The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway & Lundy Lundgren

If you have time, US 20 is the best way between metro Chicago and Rockford. I-90 is faster but not as interesting, and a toll road besides. We went to Rockford on the Interstate for speed, but returned at our leisure on the US highway, which is sometimes four lanes, sometimes two, along that stretch.

US 20 is also known as the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway in Illinois, honoring Gen. Grant, who spent some time in western Illinois. In fact, the highway runs by his house in Galena. (US 20 itself runs cross-country, from Boston to Newport, Ore., or vice versa.)

The honorary designation has been in place since 1955, but most of the original signs were lost or fell apart. In 2007, the Illinois DOT started replacing them with brown-lettered signs that include a portrait of Grant. The route passes very close to where I live in the northwest suburbs, and I remember starting to see the signs appear nearly 10 years ago. I thought the designation was new as well, but now I know better.

One of the places on US 20 between Rockford and the northwestern suburbs is Marengo, a burg of about 7,500 in McHenry County. Oddly, it seems to be named after the battle of that name, which did so much to solidify Napoleon’s top-dog status, at least until Waterloo. Maybe some of the town founders included Bonapartist sympathizers, but well after the fact, since it was established in the 1840s.

For years, I’ve been driving by a sign that points to a historical marker just off US 20 in Marengo. High time I took a look, I thought this time. The marker is a few blocks north of US 20 on N. East St. This is what I saw.

Lundy Lundgren, Marengo, ILCarl Leonard Lundgren (1880-1934) hailed from Marengo, and behind the sign is the very field where he perfected his pitching skills, at least according to the sign. As a young man, Lundy Lundgren pitched for the Cubs from 1902 to ’09, and in fact pitched for the team during its most recent appearances in the World Series — 1907 and ’08.

He’s buried in the Marengo City Cemetery across the street from the plaque.

Marengo City Cemetery April 2016I took a look at the place from the street, but didn’t venture in. Most of it’s modern-looking, or at least 20th century, but there’s a small section whose stones look very old, older even than Lundgren’s, wherever it is. That bears further investigation someday.

LBJ’s Boyhood Home

Some years ago, I visited the “Texas White House,” that part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park where President Johnson used to entertain politicos of various kinds, talk on the phone constantly, and perhaps watch all of the network news programs at the same time, though the picture I’ve seen of him doing that was at the regular White House. The Texas White House is on the LBJ Ranch near Stonewall, Texas, along with a number of other structures.

Not far away, in Johnson City, Texas, is another unit of the National Historic Park, which includes the Johnson’s boyhood home. En route from Austin to San Antonio on March 6 — I didn’t take the most direct way — I stopped at the boyhood home and caught the last tour of the day.
LBJ Boyhood Home“Lyndon Johnson’s family moved from a farm near Stonewall, Texas, to Johnson City (a distance of about fourteen miles) two weeks after his fifth birthday, in September 1913,” the NPS says. “For most of the next twenty-four years, this was their home…

“In February 1937, Lyndon Johnson returned home from Austin to seek the advice of his father — should he run for Congress? It was the first week of March, 1937, when Lyndon Johnson stood on the porch of his boyhood home to announce his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives for the Tenth District of the State of Texas.”

We too stood on the porch — me and the two other people on the tour. Our docent was knowledgeable, which is always good to find in out-of-the-way presidential sites. He was able to convey some sense of the Johnson family, and their Hill Country environs, during LBJ’s younger years.

Lyndon might have asked his father for advice, but Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr wasn’t entirely successful as a politician, or as a businessman. This might have been the source of some tension in the household, and perhaps spurred the younger Johnson to think bigger in terms of a political career, though plumbing the motives of historic figures involves speculation. In any case, it was probably important to the future cast of LBJ’s mind that his father entertained other local politicos on that same porch, within earshot of the boy.

The house itself is handsome and fairly spacious, which indicates that the elder Johnson had some financial success. A few of the items currently inside belonged to the Johnson family, but most of them are period pieces. During Johnson’s boyhood, none of the houses in Johnson City were electrified, including their house. That part of Texas was ultimately electrified through the efforts of Congressman Johnson via a Rural Electrification Administration loan.

According to the LBJ Library, he wrote in a 1959 letter, “I think of all the things I have ever done, nothing has ever given me as much satisfaction as bringing power to the Hill Country of Texas.”

Herbert Hoover, Lizard Overlord

Recently I realized I have a minor collection of presidential post cards. Some I’ve acquired myself, some my brother Jay has sent me. I didn’t plan on it.

That comes to mind because last week Jay sent me one depicting Herbert Hoover. Here it is.

