Heck Of A Guy

Dick Tracy Responds To Committee's Casual Dismissal Of Him As County Seal Symbol

Dick Tracy Defends County’s Right To Make Bad Choices

From the title of the McHenry County Blog series of posts at covering the McHenry County Seal Contest,¹  one can readily discern the outcome of the effort to put Dick Tracy on the McHenry County Seal: “Dick Tracy Fails to Get the Ladies‘ Vote: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.”

An obviously saddened but unbowed Dick Tracy reports he is still steadfastly loyal, despite the apparent lack of reciprocation, to the County where his creator, Chester Gould, made his home for many years.  Tracy, in fact, remains unhesitant in his support of the powers that be, pointing out that the capacity to make the wrong decision is the bedrock of local government.²

Tracy goes on to explain that he is disappointed but unsurprised by the result. “When they said they wanted a seal that was unique, easily identifiable, and not boring, I felt I fit that description and so, I had a responsibility to volunteer to serve. Somewhere along the line, it began to look as though those qualities weren’t really what was wanted – or maybe someone changed their mind. I can’t say it didn’t hurt, but  I still have my day job righting wrongs, protecting the weak, bringing treacherous villains to justice, and whatnot so I’ll be all right.”

The Missing Ingredient In The McHenry County Seal Recipe

Inspired by Dick Tracy’s example, I too am rallying to the aid of McHenry County.

From Cal Skinner’s reprise of the Management Services Committee meeting to consider candidates for McHenry County Seal, I garnered the following:

• None of the entries in the seal  design contest were clear winners
• The County Board Committee favors a combination of ingredients seal³ that references several aspects of the County
• Dick Tracy was eliminated because (1) he was deemed to lack contemporary relevance and (2) he is a cartoon and thereby lacks sufficient dignity for a county seal⁴

It was, in fact, while navigating through the McHenry County Blog that the solution presented itself to me.

Cal, it turns out, has a batch of inexplicably negative posts about the attempt by the Crystal Lake Park District here in McHenry County to place a 75 foot cell tower in a small (15 acre) neighborhood park.

A cell tower was, I realized in an instance, the ideal Dick Tracy counterpart, the perfect anti-Tracy symbol.

A cell tower isn’t historic like Dick Tracy; it’s the epitome of contemporary McHenry. Heck it may even approximate hip and trendy.

Just compare those cell phone company ads shown in the montage above with Dick Tracy’s wrist radio (shown on left).

Look, Tracy’s radio emits green sparks.  How uncool is that?

As for that typical cross section of the population shown in the cell phone ads collage, just show me one person or one phone that  isn’t super-groovy.

A cell tower is electronics and cyberspace and wireless communication and all things good.

Cell towers can unite a neighborhood, as seen in this photo from the McHenry County Blog.

And if you’ve ever seen one of those suckers, you know -

Besides, at least one local governmental agency, the Crystal Lake Park District, is obviously already on board with the cell tower notion.

Now admittedly, a single, lonely cell tower on a seal might be a tad stark, but we’re going for, remember, the pizza with everything approach.

So, to allow some choices, I’ve adapted each of my three favorite non-Tracy designs presented at the Seal Contest meeting to include the iconic cell tower.

Check them out.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

1. The story behind the decision to revise the McHenry County Seal and, eventually, to hold a seal design contest is summarized in The McHenry County Seal Slaughter and McHenry County Seal Wars↩
2. Tracy’s chief supporter, DrHGuy, it should be noted, is considerably less sanguine in response to Tracy being cavalierly dismissed as a candidate for county seal. One suspects that the final Heck Of A Guy  post on this issue has yet to be written.↩
3. Also known as the “Pupu Platter Approach”↩
4. I admit to being somewhat confused by the cartoon-dignity issue. Has anyone informed the Board that, for example, the cow and the ear of corn on the county flag are not a real cow or a real ear of corn super-glued onto the fabric of the flag but are, well, cartoon figures of a cow and a ear of corn? The difference between them and Dick Tracy is that Tracy has his own syndicated comic strip which has run daily for over seven decades. How is that a bad thing? You don’t think that the McHenry cow and ear of corn cartoons wouldn’t turn pro if they had the chance to appear on the comics page of the Southeast Haegers Bend Neighborhood Penny Shopper? On the other hand, having been raised on a farm, I do appreciate the sense of esteem intrinsic to bovines, which is, in turn, the basis of the old, well-known figure of speech, “As dignified as a herd of heifers.”↩