Oak Park Businessman Growls At IDDI

Well, it's not all peaches-and-cream here at I Do, Doggone It! headquarters.

Just in time for the Dog Days of August: an Oak Park businessman has unleashed an attack on I Do, Doggone It!

In a letter to the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest that appeared yesterday, Anthony Shaker disses the event because he doesn't believe it will send prospective tenants flocking to the real estate he owns in the downtown.

But IDDI organizers are not about to seclude ourselves in any proverbial doghouse.

For starters, Mr. Shaker's viewpoint is on, um, shaky ground. After all, some things are hard to quantify...in baseball, moving a runner from second to third with less than two outs helps get that run to score eventually---but only the most astute observers would recognize the play as a significant part of the bigger, winning picture.

And as for the specifics of Mr. Shaker's letter, we would be remiss not to note that it contains at least a few misstatements of fact about IDDI--starting with the actual name of the event, doggone it!

He refers to it as Dog Matrimony Day, which is clearly not nearly as creative or catchy as I Do, Doggone It! And Mr. Shaker cites 175 couples as the number to attain Guinness World Record status---three shy of the current mark.

And those are just the things that Mr. Big noticed, without any knowledge of the other downtown history that Mr. Shaker delves into. Obviously, the letter cries out for a more in-depth response.

Will it be Mr. Big continuing to rise to IDDI's defense? Can we expect a Hudson-to-the-rescue drama? Or will another canine character emerge to strut across this (increasingly cramped) stage?

Stay tuned, since IDDI will not simply roll over and play dead.