Antiques of Naperville

Posted on June 30, 2022 by admin

Back on July 5, since of course the stretch from Canada Day to Independence Day at the very least ought to be a row of holidays.

At a shop called Antiques of Naperville, which is tucked away on a side street in that suburb’s downtown, there is a sign that says:

Take All The Photos You Want
Please
Tag Us @Antiques of Naperville
#shopdoggibson #brownbarnantiques

Sure thing. This doesn’t count as a tag, but it is a mention. I took the place up on its offer of no-limits photography, because there was so much stuff around. Interesting stuff. That’s all I ask of an antique store. Not every shop allows pictures, but is that not a mistake in this age of social media?

This was the place I found the Charley Weaver bartender doll, previously posted. Nearby him were these ties — and somehow they’re in the same bric-a-brac milieu as ol’ Charley.

Divers reading material.

Dell. We always had many more Gold Key comics than Dell, but there were a few around the house.

Paperbacks. Not that old. We had this book when I was young and I read it. And the next one.

Something we didn’t have: Shiva.

Shiva is the Destroyer, and it occurs to me that destruction doesn’t have to be dramatic and fast, does it? Sometimes — often? — usually? — destruction is gradual, happening off in a quiet corner or nook, but inexorable all the same. Such as for the objects in an antique shop, for instance.

Characters more friendly than Shiva.

I have to say it: Very interesting, but stoopid. You bet your sweet bippy.

“As seen on Antiques Roadshow.” This very thing, or just one like it?

A traveling game of chance, its sign said, used by con men. No doubt.

Items no longer needed by drivers, fortunately.

Yuriko pointed out the inhabitant of a chair in the shop.

For a moment I thought it was a doll or cushion of some kind, but then one of the dog’s paws twitched. It was a living dog. Probably the most inert dog I’ve ever seen, and a lot of dogs are inert a lot of the time. This dog paid no attention to any of the people shuffling through the shop, and barely acknowledged it when Yuriko petted him.

Art Show at Naper Settlement

Posted on June 29, 2022 by admin

Parking in downtown Naperville on a sunny summer Sunday takes a little time, featuring as it does slow drives through a few full parking lots and passing by other lots that look full, while navigating the crooked grid of streets and keeping an eye out for a free flow of pedestrians.

I’ve been on worse parking treks. Before too long, we found a spot at Naperville Central High School, whose lot was open and no charge. To reach the riverwalk from there, you have to go around Naper Settlement, an open-air museum covering 12 acres and featuring historic buildings from the vicinity.

Unless you go into the museum, which we didn’t particularly want to, since we’d been there before. September of ’09, when we attended a pow-wow.

Then we found out that an art show was going on, with no admission to the grounds. So we popped in for a look-see.

“Since 1959, the Naperville Woman’s Club has presented a free art fair in the summer,” the Naper Settlement web site says. “The longest continuously running art fair in Illinois, this event brings a weekend of art and artistry to Naper Settlement in a free, fun, and family-friendly environment.” My italics.

Some nice work was for sale. We managed not to buy anything, remarkably enough.

In that first pic, he’s selling ceramic graters. Not something I would have thought of.

I was more interested in taking a look at the buildings, even though most of them were closed. The crown jewel of the museum, of course, is the handsome Martin Mitchell Mansion, which we toured those years ago. I didn’t remember much about Mitchell — just that he made money in bricks, many of which are evident in the house, and that his daughter was a dwarf who willed the property to the city.

The Daniels House.

Hamilton C. Daniels (1820-97) doctored in 19th-century Naperville. Wonder whether, toward the end, old doc Daniels was still a miasma man or he came around to germ theory.

The Century Memorial Chapel.

Formerly St. John’s Episcopal in Naperville, dating from 1864.

The museum also has some nice gardens.

Speaking of gardens, there was a special display of Victory Gardens. Boxes honoring the originals, anyway, and individual service members.

Something I learned from the signage: In 1943, seven million acres of Victory Gardens were planted, producing 40% of the nation’s fresh produce that year.

One more structure, though there are 30 all together on the grounds: the Murray Outhouse.

How many outhouses in the world are named? There have to be others, but there couldn’t be that many.

Along the West Branch of the DuPage River

Posted on June 28, 2022 by admin

Naperville, the second-largest Chicago suburb by population at nearly 148,000, has much to recommend a casual visitor, either in warm months or colder ones. (Way-far west Aurora, surprisingly, is number one at nearly 200,000 souls.)

Sunday was warm, but not hot enough to keep us from a stroll along West Branch of the DuPage River, which passes through downtown Naperville, and is in fact one of the village’s main amenities. The river is broad at that point.

But not that deep. A foot or two at most, yet deep enough for ducks and kayaks.

The walkways along the river are fairly narrow.

Both banks are connected by wooden foot bridges.

With small parks and other features on either side.

Including some artwork. Such as “Wall of Faces,” whose plaque says that it was “created by Naperville school children and molded by local artists to represent the casualties of September 11, 2001.”

And a bronze Dick Tracy. I don’t think I’d noticed that before.