Wax HooverJay says it looks like the president is emerging from the Time Tunnel, a cultural reference for those of us of a certain age. Unless, he noted, Hoover’s an extraterrestrial impersonator in this image. I’ll go along with that one. He looks like one of our Lizard Overlords back in the early 20th century, before they perfected their rubber masks.

The card, incidentally, was produced by the Hall of Presidents Wax Museum, located once upon a time in Colorado Springs. It seems to have closed around 2000 or earlier (sources differ). Closed for lack of visitors, or because the aliens packed all the wax figures into their saucers and took them home.

Pipe HooverI already had a Hoover card, one produced by the Hoover Museum in Iowa, with him looking grandfatherly sometime after he left office — not nearly as much fun as the wax-lizard Hoover.

I did a quick and not completely thorough count of my presidential card collection, including only those with faces of presidents on them. (I have others that depict their homes, and two vice presidents: George M. Dallas and Al Gore.) So far I have Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Grant, Benjamin Harrison, TR, Hoover, Eisenhower, LBJ, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton. Got a ways to go.

Greater Tuna at Ford’s Theatre

Will Reagan-era Washington DC ever evoke the kind of nostalgia New York of various decades does, or London of the ’60s, or the once-removed nostalgia for Paris or Berlin of the ’20s? The Americans doesn’t really trade on nostalgia for the time, even though it’s set then. Who knows?

All I know is that I visited DC a number of times during the mid-1980s. During a late ’86 visit, I went to Ford’s Theatre for a performance of Greater Tuna.

FordsTheatreI don’t remember a lot about Greater Tuna, except that it was a somewhat dark, two-man farce about a fictional small town in Texas. According to Samuel French, which licenses the play, Greater Tuna was originally produced in 1981 in Austin by its authors, Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard. The play’s stars, Williams and Sears, played all 20 characters, and Howard directed.

Greater Tuna was first presented Off Broadway at Circle in the Square in New York City on October 21, 1982. It ran for over a year Off Broadway, and “went on to tour major theatres all over America and spots overseas for the next 30 some years, and became one of the most produced plays in American theatre history,” notes Samuel French.

I think Joe Sears and Jaston Williams were still the two men doing all the parts in 1986, but I wouldn’t swear to it. All I have left is a ticket stub and a recollection of it being entertaining.

Ford’s Theatre, of course, has a doleful history of its own. The president’s box is still draped with flags, though it’s actually a 1960s reconstruction of the original, as is the entire theater space, with more changes made in a 2008 renovation. During the most recent renovation, the Washington Post ran an article containing a brief history of the place:

“Ford’s Theatre was a Baptist church until it was taken over in 1861 by entrepreneur John T. Ford. The venue was destroyed by fire the night of Dec. 30, 1862, but was rebuilt and reopened in 1863.

“After the assassination… when Ford sought to reopen for business, there was a public outcry. The government bought the theater from Ford and used it over the years as a museum and as an office and storage building.

“On the morning of June 9, 1893, the building was packed with 500 government clerks, occupying several floors of jury-rigged office space, when the interior collapsed, according to a Washington Post account the next day. Scores were killed and injured, and the theater’s already altered interior was destroyed.

The government rebuilt it again — and again used the building for storage. In the 1950s, the government decided to restore the building as a historic site and theater venue, and Ford’s reopened in 1968.”

It just occurred to me that I’ve visited three of the four sites of presidential assassinations: Ford’s Theatre, the National Gallery of Art’s West Building (built on the site of Baltimore & Potomac Railroad station where President Garfield was shot, though unmarked), and the Texas School Book Depository building. Guess that means I need to visit Buffalo.

Opening Notes of Spring

The opening strains of the northern Illinois spring symphony have begun. The grass greened up almost overnight last Thursday after a sizable amount of rain. Large puddles were left over, too, though that’s not necessarily a harbinger of spring.

Back Yard, April 2015
After a few days, it was merely a soggy, muddy patch. The dog enjoys the mud. She’s been with us two years now.

Dog, April 2015
We took a walk with the dog at the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on Saturday, and I heard throaty frogs awake and (presumably) singing for a mate. On Sunday, I heard the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” from my office, and went to the front door to take a look. Sure enough, it was an ice cream truck.

Speaking of spring: A note to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton, and Marco Rubio (so far): I don’t want to hear about your efforts to become president. It’s the spring of 2015. I don’t even want to hear about it in the spring of 2016. It can wait till the fall of that year. Except maybe the candidacy of Vermin Supreme.

Don’t Call It a Hooverville

Just off of I-80 in east-central Iowa is the town of West Branch, hometown of Herbert Clark Hoover. These days, you can visit the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site there, as we did on March 27.

