Does Pat Quinn still like peanut butter?

A lot of bad things are going on with peanut butter these days, but talk about this staple in the American diet raised a memory about our new governor that I want to share.

More than three decades ago, Pat Quinn was shedding a lot of shoe leather on the streets of cities, towns and villages across our state gathering signatures for his "Illinois Initiative." The Illinois Initiative was designed to reign in abuses by state law makers who used their offices for personal advantage over service to those who elected them.

Quinn would go to grocery stores, beauty shops, and community meetings, wherever there were numbers, to raise awareness in citizens that they could use other means than the ballot box to express their displeasure with the misuse of power by elected officials. I was part of one of those community meetings organized to protest unfair taxing policies and housing developments being built on flood plains in DuPage County, and gladly added my signature to the petition on Quinn's clip board.

As it turned out, I needed a ride home from the meeting, and Pat needed to make a phone call. We exchanged favors. After completing his phone call at the house, Pat asked: "Would you happen to have something to eat? I haven't eaten today."

Sheepishly, but truthfully, I said: "Oh, gosh, is a peanut butter sandwich OK with you? That's all I got." "That will be just fine," he said.

Over that peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk, I learned that Pat Quinn was one of those who understood and dedicated themselves to put flesh on the bones of laws made to give stature and meaning to the democratic concept of "the people." Pat Quinn has risen high, and still embodies what we need to believe: that our government is "of the people, for the people and by the people." And it's my hope that he still knows how to eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Judith C. Heikes

Glen Ellyn