Monthly Archives: May 2020

Deer Grove Forest Preserve

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Another weekend, another forest preserve path where the problems of a wounded nation seem remote. The last day of May was clear and a little cool this year, good for a walk in the woods. Unlike last week, the path we took through Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine, Ill., headed into a forest.Deer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove includes about 2,000 acres just south of the border between Cook and Lake counties — note Lake-Cook Road running along its northeastern edge.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveWe parked near the Camp Alphonse entrance, which I’ve marked with a small red dot. We walked roughly to the blue dot and came back the same way — a mile and a half, more or less.

The origin of the name Camp Alphonse isn’t readily available, but there’s also a nearby entrance called Camp Reinberg. This site at least lists Camp Reinberg as a temporary WWI camp, of which there many nationwide that left little trace. My guess would be that Camp Alphonse was one as well.

The woods were alive with spring greenery and lots of wildflowers.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveAn elegant spider web.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveA few dead trees still lording over the living ones.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveThe dog had a good time too.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveSnacking on leafy greens the entire way.

Thursday Slumgullion

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A while ago, I sent a message in a professional capacity to one of Ikea’s subsidiaries. It bounced back, with this message as a reply.

Det gick inte att leverera till följande mottagare eller grupper:
centrespr@ingka.com

Det gick inte att hitta den angivna e-postadressen. Kontrollera mottagarens e-postadress och skicka sedan meddelandet igen. Kontakta e-postadministratören om problemet kvarstår.

Recent movies seen here at home, as if they would be anywhere else, include The Stranger, an Orson Welles noir that I’d never gotten around to seeing; I’ll go along with Variety’s contemporary assessment, quoted in Wiki — it’s a “socko melodrama” — and it made me sorry Welles didn’t get to make that many pictures. Chicago, which was better on the second viewing; the first was when it was fairly new. For a Few Dollars More, which was as good as I remembered it. The pointlessly rejiggered version of Star Wars, which Ann hadn’t seen any version of. The Hundred-Foot Journey, a fair-to-middling foodie movie.

Star Trek watching continues: “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” “The Naked Time,” “Space Seed,” and — because I thought Ann should see some of the lesser lights of the original series, “The Way to Eden,” which is the episode that features space hippies. She continues to get a kick out of the series, especially the costumes, and double especially the space-hippie garb. Made me smile, too.

“The Way to Eden” was bad enough, but not quite as bad as I remember. With a few tweaks, such as making the hippies at least slightly sympathetic, it could have been a much better episode.

Speaking of TV, I had an encounter with the spanking-new HBO Max today. As in, something I wanted to watch on a service I already pay for suddenly disappeared into this latest scheme to tunnel into my wallet. FO, HBO Max. There’s nothing on TV I can’t live without. Nothing.

Last Saturday, which was part sunny and later rainy, I did a lot. A lot of the kind of things you do to keep life running more-or-less on track. I record it here because, if in some future time when the memory of the day has faded, I want to marvel — assuming I survive middle age to marvel — at how productive I was that May day during the pandemic. The rest of the family was likewise busy that day, going all Marie Kondo on the upstairs bedrooms, from which much debris has been removed. Call it spring cleaning.

Besides taking my meals and watching an episode of the remarkably good (if basic) Greatest Events of WWII, I mowed part of our lawn, repaired a windchime, did some of the laundry, cleaned the inside of my car, went to the bank, post office, and drug store (all drive through), walked the dog, helped Ann remove a lot of items from a high shelf in her room, did a first run-through of my taxes, helped Lilly fill out her taxes, vacuumed the living room, swept two rooms, fixed a leaky pipe under the kitchen sink, and washed a lot of dishes. I ended the day reading a bit of Moby-Dick, which I’m slowly working my way through.

RIP, Hecky Powell

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I didn’t know Hecky Powell, who died recently at 71 of COVID-19. But I sure knew his ribs, and especially his rib tips. He owned Hecky’s Barbecue, a longstanding rib joint in Evanston, a small place shoehorned into a building at Green Bay Road and Emerson St.

“Explaining his rib methodology, he told the Sun-Times it went like this: Apply a dry rub — based on his mother’s secret recipe — and follow that with 24 to 48 hours of grilling in a smoker. Then, he’d heat the sauce and slather it on.”

