Thursday Products

Posted on November 14, 2024 by admin

During my junior year in college, my roommate Rich and I thumbtacked empty, flattened product packages to the wall of our two-bedroom dorm – inside the hallway closet, that is, which we didn’t use for much else. There on the 12th floor of – what was the name of that building again? – we called it the Package Art Gallery.

After 40+ years, I don’t remember the contents of the gallery, except for a flattened box that had held a muffin mix. Specifically blueberry muffins, and one of the tag lines amused us: “The most very blueberry anythings you ever ate.”

Why did we do this? As far as I can remember, collegiate whimsy. Or maybe to make a statement on art and consumerism. Why not? We never did whip up any art-speak for such a statement, but we could have. Nowadays, you don’t even have to do that, you just find a machine to do it for you, such as the amusingly named Artybollocks.

I’ve long put away collegiate things, but I could start an online package art gallery. Maybe based on things I see at discounter Ollie’s, which can indicate a less-than-stellar future for the products. Or not.

A good idea? I can’t deny having ever eaten a Ding Dong, but I’m sure I’ve never drunk any. Some postings about it when it was rolled out in 2020. Since then, less so.

Interesting idea, I guess.

Could be entertaining. Aimed at kids. But it looks like the concept was, Let’s do Risk, in Space! But without any of those annoying geographical names. No, it wouldn’t do to have kids not know something and maybe have to ask about it. Or look it up. Or have an older kid make something up about Kamchatka.

Ask St. Joseph

Posted on November 13, 2024 by admin

Cold rain, shorter daylight, still some green, since there hasn’t been a hard freeze yet. But it won’t be long. Mid-November has arrived all sullen and damp.

We’re not in the market to sell our house, but some things you can’t help noticing. I spotted this in the impulse-buy section near checkout at a hardware store I visit sometimes, an alternative to the big box DIY store not far away, where seeking a particular item can turn into a longish expedition.

I’d heard about burying a statue of St. Joseph to help along a residential sale – I think back around ’09, when that method was probably as good as any other. But I hadn’t thought about it since.

Ten minutes of looking around on line about the practice, and you find out at least two things: a number of sites offering instructions on burying your statue that may or may not endorse the practice, but certainly seem to say what the heck, might as well give it a go (such as here). On the other hand, there are also short essays about the superstitious nature of the practice (such as here), asserting that Catholics shouldn’t be burying saint statues upside down, or at all.

It made me wonder whether St. Joseph can help renters find an apartment that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, which would be seriously useful assistance in the current market. He is the patron of housing, after all. Just another thing to think about waiting in line at the hardware store.

The Fate of Pumpkins & Mice

Posted on November 12, 2024 by admin

We put a couple of pumpkins out for ornaments last month in our front yard. Visible decay in the not-too-distant-future is their fate, but unseen creatures accelerated things. Squirrels are top of the suspect list.

October 28

November 8

With no dog on patrol, squirrels and rabbits and field mice have been having a grand old time this year in our yards. At least, that’s my thinking. The uptick in mouse population means some of their number are raiding the house, which has inspired countermeasures on our part, such as traps. Not catch-and-release PETA-approved milquetoast sorts of traps, but standard instant death via snap.

That and ultrasonic devices that supposedly deter the entrance of rodents in the first place. The battle is ongoing. After a week or so of no activity, we’ve murderized one more mouse each night so far this week. Removing the remains in the morning is a task that falls to me, following traditional gender roles in this case. I can’t call it a pleasant chore, but there is a bit of satisfaction in showing the creatures the literal and metaphoric doors.

Armistice Day 2024

Posted on November 11, 2024 by admin

Memorial in Wiarton, Ontario, listing the honored dead from the area in the Great War. Later, Second World War dead were likewise honored.

We would do well to remember our Canadian brethren. Some 67,000 perished in combat in the First World War and 173,000 were wounded.

“Mud Road to Passchendaele” by Douglas Culham.

The Eiffel Tower, 1994

Posted on November 10, 2024 by admin

Ah, Paris in November. The stuff of romantic moonshine in the English-speaking world? Maybe not quite as much as spring, but we had a fine time anyway. The pastries were good. The best, actually. Calling out to us from behind glass in pastry shops, expensive even when priced in francs, but entirely worth it.

I wonder whether Eiffel Tower postcards are readily available any more. I mailed this one from Paris in November 1994.

