Long Grove Walkabout

Posted on July 7, 2021 by admin

Sometimes you see something odd, and it does you good.

I saw that building over the weekend in Long Grove, Illinois, when I visited the town for the first time in many years (sometime after 2004, but not sure when). Long Grove is a prosperous place in southern Lake County — median household income, $148,150 — and a fairly large suburb, about 12 square miles, with a small historic district at the intersection of Old McHenry and Robert Parker Coffin roads.

Long Grove is host to various warm-weather festivals, including chocolate-, strawberry- and apple-themed festivals, but on July 3 this year the historic downtown was quiet, except for a singer entertaining the outdoor patrons at the Village Tavern. The lack of crowds made for pleasant walking, despite the midday heat, especially among the buildings and shops away from the roads.

Businesses clustering around the intersection include (among others) Balanced Earth Energy Healing, Broken Earth Winery, In Motion Dance, Long Grove Apple Haus, Ma and Pa’s Candy, Neumann’s Cigars & More, Olivia’s Boutique, Signature Popcorn, and the Olive Tap, an “olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting emporium.”

Luxury goods, in other words, largely dependent on the caprices of the upper-middle class. Just walking around I could tell that last year was hard on the district, since a number of businesses looked permanently closed.

Still, most of them seem to have survived, such as Viking Treasures. It promises Scandinavian gifts and was the only place I saw still insisting on a mask.

Long Grove is also known for its small covered bridge.

“The historical significance of the Long Grove Covered Bridge is all about the iron, not the wood,” Aaron Underwood of the Long Grove Historical Society writes. “… our bridge isn’t an ‘authentic’ covered bridge, but rather an iron truss bridge that had a protective covering added in the 1970s to protect that iron and integrate it into the downtown’s historic theme. The cover is a beautiful copy of a famous covered bridge in Ashuelot, New Hampshire.”

Elsewhere, he wrote: “Our bridge is historic because it is rare. Only two bridges of this type remain in the six county Chicago metro area, and only thirty-five remain in the entire state. It may well be the only bridge in the state of this type with such an ornate pedestrian walkway.”

That doesn’t keep morons from driving too-large vehicles into the covering, however.

West Tennessee Dash

Posted on April 20, 2021 by admin

On April 10, after leaving Illinois via a white-knuckle, two-lane bridge across the Mississippi into the state of Missouri, I headed south to catch the ferry back across the river at Hickman, Kentucky (green arrow). The point of this exercise was to continue from Hickman on small roads to the Kentucky Bend, marked here with a pink arrow.

There’s nothing distinctive about the Kentucky Bend except its odd status as an exclave of the commonwealth of Kentucky. I’d planned to snap a picture of whatever sign was at the Tennessee-Kentucky border at that point, and maybe visit the small cemetery just inside the bend.

It wasn’t to be. When I got to the ferry, the Mississippi looked a mite testy, swollen from the storms the night before, and probably other spring rains. A phone call confirmed that the ferry wasn’t running.

Without the ferry crossing, visiting the Kentucky Bend would have meant considerable backtracking, so I blew it off, and continued southward in Missouri. I got a glimpse of the bend from the riverfront at New Madrid, but I didn’t linger because I needed to find a bathroom.

Later I crossed into Tennessee on I-155 and soon connected with U.S. 51, which goes straight into Memphis. Despite the years I lived in Tennessee once upon a time, it was a part of the state I’d never seen, except for Memphis itself.

I didn’t quite make the straight shot into the city. Not far from U.S. 51 is Fort Pillow State Historic Park, site of the Battle of Fort Pillow, also known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. It’s been a state park for 50 years now. The day was as brilliant and warm as a spring day could be by that time, a contrast from the cool rain and less lush conditions further north.

I only spent a little while at the museum and visitor center, but got the impression that the bloody history of Fort Pillow isn’t emphasized. Be that as it may, I was keen to see whatever was left of the fort, or what had been rebuilt. Signs pointed the way.