Besides the museum and library, and the graves of President and Mrs. Hoover, the site includes a collection of 19th-century buildings moved from other parts of town to form a sort of young Hoover-era village: a half-dozen houses, a schoolhouse, Jesse Hoover’s smithy, a Friends Meeting House, and a barn. All of these were put in the vicinity of Hoover’s birthplace cottage, a two-room structure in which HH came into the world on August 10, 1874. It’s the only thing in the area that hadn’t been moved.

It’s a small place. Really small: 280 square feet.

Herbert Hoover birthplace March 2015“Like any couple just starting out, 21-year old Hulda Minthorn and 23-year old Jesse Hoover were eager to have a place to call their own,” the NPS says about the cottage. “Shortly after their first wedding anniversary, and with the help of his father Eli, Jesse built this simple, but sturdy two-room cottage in the spring of 1871 on the corner of Downey and Penn streets.

“Looking around this house, you may think the Hoover family was poor. But their prudent spending, strong work ethic, and resourceful ways were actually a reflection of their Quaker beliefs.” More about the cottage is here.

Across Hoover Creek from the cottage is a curious thing. A statue of Isis — the ancient Egyptian deity, that is. How many monumental statues of Isis are there in Iowa? Maybe just this one. How many anywhere? I couldn’t say, but I do know there’s one at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site.
Isis in Iowa, 2015“Considering Herbert Hoover’s Quaker upbringing, you might be wondering why there is a statue of Isis, ‘the Egyptian goddess of Life,’ sitting on the grounds of his birthplace,” says the NPS. “This bronze, seven-and-a-half-foot tall statue is the work of Belgian sculptor Auguste Puttemans [apparently his last work] and was a gift from the children, refugees, and soldiers of Belgium in gratitude for Hoover’s famine relief efforts on their behalf during the First World War.”

Quad Cities-Iowa City ’15

Or, back to visit Herbert Hoover. Not that President Hoover’s a particular favorite, but we were out that way. It started late Thursday afternoon, when all of us got in the car and headed westward, eventually putting up for the night in Moline, Illinois, one of the Quad Cities, our first of two nights there.

On Friday morning, we made our way to Iowa City — not following the most direct route, exactly, but getting there in the early afternoon for a look-see around the University of Iowa. It’s among the places Lilly is considering for her continued education. Late March being unpredictable, the air wasn’t very warm, but the sun was out and it wasn’t cold enough to discourage a walkabout on campus, or the nearby college-town business district, or a visit to the former state capitol. A re-visit for most of us, though it’s been quite a few years.

On our way back to Moline that afternoon, we stopped in West Branch, Iowa, birthplace and burial site of the 31st President of the United States. This time I insisted that everyone get out of the car and take a look. Lilly took my picture, so now I have a Manus Hand-style photo with a dead president. It’s the only one of that kind that I have.

Hoover gravesite March 27, 2015On Saturday morning, I was up earlier than the rest of my family, taking the opportunity to visit the Rock Island National Cemetery, along with the nearby Confederate Cemetery, burial ground for CSA POWs on Rock Island. On the way back, I toyed with the idea of wandering through the John Deere Pavilion, but left it for another time.

In the late morning, we visited the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, the successor entity to the Davenport Museum of Art that’s been open about 10 years. Interesting collection, not overwhelmingly large, and including something I’d never seen before: a section devoted to Haitian art.

That was it for this 48-hour quickie. Except for a few minutes’ drive through Le Claire, Iowa, where we stopped for gas. Notable as the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody, and home to a museum devoted to the showman. We left that for another time as well.

A Few San Antonio Statues

I didn’t specifically seek out statues while visiting San Antonio, but sometimes I would be wandering along and there was another one. Such as this fellow, important enough to get a life-sized bronze downtown, on Houston St.

TC Frost San Antonio Feb 2015It’s Thomas Claiborne Frost (1833-1903): frontier lawyer, Confederate commander, wool merchant, and eventually banker. Frost Bank exists to this day as a major regional bank focusing only on Texas markets, and most recently it had the distinction of not being caught with exposure to the bum mortgages of the 2000s, and so turned down TARP money.

Sculptor Robert L. Dean Jr. did the Frost statue. He’s better known for a number of Eisenhower statues, including ones in Denison, Texas; West Point; Ike’s presidential library; and in London and Normandy. He also did Patton, Bradley, DeGaulle, and Eddie Rickenbacker, among others. I’d never seen the Frost bronze because it’s fairly new, put there only in 2001.

Here’s a person I didn’t know had a bust in San Antonio.

