Arthur and Arcola 2018

On Saturday, we were at a small bookstore and antique shop in Arthur, Ill., down in what’s known as the Illinois Amish country of the east-central part of the state, and as we were leaving, Ann mentioned that she’d seen some Amish romance novels in the store.

Just another thing I’d never thought of. The world keeps tossing things like that at me. According to Time, at least, the Amish romance novel is quite a thing:

“In Amish romance novels, there is no sex, but lots of babies; no nakedness, but layer upon layer of clothing is removed; and no physical contact between unmarried couples— unless perhaps God wills it through a tornado, or a house fire, or a buggy accident — and, well, it turns out that happens between attractive Amish singles quite a lot.”

It also turns out that most of the readers and most of the writers of such yarns aren’t Plain People at all, though the magazine does mention one example:

“The authors of Amish fiction freely admit that most of them are not Amish, either. ‘I can think of only one Amish writer I know of,’ says [author Beverly] Lewis, who made a point of living with Amish families to learn more about them. ‘She’s Old Order Amish, Linda Byler, and she has a bishop who’s given her permission to write Amish novels. She had an electric typewriter reconfigured to have batteries in it, which are allowed in Amish culture, so she can write.’ ”

Wonder what actual Old Order Amish think of all the weird attention the rest of the world pays to them. Maybe not much. They’re probably pretty busy doing other things most of the time.

We drove down to that part of Illinois over the weekend just to look around, and it is a little odd as a destination. I’ve never seen any Amish, or Mennonites either, wandering around looking at the Chicago suburbs just because they’re different from home.

This was our second visit; the first time was in 2007. This time we spent time in Arthur, at the book store, and at a small street festival, a few antique stores, and an ice cream shop. Tasty soft serve, served by women in bright-colored Mennonite dresses: purple for one, nearly lime green for another. We also poked around Arcola for a while, including a visit to the Visitors Information Center, located in a renovated Illinois Central depot, ca. 1885, and an antique store.

As far as I could remember, not much had changed in either town, or the farmland between (fairly dense with farmhouses), except that one of the restaurants we went to in Arcola had closed, and so had the distinctly non-Amish Raggedy Ann Museum in Arcola.

Not to worry, the woman at the desk at Visitors Information Center told us. A new one was opening up. Or maybe had just opened, though a lot of the old one’s collection went to the National Toy Museum in Rochester, New York. We decided not to follow up on that tip. Visiting a Raggedy Ann museum is a thing you need to do only once.

Whatever the status of the museum, Arcola hasn’t forgotten Ragged Ann and Andy. In 2016, the town unveiled these painted bronzes near the Visitors Information Center.
The artist is named Jerry McKenna, a Texas Hill Country sculptor.

We also looked at a few of Arcola’s wall murals. They weren’t there in 2007.
“During the week of June 20-24, 2012, over 130 artists from across the United States as well as Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and Australia descended upon Arcola leaving behind 15 historic murals,” the town’s web site says. “Known as the Walldogs, the loose affiliation of sign painters, graphic artists and other talented individuals reunite annually to entertain and transform a community with their special brand of artistic interpretation, entertainment, and friendship.”

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

When leaving Illinois via I-55 in mid-April, I considered stopping for a look at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which is still in Illinois, but within sight of St. Louis. We stopped there in 2000, I think, when we spent time in St. Louis and Hannibal, Mo.

But we didn’t get far into the place that time — barely beyond the visitors center and museum. Mostly Cahokia is an outdoor attraction. Back in 2000, it was November, and the weather was crummy. We also had a three-year-old in tow.

So I’ve been meaning to stop again for a while. But in mid-April this year, the weather was as crummy as any November day, so I drove on. I figured I might catch it on the return about two weeks later, when the weather might be better.

So it was. On April 29 I stopped at Cahokia to wander around the grounds and try to imagine the long-gone inhabitants of a city so prominent in pre-Columbian North America that it’s now a World Heritage Site.

There isn’t much visible to go on. Fields, trees and non-natural mounds. Most of the importance of the site is invisible.

UNESCO says that Cahokia “was occupied primarily during the Mississippian period (800–1400), when it covered nearly 1,600 ha and included some 120 mounds. It is a striking example of a complex chiefdom society, with many satellite mound centres and numerous outlying hamlets and villages. This agricultural society may have had a population of 10–20,000 at its peak between 1050 and 1150.”