Whatever he did, he produced wonderful ribs and rib tips. A former Northwestern student I knew in the late ’80s introduced me to the place. Since Evanston’s a slog of a drive from where we are now, we’ve visited Hecky’s — carryout only — only about once or twice a year in more recent decades.

Still, just by thinking about it, I can picture, and taste, the pound of rib tips we’d usually get. Marvelous. A marvel of the barbecue arts.

Paul Douglas Forest Preserve

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Paul Douglas was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, in that office from 1949 to 1967. I’m fairly sure that the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve in northwest Cook County is named after him, not the radio man and movie actor in Panic in the Streets, a picture I hear is getting renewed attention these days.

On Sunday, as the heat of the day wore off, we went to the 1,800-acre Paul Douglas Forest Preserve. Forest is actually a misnomer in this case, and for some of the other forest preserves, since it includes not only conventional forestland, but also grasslands, wetland and (so I’ve read) a heron rookery.
Pleasant and now lush green.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveThe seven-mile trail loops the edge of the more-or-less square preserve, which is fine except where it parallels the tollway (I-90).
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveWe walked from the parking lot westward near I-90 and then followed the trail as it bent northward, along the much quieter S. Freeman Road. We followed that for a bit and then doubled back, covering about a mile and a half all together.

Much more pleasant away from I-90; less noise and lots of visible grassland.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveAlong with wetland flowers.
Paul Douglas Forest PreservePaul Douglas Forest PreserveEven late in the afternoon, it was still a little hot. The day was the first summer-like one of the year.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveSoon after I took that picture, the dog found a muddy puddle. She not only drank from it — in preference to the clean but probably bland water we brought — but also cooled herself off by plopping down in the mud.

Wednesday Water & Fire

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Back to posting again on Tuesday. It’s an early Memorial Day this year, five days removed from Decoration Day, and in fact May 25 is as early as it can be under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Next year the holiday swings to the latest possible position, May 31, and then in 2022, it’s square on Decoration Day.

Warmish day today, this Wednesday, a relief from a too cool Tuesday. Pleasant enough to have lunch on the deck. The grass is still squishy underfoot.

Many places in this part of the country have had a lot of rain. Too much in some places. I read today that downtown Midland, Mich., flooded because the rain-swollen Tittabawassee breached a dam not far away. Of course, rain was only the immediate cause. Looks like a whole lot of negligence on someone’s part. Boatloads of litigation, dead ahead.

The story caught my attention mainly because we visited Midland only last year, on September 1, taking a stroll in places that are now underwater.

This evening I went outside to take a few things to the garage. Returning, I noticed a bright object in the sky off to the northwest. It looked like a fire balloon. A single one, drifting along. I was astonished. I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever seen pictures of them before, not the thing itself.

Who launched it? Why? Who thought that was a good idea in a suburban area, with rooftops to catch fire? The risk is probably fairly small, but still — that’s not something I want landing near me. On the other hand, the balloon made a pretty sight as it wandered along. I watched it as it went from being a small flickering light to a very small flickering light in the sky, finally disappearing in the distance.

May Showers Bring June Mosquitoes. Actually, They Don’t Wait Till June

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More rain today. The ground is soggy, the grass is high and mosquitoes are breeding. Full spring, you might call it, except it wasn’t quite warm today. The heater kicked in this morning, an accompaniment to the hard-working sump pump.

Here’s a measure, just a single metric, of the state the country’s in: AAA, which usually forecasts domestic travel volume for the major summer holidays, isn’t doing so for the Memorial Day weekend.

“For the first time in 20 years, AAA will not issue a Memorial Day travel forecast, as the accuracy of the economic data used to create the forecast has been undermined by COVID-19,” its release says. “The annual forecast – which estimates the number of people traveling over the holiday weekend – will return next year.”

Hope so. Interesting choice of verbs, “undermined.” That perfidious virus.

As recently as February, I’d toyed with the idea of going somewhere for Memorial Day, since I’m always toying with those kinds of ideas. Soon, events put paid to them, which never even rose to the level of plans. We’ll be among those staying home over the weekend.

At least it’ll be warm and…

Oh, well. Any healthy day is good enough. That’s always true, but we usually disregard it.

Half-Way Around Deep Quarry Lake

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Heavy downpours lately. Chunk-floaters if you’re in a PG mood, but better known as turd-floaters. Rain late Thursday and into Friday morning, followed by two dry days, and then a very wet Sunday.