I like it even now because of the unusual angle. Reminds me of the few minutes we spent sitting on a bench pretty much under the structure, gazing up at it. At that angle, I thought, that is one impressive iron sculpture. So impressive that moviemakers knock it down a lot.

Except for the fact that it was designed by a Frenchman, and happens to be in France, is there anything essentially French about it? What if its plans for the Exposition Universelle of 1889 had fallen through, but the organizers of the 1893 Columbian Exposition had gotten wind of the design, and asked Gustav Eiffel to erect it in the future Jackson Park in Chicago? Would it stand there even now, a shape associated with Chicago to almost everyone in the world?

Madsen Drive Walk

Posted on November 7, 2024 by admin

It was an odd ambition, and fairly minor, but I’m glad I fulfilled it. Namely, a 20-minute or so walk along Madsen Drive, a street in Bloomingdale, Illinois. Also glad I did it when I did: October 24, for the colors.

Bloomingdale is a sizable burg in DuPage County, but there’s nothing conventionally distinctive about Madsen Drive. It isn’t on anyone’s list, such as Ten Best Can’t-Miss Bucket List Don’t Get FOMO Travel Faves, etc. I know about it because I’ve been driving on it for years as a shortcut to a warehouse store we often visit. For quite a while, I had this idea that it would be a mildly scenic walk, since the drive is nice, but things whiz by. I also noted that a sidewalk runs all the way along it.

I was right: mildly scenic. Not everywhere gets Grand Teton-level scenery, but a lot places have enough for a nice-day stroll in the suburbs.

The street is industrial, which in this case means businesses located in distribution warehouses, which also means they might pay attention to who is in their parking lots. So parking somewhere near the street and then walking around might not be a good idea. The street is small, so no parking allowed on it either.

As we headed for our warehouse store that day, I told Yuriko that I was dropping myself off at the intersection of Madsen and Covington Drive (blue box), and she could drive on to the store. I would walk Madsen and meet her there (red box). She didn’t share my minor ambition in this case, because who would?

Near the dropoff.

Though small, the road is surprisingly busy, something you notice when on the sidewalk, but not usually when you’re driving the road. Traffic is somewhat spaced out. Still, I saw a number of trucks headed for the warehouses along Madsen.

Not much in the way of original or ornate design, but I’ve come to appreciate the modern warehouse as workaday marvel that it is. An vital sinew of retail trade.

Note on the map that besides warehouses, there are wetlands. Could have been at the insistence of local authorities that they were left alone. I hope so anyway. This unnamed, driftwood pond was close enough to the street to get a good look.

Warehouse districts also mean rail lines.

All the many times I’ve crossed the line at this point by car, I’ve never had to wait for a train. No trains either when I crossed on foot. There must be some traffic, but even so I’m reminded of a Charles Addams cartoon about an abandoned line, from one of the collections we had around the house when I was young. His work sticks with you. Wonder how many people who watched the Addams Family movies knew about the originals.

Meacham Grove Forest Preserve & The Temporary Tunnel of Gold

Posted on November 6, 2024 by admin

Though it’s fairly close, we hadn’t been to the Meacham Grove Forest Preserve in a few years, so on the last Saturday in October, I suggested a walk. Bright, warm and little wind: a good day for it.

The path around Maple Lake – called that on maps, anyway – takes you about halfway before you come to another path: a section of the North Central DuPage Regional Trail. We headed west on that trail.

At first the trail passes Spring Brook and Meacham Marsh. The Meacham brothers were earlier settlers in this part of DuPage County and the village of Bloomington was once known as Meacham’s Grove, as a waystation on the Chicago-Galena Stagecoach Trail.

At that moment in October, the trail winds into a tunnel of gold. That’s what I’m calling it anyway, mostly formed by a canopy of maple leaves. Canada has no monopoly on them, even if they put it on their flag.

Roselle Road divides the preserve. The other section is accessible by footbridge over the road.

All these years in the northwest suburbs, and we’d never ventured across the bridge. In the western section of the preserve, the North Central DuPage Regional Trail connects to a half-mile loop, Savanna Trail. Not quite a tunnel of gold, but not too shabby in its foliage.

There’s a metaphor in those leaves somewhere: a brief blaze of glory near the end.

Or maybe leaves are leaves are leaves.