A road cuts through the site, and on the other side of the road from many of the mounds and the visitors center is the centerpiece of Cahokia: Monks Mound.
At this distance, it’s hard to tell, but those are stairs with people climbing them. Monks Mound, at about 100 feet high, and 955 feet by 755 feet at the base, is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas, and the largest pyramid north of Mexico. Clearly the Mississippian-culture Indians were determined to build the thing, since they’re presumed to have built it over some centuries using baskets to move soil and clay.

The least I could do was climb to the top. The view’s a good one. Note St. Louis off in the distance, including just-visible the Gateway Arch (which is more clearly visible with your eyes).

The opposite direction, into the flatness of Illinois.

The top of the mound itself is fairly flat, though I understand the archaeologists have discovered a number of subtle gradations up there, and found evidence of a large building toward the back of the mound. That’s assumed to be a chiefly or priestly residence, which would be consistent with most human behavior in most places, but the Cahokians aren’t around to tell us.

Another mystery: why did they leave? Cahokia was abandoned long before Europeans came this way, or even European diseases, so it wasn’t that. Climate change? Their own plague? Other Native Americans driving them away? I believe archaeologists’ answers to the question boil down to, Dunno. Go figure.

The Trans-Pecos & Llano Estacado

Back on April 14, I headed for Texas by car. I spent most of following two weeks in that state, arriving home today. Along the way, I drove 3,691 miles and change.

The main event was the wedding of my nephew Dees and his betrothed Eden on April 21 at Hummingbird House, a gorgeous outdoor wedding venue just south of Austin in the full flush of a Texas spring. An actual warm and green spring, unlike the cold and still brown spring I left in Illinois.

Rain had been predicted for the day, as it often is this time of the year, and there was an indoor pavilion just for that circumstance, but the Texas spring accommodated the bride and groom and wedding party and all the guests by not raining. If fact, the sun came out just before the ceremony, which was picturesque as could be.

I was remiss in taking pictures of Dees and Eden or anyone else, except for a few shots of my family.They’d flown to Austin the day before the wedding, in time for the rehearsal dinner, which was a pizza party in Dees and Eden’s back yard. The logistics of my family getting to Austin were a little involved, but everything worked out.

As for me, I’d spent most of the week before the wedding with my brother Jay in Dallas, arriving in Austin the Thursday before the wedding. The morning after the wedding, a week ago now, Yuriko, Lilly and Ann and I drove to San Antonio, where we all visited my mother and brother Jim. They flew back home that evening, leaving me to drive back to Illinois.

I wanted to return a different way than I’d came, especially since I had the week off from work (the week before the wedding was a work week). So I didn’t pick the most direct route home.

Namely, I drove west from San Antonio to Marathon, Texas, a town of a few hundred people in West Texas whose main distinction is its proximity to Big Bend National Park, which I visited last Tuesday. There are many impressive things to see there, but I was most astonished by the cliffs on the Rio Grande that form Santa Elena Canyon.

The next day I went to the Trans-Pecos towns of Alpine, Marfa and especially Fort Davis. Not far from Fort Davis is the McDonald Observatory, which I’ve had a mind to visit for years. It was cloudy and misty and a little cold when I got there, but that doesn’t matter when you’re looking at impressive telescopes. In Fort Davis itself, I visited the Fort Davis National Historic Site.

The next day, I drove north, through Midland-Odessa and Lubbock and finally to Amarillo, a shift in scenery from the desert of the Trans-Pecos to the high plains of the Llano Estacado. Along the way I made a few stops: the Presidential Archives and Leadership Library in Midland and the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock.

While in Amarillo, a city I had not seen since a brief visit in 1979, I took the opportunity on Friday to see Palo Duro Canyon State Park, which is about 30 minutes outside of town. It’s a great unknown among natural areas in Texas and, for that matter, the United States.

I had enough time that day after visiting Palo Duro — the days are getting longer — to drop by and see the Cadillac Ranch, famed oddball tourist attraction, which is on the western outskirts of town.

This weekend was a long drive home: Amarillo to Lebanon, Missouri, on Saturday (I’d stopped in Lebanon the first day out, on the way to Dallas), and Lebanon to home in metro Chicago today. Tiring, but I did squeeze in two more sites. In Claremore, Okla., on Saturday, I saw the Will Rogers Museum. Not bad for an entertainer who’s been dead more than 80 years.

Today I stopped just outside St. Louis and took a walk around the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Not bad for a culture that’s been gone for about 800 years.

Primary Day

Today Illinois held its primary election for divers offices. At the entrance to my polling place at Quincy Adams Wagstaff Elementary were divers signs.

