cookies, barbecues and Bible study classes. And Peoria has given me all of that. After all, the third-largest city in the state has long been equated with the essence of middle America. For years, Peoria was the test-marketing capital of the nation before the equally unremarkable Des Moines, Iowa, stole away that distinction.
Company after company brought their products to the heart of Illinois, assuming that if their TV dinners and stainless steel knives were good enough for Peorians, they were good enough for the rest of blue-collar America. The old vaudeville saying, "Will it play in Peoria? Pardon me then when I was disturbed to learn that one of Peoria's most famous and accepted social institutions is a strip club. Big Al's, a "world-famous gentleman's club" located in the middle of downtown, features "the world's most beautiful women," fine cigars, cognac, a lunchtime buffet and Wednesday night wet T-shirt contests.
The club has earned its fame. Since the s, it has been the only adult entertainment business in the area that has a liquor license. According to one manager, Eric Clapton was once spotted in the audience. On more than one occasion, when I have told people outside the tri-county area that my newspaper covers that I live and work in Peoria, they have asked--sometimes jokingly--if I've been to Big Al's.
I have long since abandoned my assumption that the Midwest is a collection of small, chaste towns, but I still don't understand the way many Peorians accept, support and patronize Big Al's. Men go. Women go. Couples go. Businesspeople here for conventions go. And most people aren't embarrassed to admit that they go.