It’s been there since 2010, so I just wasn’t paying attention. But why Naperville? I associate the comic policeman with Woodstock, Illinois, home of creator Chester Gould. The plaque explained that Dick Locher (1929-2017), who was one of Gould’s successors in writing and drawing the comic, lived in Naperville. In fact he was a multi-talented fellow, creating this statue as well.

Household Hazardous Waste Run ’22

Posted on June 27, 2022 by admin

There are five permanent places in the state that will take household hazardous waste off your hands, no charge beyond your taxes, according to this Illinois EPA site, plus collections that move from place to place.

One of the permanent facilities, the closest one to where we live (I think), is in Naperville, open on Saturdays and Sundays 9 am to 2 pm. That’s what took us to Naperville on Sunday. Mid-morning, I loaded the back of the car with a variety of chemicals previously found in our garage: cans and bottles and other vessels tucked away in open cardboard boxes so they wouldn’t clatter around too much.

The village of Naperville says that acceptable items include aerosol cans, automotive fluids (including oil, gasoline and anti-freeze), car batteries, fire extinguishers, mercury, paints and stains (oil-based only), peanut oil, pesticides, propane tanks, solvents, thermostats and “unknown hazardous substances.” That last one, I have to say, is pretty bold of the village.

Unacceptable: ammo, compressed gas (except propane), explosives, helium tanks, latex paint, paper or glass or wood — those three generally aren’t hazardous, unless some falls on you, or fuels an out-of-control fire — radioactive materials, sharps, tires, trash or alkaline batteries.

I had none of those. Of the acceptable ones, I had everything but car batteries, fire extinguishers, mercury, thermostats and peanut oil. Peanut oil? Apparently it gums up pipes in high concentrations. Also, I had no unknown hazardous substances, such as boxes one finds floating in the bay.

Since offloading your household waste down in Naperville is first come, first serve, I imagined waiting in a long line in my car, each car belching out auto emissions as they snaked slowly toward the pickup point, where masked state employees appeared and disappeared according to some schedule opaque to me. Hours might be lost to the process.

When we got there, exactly no other cars were ahead of us, and only one came in behind us. A man wearing a white clean suit — are there any other colors? — but not a helmet, asked were we were from, and I told him.

Then he and a partner, also be-clean suited, quickly examined everything in the back and removed everything but a single can, which in their opinion was empty, and could be put in regular trash. That was it. Took all of about two minutes, once the driving was done. Sometimes things work as they are supposed to, even when dealing with the state. Seldom is that written about or mentioned. So I’m doing that now.

Naperville is nearly a half-hour drive from where we live, meaning we weren’t about to turn around and go home right away, burning the gas just for that. So we spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon there. I’m glad we did, because otherwise I wouldn’t have made the acquaintance of an homunculus Charley Weaver.

More on that later. Enough to say now that someone my age just caught the tail end of Charley Weaver.

Regal Country Inn, 2017

Posted on June 26, 2022 by admin

Rain yesterday morning, cool temps in the afternoon. Cool morning today, pretty warm but not blazing hot in the afternoon. Saw a few fireflies last week. Harbingers of high summer, they are. Always glad to see them.

Has it been five years since our last visit to the UP? Apparently so. I wish I’d taken more detailed pictures of the place we stayed, the Regal Country Inn in Wakefield, Mich., which wasn’t remotely regal, more-or-less country, and certainly an inn.

The motel was located on U.S. 2, which passes along the roof of the United States.

The reason I should have documented the place better is sic transit gloria mundi.

Ah, well. Wonder whether the place fell victim to the pandemic or merely the slings and arrows of commercial fortune.

It was a pleasantly comfortable independent motel, owned by the fellow who greeted us at the front desk.

Bob, I’ll call him, because I don’t remember his name, but Bob fits. Bob gave me a discount for paying in cash. Good old Bob. Maybe our stay was off the books. I didn’t ask.

We stayed in a second-floor room, near an opening over the lower level and among a fair amount of bric-a-brac.

His cutout was there, but as far as I know the place didn’t claim that the Duke ever stayed at the Regal Country Inn.

Thursday Debris. Literally

Posted on June 23, 2022 by admin

Over Memorial Day weekend, I started cleaning out the garage. Or, as I told Ann, go Marie Kondo on it — getting rid of a lot of the contents, one way or another. Ann said she thought that might be a misinterpretation of Ms. Kondo’s ideas, but I don’t care, since I have no intention of watching her videos or TikToks or however she gets her message out. Call it willful misinterpretation.

The process continues, sometimes on the weekends since, sometimes in the evenings. I’ve made some progress. Besides simple decluttering, a lot of dust and leaves and other debris has been swept out. The worst of it involved removing boxes torn by an invading squirrel in winters past.

So far I’ve filled our 90-gallon trash can three times, along with the 90-gallon recycle bin, and I’m working on a fourth for each. Other items have been given to a resale shop. A small number of things have come into the house, since I’ve deemed them too useful to be in the garage.

I’ve found things I’d forgotten we had, and which should have gone long ago. Such as items from earlier years in the lives of my daughters. This box and its contents, for instance.