At about 2 p.m., when I went, the poll wasn’t particularly crowded. Voting took all of about 10 minutes. Many of the offices had only one candidate. Others, I knew little about. In that case, my strategy is usually to vote for the last person on the ballot, because I’ve read that the first person has an advantage just for being first.

In the last few days, the postcards and robo-calls have been pouring in. One robo-call I got yesterday — note that it was yesterday, the day before the election — said (details changed):

“Hi, this is Mortimer Snerd, candidate for state representative. I will bring honesty, integrity and transparency to Springfield. Today is election day, so please don’t forget to vote. Polls are open till 7. I hope I can count on your support. I’m Mortimer Snerd, and I approve of this message. Paid for by Citizens for Mortimer Snerd.”

Oops. The robot doing that robo-call jumped the gun just a little.

A couple of days ago, a voice purporting to be the wife of a candidate — let’s call him Charlie McCarthy — was left on my answering machine:

“Recently, you might have received calls on behalf of his opponent, making false accusations about my husband. The truth is, everything we’ve told you about Yancy Derringer’s questionable record is completely true and properly cited. Since it’s hard to counter facts, he’s resorted to name-calling. Please join me and punch number 666 on your ballot, Charlie McCarthy for judge.”

I’m afraid I can’t vote for Charlie McCarthy (campaign slogan, “He’s no dummy.”) That would put the nation at risk of another wave of McCarthyism.

Not Indicted Yet

First things first: Remember the Alamo. Today is a good time to listen to some Dimitri Tiomkin.

Wind and cold yesterday to remind us that winter lingers, that it’s the time of the year when the season is an unwanted guest who gives no indication of packing his bags. Then in the evening, snow. Just a covering, so I figured it would melt today. No. We got more in the morning. Then it melted. Mostly.

Got an oddity in the mail not long ago: an anti-Bruce Rauner campaign booklet called The Governor You Don’t Know, subtitled “The Other Side of Bruce Rauner.” It’s an actual paper publication, and a smallish thing, 4 in. x 6​¾ in., with a four-color cover but all text on its 48 pages (three forms of 16 pages, I bet). And I mean all text — not even any black-and-white illustrations.

The byline names the chairman of the Chicago Republican Party as the author, with a forward by a Republican state representative. Interesting copyright note: “Permission is hereby granted to reproduce any part or all of this book until March 31, 2018.” After that, all rights reserved.

I’m not going to do that, but I will quote from the forward: “In this book, you’ll be taken behind the scenes as the author reviews the salient events that explain why we are taking the extremely rare step of unseating an incumbent governor from our own party.”

The Illinois Republican party, it seems, is a tad peeved at the governor. I can certainly think of some criticisms of him myself, but I will give Rauner this: he’s never been indicted. In some states (Illinois, Louisiana) that’s a pretty high bar for a governor.

On the back of the booklet, we’re informed that the woman looking to unseat the governor in this month’s primary, or rather her campaign, paid for the book. As politicos go, she’s a dime-store demagogue, as noted by the underrated columnist Neil Steinberg.

All very interesting, but I’m still left with a nagging question. Why did I get it? Am I on some kind of dime-store demagogue fan club mailing list? If so, I’d prefer not to be.

I Promise to Put Hooligans in the Hoosegow

With the Illinois primary only a month or so away, the political ad postcards are rolling in. Very many of them promise to “put criminals behind bars,” as if the candidates would pick them up like Underdog and drop them off in prison without a hint of due process.

Policy considerations aside, the term “criminals behind bars” shows a serious lack of imagination. While I was shoveling snow the other day — and this is the kind of thing I sometimes think of when doing that — I started a little list of synonyms for that tired old phrase. English is such a rich grab bag of words.

Criminals behind bars, or:

Felons in the slammer
Crooks in the pen
Thugs up the river
Blackguards in the stoney lonesome
Outlaws in the jug
Robbers in the lockup
Banditos in the cooler
Perps in the pokey
Hooligans in the hoosegow
Gangsters in the big house
Lawbreakers in the joint
Miscreants in the clink
Convicts inside
Malefactors in the correctional facility
Cons in the brig
Hoods in the bridewell
Delinquents in juvie
Desperados in stir
Culprits in quod

Twelve Pictures ’17

Back to posting on January 2, 2018, or so. Like last year, I’m going to wind up the year with a leftover picture from each month. This time, for no special reason, no people, just places and things.