FDR San Antonio Feb 2015President Roosevelt, looking not quite like the FDR we know from photos and movies, but never mind. The memorial is on the grounds of San Antonio City Hall, a 1946 gift from Mexico — specifically, the Comite Mexicano de Accion Civica y Cultural. The sculptor was from San Antonio, however: Louis Rodriguez, a member of a family that still carves memorials and gravestones. Louis and his brother James best-known work is the Alamo Cenotaph.

Not far away is “The Conquistador,” a bronze outside the Spanish Governor’s Palace.

Conquistador, San Antonio Feb 2015It too was a gift to the city — by the government of Spain in 1977, “as a symbol of the close ties of Spain and San Antonio,” according to the plaque at the foot of the work. The sculptor was Enrique Monjo, who also did work at the National Cathedral.

Conquistador San Antonio Feb 2015Here’s a fellow in a Texas pose.

Miram Park San Antonio Feb 2015Who holds his weapon so defiantly? Texian Ben Milam, in Milam Park downtown. He was one of the leaders of the Texian forces in the Siege of Bexar in late 1835, which resulted in the capture of San Antonio from Mexican forces under Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos, an incident that precipitated the better-known Battle of the Alamo a few months later. Milam didn’t live to participate in that, or even the conclusion of the Siege of Bexar, since a Mexican bullet hit him in the head on December 7, 1835, two days ahead of Cos’ surrender. Besides Milam Park, a scattering of other places in the state are named for him, such as Milam County, northeast of Austin. But the Ben Milam Hotel in Houston is no more.

One Bonnie McLeary did the statue, which was commissioned for the Texas Centennial in 1936, along with a number of other statues around the state. She’s better known, according to A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture in Texas (1996), for her “garden sculptures and her portrayal of children.”

Then there’s Jolly Jack.

Jolly Jack San Antonio Feb 2015Sea Island San Antonio Feb 2015He stands outside of Sea Island, a restaurant on the North Side of San Antonio, near North Star Mall. Remarkably, I’ve been able to find mention of its creators, two Austin artists named Dana Younger and Kevin Collins, at least in this 1998 Austin Chronicle article: “In August, the area was dominated by Jolly Jack, a 10-foot-tall statue commissioned by Sea Island Shrimp House. Jack is the regional seafood chain’s answer to the classic Bob’s Big Boy, an oversized cartoon fat kid [looks like an old-time jack fisherman to me, not a fat kid] in cut-off blue jeans and bare feet, with a red-and-white striped shirt and a black top hat. He proudly holds a five-foot-long fish up in his left hand to entice potential diners. Collins and Younger were paid $9,000 to make the mold and will get $3,000 for each of three more Jolly Jacks.”

Who’s Next in Line?

Question for the day: What’s The Onion going to do after Joe Biden leaves office? The paper’s been mining him extensively for low comedy for a while now, but there’s only two more years to go. It seems unlikely that any successor to that colorless office will make such a fine target.

Skipped watching the State of the Union this evening, which I usually do. President Jefferson might have had the right idea: just send a written message to Congress and be done with it. President Wilson, with his pedagogic urges, revived the spoken address. In any case, the president says x, and the opposition then says, liar, liar pants on fire.

I was interested to learn that this year’s “designated survivor” – a Cabinet member who’s out of town during the speech, in case Cylons attack – was Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx. Not particularly a household name, but I remember him as the former mayor of Charlotte, a market I used to write about regularly.

Under the normal, fully hypothetical scheme of succession, Secretary Foxx is 13th in line to be president (with the vice president being first). Bringing up the caboose is Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, at 17th. The postmaster general hasn’t been on the list since the USPS was organized in 1971.

Upclose Ornaments

Today I wasted spent a few minutes taking pictures of Christmas tree ornaments in situ, and then more posting them. Such as the ever-popular Michelin Man.

Ornament 2014It would seem to violate my guidelines about commercial ornaments, and it does. But it’s the Michelin Man. I’ll make an exception.

Ornament 2014We have four of these, acquired who knows where in the last 15 years. Lilly said this year that these were favorites of hers. I had no idea. They are pretty baubles.

Ornament 2014We have two pickles on the tree. One of Ann’s friends saw it almost immediately and wanted to know, with some urgency, why there were pickles on the tree. All I can say to that is Why Not?

Ornaments 2014Not bad for tin and plastic. It’s a “UFO” ornament, acquired many years ago. In theory, they rest on top of lights and glow (the one here is perpendicular to the ground, rather than horizontal). In practice, they never fit very well on any lights, especially the newer LEDs. So we just hang them any old way.

Finally, one with a presidential connection.

Ornaments 2014Well, vice presidential connection. About 10 years ago, I visited the Evanston Historical Society, which happens to be in the former mansion of Vice President Charles Dawes. They were giving away these thin metal ornaments, and so here it is.