An longer interpretive sign at this clearing said Nathan Bedford Forrest set up his command there.

On the trail went.

It would have been nice had the FORT –> signs said how far was left to go. Also, I couldn’t quite follow the track I was taking, as compared to the map I acquired at the visitors center, which was a little unusual. Anyway, I climbed another couple of rises and came to a spot where I could just barely see the river.

I figured surely there must be earthworks or something at such a high point, but I didn’t see anything. Then I noticed another FORT –> sign pointing me down another staircase. That meant I’d have to go up again somewhere, because forts aren’t built in lower places. Then to return, I’d have go down and then up again. I didn’t have the energy for all that, I decided, so I made my way back. Still, I had a good walk. By the end of the day, I’d walked about two and a half miles.

Besides, I wanted to get to Memphis. When I arrived about an hour later, I found a spot in Mud Island Park with a view of the skyline.

The Hernando de Soto Bridge. More bridges ought to be named after explorers.

Back on the mainland, I found the Memphis Pyramid. It wasn’t hard to spot.

Or more formally, Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid.

Taller than the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, according to this source, but somehow that ancient Mesoamerican structure has much more of a presence. The Memphis Pyramid has been standing for 30 years now, and seems to be making it as a retail store, after failing as a municipal arena.

The blue-lit structure is an elevator to a view from the top of the pyramid.

Probably worth the price, but the line was long, so I headed for the exit. But I couldn’t leave without buying something to support the Memphis Pyramid, so I bought a box of Moon Pies.

Another One Bites the Dust

Posted on December 15, 2020 by admin

Busy day, including an early evening errand that took me past a nearby Family Video location. What’s that? Looks dark in there. Also, there’s a fence around the building and its parking lot. With some kind of demolition equipment parked inside the fence.

I’d say that the store has bitten the dust. I hadn’t noticed, so it must have been a fairly recent occurrence. As indeed it was, along with some hundreds of other locations. But not that recent: about two months ago, according to the Journal & Topics. Guess I haven’t been paying attention.

“The entertainment business has suffered during COVID-19 and that trickled down to movie rentals, as Vale told the Journal & Topics,” the article notes. Vale was a manager with the chain.

“ ‘There aren’t any new releases right now and that plays a big role in our rentals,’ said Vale.”

New releases. That’s the thing about Family Video that I never quite took a cotton to, its walls of new releases. Three or four or a half dozen DVDs/Blu-rays each of the latest movie confection, only occasionally worth renting. In the center aisles were older titles, but even that selection was meager for someone with sometimes-eccentric tastes.

Sure, give the public what they want, etc. Who would ever thought that the Hollywood torrent would dwindle to a trickle? But as soon as the various casts and crews get their shots, the entertainment factories will be humming along again, if only to feed the on-demand beast. Too late to save the northwest suburban Family Video, though.

NW Suburban Xmas Tree Lot

Posted on December 13, 2020 by admin

Beginning late in the day on Friday, rain starting falling and continued through much of Saturday. Not particularly heavy, and temps were warm enough, barely, to prevent ice formation. But all the wet did delay our planned Christmas tree acquisition until today.

Fairly cold today, but dry, so there were no issues with a wet tree in the back seat. That’s how we carry it home, bottom of the trunk pointed toward to floor of the back seat, the thin top pointed out the opposite window, which is rolled down a bit. This year the top of the tree stuck out about a foot, and the window was rolled down about that much.

The modest NW suburban lot we patronized. Cash only.
Xmas Tree Lot I took that picture last year. This year I didn’t bother. But it looked almost exactly the same today, and the tree-buying was the same. Find a tree at or under what I wanted to spend, exchange a few words with the proprietors (a middle-aged couple), watch as the one of them, the man as it happened, cut a few inches off the bottom with a chain saw and then run the tree through the netting gizmo. I carried the netted tree to the car and loaded it myself.

After some re-arrangement of the debris in the living room, the 7-foot or so balsam now awaits decoration. We’ll get to it when Ann feels like helping. Doing most of it, actually.