One of the dry days was Saturday. On that day we took a walk in the West Branch Forest Preserve, which is in Du Page County. We wanted do the circuit around Deep Quarry Lake.

West Branch Forest PreserveThe terrain is pretty much in the full flush of spring.
West Branch Forest PreserveThe rains had pushed the lake level up. Here’s a walkway, probably useful for fishing in drier times, that had been flooded.
West Branch Forest PreserveA wide path (as seen above) leads around the west side of the lake about half way, then it narrows, with evidence — a lot of small tree and bush stumps — of fair recent path-clearing activity. We walked on.
West Branch Forest PreserveTo the west of the path is the West Branch of the Du Page River, which gives the forest preserve its name. It too was swollen. When we got to the southern edge of the lake, the path was impassible without a willingness to get your shoes, socks and pants soaking wet.
West Branch Forest PreserveThe river had spilled over into the flatlands near the lake. At least we had a view of the land south of the lake, which continues quite a distance, maybe looking something like pre-modern Illinois. We returned the way that we came. All together, about a mile and a half walk.

Hummer ’96

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Long ago I posted about my experience test driving a Hummer. So long ago that I also mentioned giving Ann 2 oz. of formula in the same text. Some excerpts:

Back in the spring of 1996, soon after I’d joined the editorial staff of Fire Chief magazine, the editor, Scott, came into my office and asked, “Would you like to drive a Hummer?” Not a question you hear every morning….

Did I want to drive a Hummer? Yes. Absolutely. It was something all former boys could aspire to. But I have to report that a fair number of former girls came to the test track to drive the things, too….

[We] took turns driving over bumpy trails, logs, rock piles, and steep grades, and through muck, ditches, and a scummy pond deep enough to come half-way up the side of the door…

Here are all the editors that came out to test drive a Hummer that pleasant May day near South Bend, Indiana, in 1996.

I don’t remember anyone’s name or anything else about them. But we did have good temporary camaraderie for the day.

Thursday and Everything’s Tickety-Boo

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Well, not really. We’re well enough here in our little spot, but the world’s never all tickety-boo. I only bring it up because I learned that word a few weeks ago. How did I get to be my advanced age without knowing it? Sure, I’m not British, but that’s never stopped me from learning some Briticisms.

Besides, it isn’t exactly new.

At least I know it now. Looking into the word, origin uncertain, and the song (by Johnny Mercer and Saul Chaplin), naturally led me to read a bit about Danny Kaye. Per Wiki: “Kaye was cremated and his ashes were interred in the foundation of a bench in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flower pot, musical notes, and a chef’s toque.”

Those reflect his talents. A multi-talented fellow, he was. Wait, there’s a town called Valhalla in New York? Guess so. Hope there’s a really boss mead hall in town. These are a few other clips of the talented Mr. Kaye.

Tickety-boo or not, it’s Thursday, which has the advantage of having all of Friday and Saturday to look forward to. I wondered earlier today: how many songs have Thursday in the title? I couldn’t think of any, but that’s just me. There are some.

Interesting selection, including some bugs in bright — make that psychedelic — amber.

The list also includes songs by a band called Thursday. Didn’t know them. “A significant player in the early 21st century’s post-hardcore scene, Thursday formed in 1997 in New Brunswick, New Jersey,” Allmusic says. “Thursday’s frequent gigging and furious passion fueled a grassroots response, and by 2002 the band was on the main stage of the Warped Tour and enjoying MTV support for the single ‘Understanding in a Car Crash.’ ”

Good for them. One more thing for this spring Thursday during the pandemic. We ordered pizza for pickup today, supporting a local chain. Been a good while since we had any. The scene at pickup.

With any luck, scenes of this sort will be fixed in amber before too long.

Billions and Billions

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More fun with the screen saver function. An obsolete estimate by the Census Bureau, no matter how fast I post it.

I was idly curious about the world’s population today. When I was a child, it was generally estimated to be three billion, a number that lingered for some time after the estimate hit that milestone in 1960. As Tom Lehrer sang: “Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.” The four billion milestone came in 1974, back in the heyday of overpopulation scare books like The Population Bomb.

Hard to image that many people, 7.6 billion or 329.6 million for that matter. Make that impossible to imagine. Yet they’re out there, more or less that many, beyond the walls of my house.