Champaign, Ill., January 2017Charlotte, NC, February 2017

Kankakee, Ill., March 2017

Rockford, Ill., April 2017

Muskogee, Okla., May 2017

Naperville, Ill., June 2017

Barrington Hills, Ill., July 2017

Vincennes, Ind., August 2017

Denver, September 2017Evanston, Ill., October 2017Chicago, November 2017

Birmingham, Ala., December 2017

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Adios, November

Three yawning months of meteorological winter ahead. That’s what counts for winter: December, January and February. Never mind what anyone says about the solstice. But at least no heavy snow or ice is forecast for now.

Back again to posting around December 10.

What did we do to deserve this sunset? A late November event, as seen from our deck.
On Thanksgiving, the girls and I watched Airplane! on demand. What is it about that movie and its rapid-fire, throw the jokes against the wall to see if they’re funny structure? I’ve watched it a number of times since I saw it when it was new, and it’s funny every time.

Unlike another movie I paid good money to see in 1980: The Hollywood Knights. That was a mistake. So much so that sometime afterward I invented my own personal scale of movie quality: The Hollywood Knights Scale, from zero to some unspecified large number, zero being the worst.

The Hollywood Knights comes in at exactly 0 on my idiosyncratic scale. I’ve seen some bad movies in my time, but that ranking is still valid as far as I’m concerned (though I’d have to put, say, Patch Adams at 0.1).

Not familiar with The Hollywood Knights? Wiki gives a pretty good summation: “The ensuing antics include, among other things, a sexual encounter involving premature ejaculation, a punch bowl being spiked with urine, an initiation ceremony involving four pledges who are left in Watts wearing nothing but the car tires they are left to carry, a cheerleader who forgets to put on her underwear before performing at a pep rally, several impromptu drag races, and the lead character of Newbaum Turk (Robert Wuhl) wearing a majordomo outfit and singing a version of ‘Volare’ accompanied by the sounds of flatulence. Mooning also plays a prominent role in the film…”

None of those things necessarily make the movie unfunny. After all, Airplane! includes jokes about drug abuse, pederasty, oral sex, a sick child, and African-American dialect. There are ridiculous visual gags, such as Ted Striker’s drinking problem or pouring lights on the runway. Punning is rampant (don’t call me Shirley). Yet it all works as a comedy. The writing, directing, acting, timing and entire conceit as a spoof of more serious movies are vastly better than anything The Hollywood Knights did.

Speaking of odd things in movies, this is a still from Animal Crackers.

That’s supposed to be part of an outdoor patio of a lavish home on Long Island. The characters, who are not really that important in the scheme of the comedy, are the wealthy homeowner’s daughter and her honest but poor boyfriend. What caught my eye was that structure behind them.

According to the imdb, the uncredited art director for the firm was the German-born Ernst Fegté, who was working in Hollywood by 1925, and who had a busy career. Now what, I can imagine him thinking, would a wealthy Long Island socialite want for her patio? Something — modern.

The movie was made in 1930. Here’s something else from exactly then, a cover of Radio Listener magazine that I saw at the early Soviet art exhibit at the Art Institute last weekend.

It’s a Peakaboo Stalin. Lenin figured in a fair number of the works, but Stalin was only an up-and-coming character during most of the period. A little like Fonzie, though — pretty soon he’s going to take over the show.

One more thing, and naught to do with movies or the Soviet Union. I took Lilly back to UIUC on Sunday, and en route arranged to take a picture of this roadside attraction in Kankakee. Almost literally roadside, since it’s best seen from I-57.
“28 feet tall, Abe stands in front of a heavy equipment rental lot, and holds signs that promote whatever its owner feels strongly about at the moment,” says Roadside America.

I’ve seen him with a sign, but for the moment he holds none. Just as well, I figure. A sign in Honest Abe’s hands is gilding the lily.

The Great American Traffic Jam

Back to posting on September 5. If you can’t take Labor Day off, when can you?

One more thing about the Great American Solar Eclipse. It was followed by the Great American Traffic Jam. Or, to hark back to an increasingly distant bit of history, the Mother of All Traffic Jams.

We left Paducah, Kentucky, at about 2 p.m. on August 21. It took us about 12 hours to get home. Twice as long as under normal conditions.

Since not a lot of people jammed into Paducah to see the eclipse, I-24 north from the town wasn’t bad at all. Even I-57 wasn’t too crowded at first, until around Marion, Illinois. Then traffic stopped dead.