It moved with us from the western suburbs. I know that because I wrote which bedroom the movers were to take it, in the new house — this house — nearly 19 years ago. Ann used it in those days. Ann, who’s in college now. Lilly probably used it before that. Lilly, who’s a grown woman in Seattle.

Did I feel sentimental about it? Slightly. Very slightly. Enough to post the picture here. But that’s all. Knowing that absolutely no one would want the dirty old plastic within, I emptied the box into the trash can, and then (after taking the picture), broke the box down for recycling. Whatever sentiment I felt ebbed away as I inhaled some dust.

Cement Mixer

Posted on June 22, 2022 by admin

Over 95 F. degrees here yesterday, on the occasion of the summer solstice — a near-record in metro Chicago for this day, the weather record-keepers say. That didn’t keep men hired by the village from further work on the street, including the appearance of a cement mixer. I didn’t take a picture, but I did think of the song of that name. Who wouldn’t?

I didn’t realize there were quite so many recordings until I looked into it. The always wonderful Slim Gaillard, of course, was first.

Then there’s the big band stylings — and perhaps more mainstream version — of Alvino Rey.

I’d heard those. But there’s also one by Liberace, of all people, who naturally had fun with it, and a hip early ’60s version by the Orlons. And more. (Mel Tormé? Well, I might listen to that sometime.)

Jerome Huppert Woods

Posted on June 21, 2022 by admin

As forecast, temps didn’t break 80 degrees F. on Saturday. A good day to hit the trail.

A trail, anyway. The one we hit happened to be the Des Plaines River Trail, which parallels the river of that name, on a short section through Jerome Huppert Woods. The place might be named for this man, a casualty of WWII. How many Jerome Hupperts have there been? He was from Wisconsin, so that would be a little unusual, but hardly impossible.

The woods are a small slice of undeveloped land along the river. My guess would be that the Cook County Forest Preserve District was able to acquire most of the land along the Des Plaines because it is prone to flooding. A little further from the forest preserve land at that point, the suburb of River Grove surrounds the area, and it’s fully developed.

The reach the trail proper, you go along a connecting trail from a parking lot and recreation field to a short, graffiti’d tunnel under a road.

There’s enough undeveloped land in the area to support some large fauna, looks like.

I don’t look at the creature and think Bambi. Rather, I think, deer ticks, vector of Lyme disease. Best to keep your distance. Still, it was nice to see.

Recent rains seem to have created, or at least enlarged, a stagnant pond that isn’t visibly connected to the river.

Otherwise, lots of green. Lots of flowers. Lots of trees.

With views of the Des Plaines from time to time.

Along with abandoned structures.

Eventually, we came to River Grove’s River Front Park, where we turned around. Not before resting a few minutes in the park gazebo, though.

As always, nice to find a gazebo. Obscure suburban parks are better for them.

Down in Galveston, Up in Yellowstone

Posted on June 16, 2022 by admin

Back to posting on Tuesday, since of course Juneteenth is a holiday. I just found out that since last year, there’s been a mural in Galveston commemorating the issuance of General Order No. 3 by (Brevet) Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who would be wholly obscure otherwise. The artist, Reginald C. Adams, is from Houston.

Something to see if I ever make it back to Galveston, which is more likely than, say, Timbuktu. But I don’t believe I’ll go to Galveston in the summer again.

I downloaded a National Park Service image (and thus public domain) today of the road near the north entrance of Yellowstone NP, showing the damage from the recent flooding. Damn.

Many more pictures of the flooding in the park and in Montana are here, along with a story about the curious absence of the governor of Montana.

“Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance,” the NPS says. “Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.”

No doubt. We entered the park at the north entrance back in ’05 and spent some time in that part of Yellowstone. The Gardiner River was much more peaceful then.

“Just south of the park’s north entrance, there’s a parking lot next to the Gardiner River. Just beyond the edge of the lot is a path that follows the edge of the river, under some shade trees,” I wrote at the time.

“The river is very shallow at that point, with a cold current pushing over piles of very smooth stones… piles of rock moderated the current a little, so that you could sit in the river and let it wash over you. It wasn’t exactly swimming, but it was refreshing.

“Along the road, just at the entrance to the parking lot, there were two signs: ENTERING WYOMING and 45TH PARALLEL of LATITUDE HALFWAY BETWEEN EQUATOR and NORTH POLE.”

Wonder if that sign is still standing.

Not Much of a Heat Wave

Posted on June 15, 2022 by admin

Heat wave! Plus rain in the wee hours tomorrow. The weathermen and women are no doubt excited. But it’s a small heat wave. It won’t even been 80 degrees F. by Saturday. Good timing, I’d say.

Workers showed up this morning and, as predicted, started making noise. Digging a hole in a modern street will do that.

The pipe went in when I had other things to do, so I didn’t watch it go in. Still, it was soon buried, though leaving a rough patch of gravel to be buried itself when the village gets around to repaving the street.

The good part is that it only took them about three hours to plant the pipe in the earth, which I hope will do what it’s suppose to do, such as keeping storm water away from my property.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Monthly Archives: June 2022