Got Nothing Nice To Say About Your Town? You Might Be A Jolietan

JOLIET, IL — If you don't have anything nice to say about your hometown, you might be from Joliet.

Just for fun, Patch asked folks around the country an innocent enough question: What would they miss most about their town if they were to move away?

[COMMENTARY]

And Joliet Patch readers responded with venom.

Kegan Beavers said he left town and never looked back because, "Joliet is a hell hole."

John Schultz riffed he would miss Joliet's "beautiful East Side crack houses."

Matt Subach matched the snark with sarcastic (I think) fondness for "crack cocaine on Larkin" Avenue.

Jaclyn Salazar described the adrenaline rush that comes every time she dares to traverse the "structurally intolerable" westbound Interstate 80 bridge over the Des Plaines River, which has sufficiency rating of 6 out of 100.

"Thinking… This is it! This is how it ends for me! Clutching the steering wheel, sweating and driving 20 over the speed limit, saying come on you sons of b------, move your a-----! Only to end on the other side feeling like you just safely jumped the Grand Canyon. Yelling woohoo! On to see another day! Thank you, Jesus!"

Joliet aficionados joked they'd miss "death and destruction ... and potholes," "traffic at 3pm backed up 4 miles" and "broken a-- bridges."

Ross Weiringa, who moved away a few years ago, even wrote he still holds a fondness for the "bonds and friendships … created with the discount tire employees" he met thanks to Joliet's "terrible streets."

Readers said they'd miss Joliet's "gun shots," "bad smells," "rude people" and "abundant mattress stores."

Amanda Nolte said she'd long for Joliet's beautiful scenery — the abandoned Kmart and Star Inn Motel, where cops responded to 244 emergency calls last year, and "friendly encounters with crack heads."

Others claimed that relocating from Joliet would leave them yearning for "nothing," "literally nothing," "absolutely nothing" and "f------ nothing."

Marcus Herekol noticed trending negativity in answers to Patch's friendly query aimed at celebrating the best of towns we cover across the country.

"LOL," he wrote. "This seems to have backfired."

It's true: Kind words for Joliet were drowned out by heckling worthy of a visiting team's left fielder within spitting distance of drunken Sox fans at Comiskey Park in the '80s.

But intermingled with cynical Joliet slurs, kinder and gentler readers celebrated the simple pleasures of living in a city formerly known as Juliet (until 1845) that by another name would smell … well, there's a song about that.

Reader Shannon Adair wrote that she'd miss time spent at the regal Rialto Square Theatre, home to her kids' dance recitals.

Jilan Agee replied said she'd think fondly of the Victorian homes and cathedrals that populate the Upper Bluff Historic district.

And so many folks shared fondness for Joe's Hot Dogs, a proud purveyor of encased meats since 1953, that I will risk my life with a drive over the I-80 bridge for a taste.

See you on the other side, Jolietans.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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