So much so that I could take a picture of the road ahead, at my leisure, while in the driver’s seat. No one was moving.
Traffic Jam August 21, 2017A lot of people had gone to Carbondale, west of Marion, to see the eclipse. The road from Carbondale, Illinois 13, meets I-57 at Marion. Google Traffic showed red and worse for miles and miles north of there.

After a long time of not moving at all, punctuated by exciting periods of slowly crawling along, we were able to get off I-57 and take to smaller roads, such as Illinois 1 and 130 and others. We should have done that from the get-go, but I mistakenly thought traffic would only be heavy on I-57, not molasses.

The alternate routes didn’t entirely get us away from traffic, and at times we encountered slowdowns, such as when hit by a lot of rain. That was the weather system that clouded over the partial eclipse in the Chicago area, and which would have obscured totality for us had it arrived further south a day earlier. Sometimes you, and thousands of others, get lucky.

Our onboard navigation system wasn’t a lot of use. No matter where you were, or what the traffic conditions were, its suggestions to get home amounted to get on the nearest Interstate. If it were programmed to nag, it would have said, “Why aren’t you on the Interstate? You know that’s the best way to go. Get on the Interstate!” Robert Moses isn’t dead.

My old friend Tom was in Madisonville, Tenn., for the eclipse, reporting flawless weather for the event, as seen from Kefauver Park (as in, Estes). He also said getting back to Atlanta involved sticky traffic and a succession of small roads.

Enough about the traffic. It was merely an unpleasant coda to an otherwise remarkable experience. When we finally got home, exhausted, I asked a rhetorical question: Was it worth it? Was it ever.

More Vincennes

At Grouseland in Vincennes, during the tour, our guide pointed out a sizable crack in the wall of one of the upstairs bedrooms. She said that was the only damage to the interior walls that the long-time modern owners of the property, the Daughters of the American Revolution, decided not to repair. That’s because the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes make the crack. That crack might be the only visible relic anywhere of that long-ago event. Historic damage preservation, you might call it.

Outside of the Harrison mansion are a few memorials, one of which is homely indeed.
Two blocks south of this marker on March 6, 1814, was born Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Capt. and Mrs. Zachary Taylor.

Miss Taylor married Lieut. Jefferson Davis at Louisville, Kentucky on July 17, 1835 and died in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on September 15 of that same year.

Zachary Taylor subsequently became the twelfth President of the United States, and Jefferson Davis the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy 1964

A Confederate memorial, sort of, but somehow I doubt that memorial revisionists are going to be flustered by it.

Grouseland has a small gift shop. You can buy William Henry Harrison Pez dispensers there. I did.

William Henry Harrison PezWHH Pez is now going to keep company with my Franklin Pierce bobblehead.

At the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park gift shop, you can buy a flag I’ve never seen anywhere else: the George Rogers Clark Flag. I got one of those, too.
George Rogers Clark FlagThe Clark flag is now going to keep company with my Come And Take It flag that flies on our deck during the warm months.

Apparently Clark’s men didn’t carry the flag at the Battle of Vincennes, but it was around — a previous American commander at Sackville, before the British took the fort, might have used it. Clark got his name attached to it anyway. Also, it isn’t clear why red and green were its colors. Never mind, all that mystery adds interest. It’s distinctive, and you can find it displayed with more conventional flags at the National Historical Park.
George Rogers Clark Memorial flagsVisible from the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park is the Lincoln Memorial Bridge across the Wabash (US 50), the border at that place between Indiana and Illinois. An elegant bridge.
Lincoln Memorial Bridge, Vincennes, IndianaThis was where a young Abraham Lincoln (age 21) and his family is thought to have crossed into Illinois for the first time in 1830. On the Illinois side of the river, that event is marked with a memorial.
Lincoln at 21 memorial, entering IllinoisProbably the Lincolns crossed the river on a ferry. Crossed the river, checked out the memorial, and then when on their way. I admit, that sounds like a scene from a Mel Brooks movie, but it’s something I thought of while looking at the memorial.

Lincoln crossing into Illinois memorial

Officially, it’s the Lincoln Trail State Memorial, designed by Nellie Verne Walker and erected in 1938.

One more thing in Vincennes: a small museum to a native son. Anyone younger than me (roughly) might have a hard time identifying him.
Red Skelton mural, VincennesThe museum was closed on Sunday, and we didn’t have time for it anyway, but I did tell the girls that Red Skelton was an old vaudevillian, long before my time. I remember him on television, which was essentially televised vaudeville in his case. Who in our time would do comedy that included “The Silent Spot”?