Walton Island Park, Elgin

Posted on November 5, 2024 by admin

During a cloudy but not rainy period early this afternoon — heavy rain came later — I wandered over to the polling place at the school where Lilly and Ann both spent their elementary school years and voted there. I’d considered voting early at a different location, but when I stopped by about a week ago, the line was long. So Election Day voting it is, once again. My 12th presidential election.

Assuming he voted in all of them, how many for Jimmy Carter, our centenarian president? Assuming also that he voted absentee when necessary, especially during his time in the Navy. He turned 21 on October 1, 1945, but there’s a twist: Georgia lowered its voting age to 18 in 1943, thus enfranchising the young Carter for the 1944 election.

That would be 21 presidential elections, 1944 to 2024, inclusive. Not many people get to vote in many more than that.

After visiting the Gail Borden Library in Elgin a week ago Sunday, we walked over to the banks of the Fox River, which isn’t far.

Facing the river, specifically the Kimball Street and Dam, are pioneers in bronze.

There are enough of these kinds of statues that they represent a memorial genre, I think: Doughty Pioneers. Other recent examples (for me) include Nacogdoches and Bandera, Texas, and there are ones closer to home. The Elgin pioneers, under the name “Pioneer Family Memorial” (2001), were created by Elgin artist Trygve A. Rovelstad, though cast posthumously, since he died in 1990.

He also designed the Elgin Centennial half dollar, a numismatic curiosity from 1936. It was sold to help fund Rovelstad’s pioneer memorial in Elgin, but it clearly wasn’t enough, since the thing wasn’t finished for 65 years.

A lot of commemorates were minted in 1936, such as for the Texas Centennial, Daniel Boone Bicentennial, Arkansas Centennial, Wisconsin Territorial Centennial, Long Island Tercentenary (which sounds like the 300th anniversary of it becoming an island), and coins honoring such places as Elgin, but also Cleveland, Columbia, SC, Lynchburg, Va., and York County, Maine, among others.

The Oregon Trail Memorial, Cincinnati Musical Center and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge got halves that year, too. Whoever successfully lobbied an important Congressman for one, got one, sounds like.

The bronze pioneers are near Walton Island Park, a man-made feature in the Fox River accessible by footbridge from the east bank. Like the Elgin half dollar, it too dates from the 1930s, when the local chapter of the Izaak Walton League – an organization named for the Compleat Angler fellow that’s still around – led the effort to enlarge a mud bank in the river by dredging the bottom and using the fill.

A flag sculpture is at the north tip of the island.

Dedicated on Flag Day, 2002. With one of the busier dedication plaques I’ve seen (but not as busy as the Norwegians in America).

The rest of the park is mostly a short stroll.

With good views of either side of the Fox. Such as the west bank.

A windmill. We didn’t go over to look at it, but I looked into it later. I’ve driven the nearby road (Illinois 31) any number of times, and must have seen it, but I guess it didn’t register. When I saw it from Walton Island, I thought I was seeing it for the first time.

For some extra drama, a freight train rolled by.

“A recent multi-year project for the Elgin Area Historical Society involved relocating and restoring a long-forgotten urban windmill built in 1922 by the Elgin Wind, Power and Pump Co.,” explains the Elgin History Museum.

“On September 7, 2013 the windmill was fully restored and now stands proudly at the site of its creation in Foundry Park off Route 31 in Elgin. The park was once the site of the Elgin Windmill Company, where the windmill was originally built.”

Lords Park in Fall

Posted on November 4, 2024 by admin

As usual in early November, we’re alternating between chilly and not chilly. Daytime today was surprisingly not chilly, which inspired me to drink tea on our deck in early afternoon and ponder the late autumn-ness of the view. Many, but not all, of the leaves are down, thinning from peak coloration – about a week ago.

That bit of timing, and warmish days, inspired us to take some walks last weekend. Before we saw the Community Ofrenda at the Gail Borden Library on the last Sunday of October, we were in Lords Park in Elgin. Last time we were there, the park was flush with the greens of high summer.

Not this time.

The park has a small zoo. Last time we didn’t enter because no dogs allowed, and Payton was with us. This time it was closed for the season.

No animals to be seen, except for a buffalo at the other end of the enclosure.

Still waiting for his transport to Mobile, Alabama, where he winters. Big snowbird bison community there.

Aside:

Me: Tell me about the snowbird bison community in Mobile, Alabama.