Dinosaurs of New York

Posted on August 23, 2020 by admin

Back in the days of paper letters and postcards, not every correspondence I started ended up in the mail. I have an entire file of letters and a few postcards that I didn’t finish and didn’t mail.

Usually that was for ordinary reasons, such as forgetting to complete it for months, by which time the news was stale. Only on rare occasions did I write a letter and think better of sending it because of its content, though I have a few insolent work memos of that kind.

I wrote a large postcard to a friend of mine in Illinois on August 27, 1983, while I was still in New York City. I think it got lost among the papers I had with me a few days later when I went to Nashville, and all these years later, I still have it.

Note the missing piece. I got as far as stamping the thing, but later removed it for re-use.

The printed text of the card says:

ALLOSAURUS (foreground) was a large, meateating dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic period of earth history, about 140 million years ago. This aggressive reptile, which preyed upon other dinosaurs, was about 30 feet long and probably weighed several tons when it was alive. Several individuals of CAMPTOSAURUS, a small, inoffensive, plant-eating dinosaur, are shown in the background.

Painting on Display
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
NEW YORK, U.S.A.

I wrote, in part:

Dear R—

I have come to New York to learn such oddities as “August is Bondage Month,” which a simple advertisement in the window of the Pink Pussycat Boutique told me. [Remarkably, the shop is still there; give the people what they want, I guess.]

Since the long line to pass through customs at JFK [returning from Europe], I’ve shuffled first to the P’s house in New Rochelle, then S’s house in Stamford, Conn. Since last Friday (the 19th), I have been at D’s apartment while she is on the Jersey shore with her parents. This is a good arrangement. I’ve become acquainted with the Village and various other parts of the city.

This card, for instance, is an accurate portrait of Brooklyn, by the East River.

Gas

Posted on April 29, 2020 by admin

The grass is high and persistent rain over the last 24 hours will make it higher, except for the dandelions, which are temporarily beaten down. Once the lawn dries out, and I manage to buy some gas for the mower, I’ll cut it. Assuming the mower wakes from its hibernation.

I bought gas for my car on April 17 at a warehouse retailer. Almost no one was in line, which is rare. Around $1.75/gallon, I think, so just over $22 was enough to fill the tank completely. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. I also couldn’t remember the time I bought any gas before April 17, so I checked.

My handy bank records tell me it was March 16. That purchase took it up to 3/4 of a tank, roughly — which is more in line with my gas-buying habits — so in a month, I used only 1/2 a tank, and a fair portion of that was to drive some distance to attend to some business in Des Plaines shortly after the March 16 purchase.

As predicted, not much driving these days, mostly just forays to nearby parks. Guess the air’s a little cleaner for it and the roads a little safer. Still, if this goes on too long, I’ll start missing long drives. Not something I would have predicted before the crisis.

Adios, Gabuttø Burger

Posted on April 22, 2020 by admin

Update: Gabuttø Burger is closed. At least the one in Rolling Meadows is, which used to be the only location. Maybe I should have mentioned that before, since we found that out one day in November (I think) when we dropped by for its fine sort-of-Japanese burgers and found it locked.

So the Yelpers are right. The place wasn’t a victim of the pandemic, though at times I wonder which of our favorite non-chain restaurants will not emerge from their current retail comas. On the other hand, a restaurant is always a high-wire act. No matter how good a joint is, it can still be the victim of regular retail churn.

Gone from Rolling Meadows, but Gabuttø Burger was planning to re-open in Elgin. Not as convenient for us, but we still would have gone occasionally. Unfortunately, word was it was supposed to open in March. I suspect that didn’t go too well.

I never did take a picture of one of its burgers. One time, however, I did take a picture at the Rolling Meadows Gabuttø Burger — of something arrayed like I’d never seen before.
More valuable than the restaurant or I realized at the time. I hope the proprietors remembered to take the supply of paper with them when they left.

