Our family went to Springfield last weekend.

The Old Capitol Art Fair had been cancelled, so we went to the Abraham Lincoln Museum.

It had advertised that those who could prove they had been vaccinated could get in free.

“Free” being the best advertising word got me there and I paid for the others.

The news Saturday morning told of Walmart’s allowing unmasked customers to shop.

Having heard the CDC had decided that masks were unnecessary for those who had had a Covid-19 shot (J & J for me), I bet you can guess that I did not wear a mask.

Angela Blackman, who was the Site Supervisor Saturday, decided that was alright.

She had heard the change in CDC direction as well.

But, she warned me that employees and volunteers might be asking me to show them my card.

I told her that was OK.

I was alone in that corridor of the Museum where the editorial cartoons are displayed when a uniformed man appeared asking me to put on a mask.

After showing him my card, he said that didn’t matter.

So, we went to see Ms. Blackman.

She told me her supervisor, Director of Marketing (Guest Services, too, I guess) Patty Knepler had overruled her decision to follow the new CDC guidelines.

I asked for her card so I could write this article about a state employee incapable of following Federal government recommendations.

Blackman could not find one, so she wrote out the information.

Knepler’s phone number is 217-524-7219. Her email is Patty.Knepler@Illinois.gov.

This Monday, I found the following on CapitolFax (parts not show here tell of all sorts of retailers dropping the onerous mask requirement):

We’re working on making changes to our mask mandate in the state to meet the CDC’s new masking guidance that they gave late last week. So we’ll be announcing those changes shortly, it just takes a little bit of time to work through. […]

I do think that the CDC guidelines are good ones and that we will follow them here in the state. […]

One of the reasons that the CDC issued the rules as they did was the recognition that studies have now been done showing that if you’re vaccinated, you’re protected. If you’re unvaccinated you are not protected. So I encourage people who are unvaccinated still to wear their masks, but to go get vaccinated because I think we all want to get past this, we all would like to take off our masks. But we do need those who are unvaccinated to go get a vaccine and they can do that right now, today, it is available to them. […]

That’s going to be up to private businesses and individuals if they want to carry something like that [vax ID] with them […]

We’re not going to stop people and, you know, start checking a vaccine passport as part of some state mandate. […]

I think we’re, as fast as we can, we’re trying to make the changes. As you know, we have a disaster proclamation that needs to be altered. There is a JCAR rule that needs to be rescinded. There’s just a variety of things. It’s been a complicated 14-15-16 months of putting in place a mask mandate and making sure that people are following it, and now obviously we’re working on unwinding it in an appropriate fashion. […]

Well, I was pretty clear, we’re going to follow the CDC guidelines. So if you can read the CDC guidelines, you know what we will be doing in the state of Illinois. I said that last week, I think you were actually at one of the press conferences that I gave that answer in.

Friday night we ate at the Pasta House.

No one hassled us about not wearing masks.

Saturday night, we ate at Alexander’s.

Again, no problem.

And, that, fellow citizens shows why Illinois state government is such a failure.