Free version of ChatGPT: It seems there might be some confusion or a mix-up regarding the “Snowbird Bison Community” in Mobile, Alabama. As of my last update, there is no widely known or documented community by that specific name in Mobile or elsewhere. However, I can provide some possible explanations or nearby references that could be of interest.

Bison and Conservation Efforts in Alabama: While there isn’t a specific “Snowbird Bison Community,” Alabama does have conservation programs and initiatives that aim to reintroduce or protect native wildlife, including bison. Historically, bison roamed the area, but due to overhunting and habitat destruction, they were driven out of much of their former range. Some conservation projects in Alabama or nearby regions might involve bison as part of larger ecosystem restoration efforts.
Snowbirds: In a different context, the term “snowbird” often refers to people who migrate from northern states to warmer climates (like Alabama) during the colder months. It’s possible that “Snowbird Bison Community” is a colloquial or niche term for a group of people who gather in Alabama, potentially around activities like wildlife conservation or bison-related tourism.
Mobile, Alabama: Mobile is a port city on the Gulf Coast, known for its rich history and diverse culture, but it isn’t particularly known for any bison-specific community. However, Mobile could host various wildlife sanctuaries, events, or activities related to animal conservation, and a local “bison community” might be a reference to any such initiatives.

Getting better, it seems. Honestly, I was hoping for a crazy hallucination, but that’s probably harder to elicit that it used to be.

Since we couldn’t go into the zoo, we walked the path around it, which is probably more picturesque than inside the grounds, at least at that moment in October.

Then to the park’s large pond. We walked around that.

A plaque on a boulder.

Closeup because I don’t feel like transcribing. Been affixed for more than 100 years now. Note that the apostrophe has disappeared. It isn’t used on official web sites, nor Google Maps: Lords Park. Must have been the long-term impact of apostrophe rationing again.

Another aside:

Me: Tell me about the plaque in Lords Park, Elgin Illinois.

ChatGPT: The plaque in Lords Park in Elgin, Illinois, commemorates the First Presbyterian Church’s Cemetery (also known as the Lords Park Cemetery), which is located within the park. The plaque honors the historical significance of the site, which has been a key part of the Elgin community since its early settlement.

Lords Park itself is one of the oldest parks in Elgin, and its cemetery was originally established in the mid-19th century, likely around 1845. The plaque likely marks the location or provides historical context about the cemetery and the people buried there, many of whom were early settlers and important figures in the founding of the city. The cemetery and park are connected through their shared history, with the area having served as a site for both religious and community gatherings.

As of my knowledge cutoff, there isn’t a specific detailed plaque inscription that I can point to, but the general historical context ties the park, the cemetery, and the early days of Elgin’s development together. The cemetery’s location within Lords Park places it in the middle of a public space that has been used for recreation and community events over the years, which adds to the significance of the plaque as part of the area’s history.

Ah, that’s the kind of hallucinatory answer I was looking for, though I didn’t give it much to work with in the way of prompts. Or at least it’s a mangled answer, according to the half hour or so I spent looking into the question. I could be missing something, since I’m not going to dive too deep.

But as far as I can tell, Lords Park wasn’t the site of a cemetery. A early public cemetery in Elgin – opened in 1845, as it happens – was the Channing Street Cemetery. It is gone, its location occupied by a small city park and elementary school. More importantly, it wasn’t the same site as the future Lords Park. Also, while there is a First Presbyterian Church of Elgin, it is not near Lords Park, either, and doesn’t ever seem to have been.

“Channing Street Cemetery was officially closed in 1945 and removal of the remains was thought complete in 1947,” notes the Elgin Genealogical Society. “In 1949 four acres in the southeast section were leveled in anticipation of park construction. It has been said that the many bodies left were to be moved by bulldozers. Some Elgin residents who lived in the neighborhood as children can remember the bulldozers breaking up old coffins and scattering the remains.”

Unless that was kids making up lurid stories, it looks like one of those cases where bodies were supposed to be moved elsewhere, but oops. We missed a few. An interesting tale, but nothing to do with Lords Park.

Community Ofrenda – Ofrenda Comunitaria

Posted on November 3, 2024 by admin

A week ago Sunday we visited the main branch of the Gail Borden Public Library District, a mid-sized, newish building near the Fox River in far west suburban Elgin, Illinois. First time at that library. Quite impressive, looking like a place where people want to go, looking for some specific information, or just to see what they could see.

Inside the front entrance the space opens up into a round, which functions as a hub for the rooms that are the library’s spokes.