Speaking of retail in peril, what about the fate of Buc-ee’s? If there ever was a place that encouraged the opposite of social distancing — that would be social cramming? — it would be Buc-ee’s, with its mass crowds in its massive stores.
Then again, such is the pull of Buc-ee’s that maybe it’s been deemed an essential operation in Texas.

Piggly Wiggly Sewing Kit

Posted on April 9, 2020 by admin

Something new on the Weather Underground forecast page for my area this Maundy Thursday morning. A screen shot:

Obviously a day to stay in if you can, for a number of reasons. Back to posting on Easter Monday. A good Easter to all.

There are many oddities around the house. Why have it any other way? Such as a Piggly Wiggly sewing kit, or you could call it a needle kit. Scanned here open, with the back on the left and the front on the right. Or reverse and observe.

Inside the kit. Some needles still in place. A threader, too.My guess is that my grandmother picked it up at a San Antonio Piggly Wiggly in the 1950s, early ’60s at the latest. Most of the time I believe she shopped at the nearby Handy-Andy in Alamo Heights, but she must have occasionally patronized Piggly Wiggly, which existed in South Texas at the time (but no more: HEB is king in that part of the country).

At some point, maybe after grandma died, my mother removed it to her house; and now that’s what I’ve done. I can date it with some certainty to that decade because of a few details. Green Stamps don’t narrow it down that much, since they were around from the 1930s to the ’80s, but I smile at the mention of them anyway.

On the inside it says: Frank Kraus, Los Angeles 36, which puts it before zip codes and during postal zones (1943-63). Since the kit was made in West Germany, that puts it after the war, in fact after the formation of the BRD in 1949. Must have been a product of the postwar recovery, when West German industry was making whatever they could for whomever they could, just as Japanese industry did at the time.

As for Frank Kraus, I’d guess he was the importer. Possibly, but only possibly, this fellow. Or him, though he left California at some point. A little looking around, such as at Esty, reveals that Frank Kraus, whoever he was and wherever he rests now, had his name on other small sewing kits from West Germany.

Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Nashville & Squeezebox Books and Music, Evanston

Posted on February 9, 2020 by admin

I have envelopes containing paper debris — keepsakes, if you’re in a generous mood — from various periods in my life. They aren’t quite rigorously organized, since that wouldn’t fit my temperament, but most of the items evoke a certain bit of the past.

Such as the pleasant times I spent at Davis-Kidd in Nashville in the mid-1980s. The store gave away bookmarks. I still have one.

There are few pleasures like browsing a bookstore, especially an independent, intelligently stocked one, as Davis-Kidd was. It wasn’t enough to browse, either. I also bought books there.

Of course I have to report that the store is gone. About nine years gone, at least the one in Nashville. Nine years ago, the betting money was on the complete disappearance of the independent bookstore. Fortunately, that hasn’t quite happened. I do my part when I can, though such bookstores, new or used, are thin on the ground in the suburbs around me.

But I still find them further away. Last summer, for instance, I chanced across Squeezebox Books and Music when I was in Evanston.

I like a shop that has non-English versions of Calvin & Hobbes for sale.

I didn’t buy any books there — I don’t buy as many as I used to, since I have so many — but I did buy postcards.

Watch the Reindeer Melt! Days of Fun

Posted on January 22, 2020 by admin

Ann brought this to my attention earlier this month, at a crafts superstore I rarely go to, but from which she wanted something. On display was an item that seemed to be sold for Christmas, but which by January was at a deep discount.

One of the stranger holiday items I saw this season, or any holiday season, really. A reindeer figure. Build it! Watch it melt! Watch it melt? Watch it melt?

Walmart’s marketing text about the item is positively demented, which I guess is fitting: “Build the reindeer and watch it melt magically! Fun for days. Completely reusable. Keep building and watch it melt over and over! Perfect stocking stuffer! Miracle Melters! Reindeer! Build it and Watch it Melt!”

Sure enough, someone has made a video about this — toy. I can’t say that I watched all of it, skipping around some, but the point of the item still eludes me. Do reindeer melt in dark Sámi folktales?

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Retail