Column
My weekly column featuring local legends and lore, Midwestern life and small-town humor, “Six Degrees from Galesburg,” ran in the Galesburg (IL) Register-Mail from 2004-2006 (when I made the difficult decision to stop the column and start graduate school.)
"Six Degrees from Galesburg" column
The Register-Mail’s re-designed page doesn’t have archives for the column, but you can
read some samples here
“An ode to Rockin’ Rod, king of Sunday night karaoke”
It took six months of Dad pursuing his new hobby before I could work up the nerve to go out to the bar and listen to him sing. …”
(read the rest here)
“Pool of Sweat“
I wrinkled my nose at it. “Is it even a real pool?” I asked my mom. “I mean, does it even have chlorine?” This was my euphemistic way of saying, “am I going to get your germs?” (Never mind that I came out of this woman’s body.) (read the rest here)
Jeeze, Dad, Don’t Act Like Such a Mormon (August 2006)
“‘Confound it, Parley!’ ” he’d say, thumping his fist on the kitchen table, practicing the one line they’d given him. “Or … maybe I should be more thoughtful,’”he’d say, looking off into the distance with a sigh. ‘Why, Confound it, Parley.’ ” (read the rest here)
What’s up with that title?
Living and working for six years in Galesburg as a news reporter and then PR writer, I was fascinated by the fact that seemingly everywhere I went in this small, blue-collar railroading town on the Illinois prairie, I was surrounded by intriguing connections to important chapters in American history.
I started researching local legends like:
- Is it true, or just a rural urban legend, that the Marx Brothers —Harpo, Groucho, etc.—officially got their nicknames when they were in Galesburg? (link to come)
- How is the “quiet Beatle” connected to the ‘burg?
- What the hell is R.E.M. really saying in that song that supposedly name-drops Knox College? (link to come)
So I started interviewing people, combing the internet, and digging for documents in the archives and special collections unit at Knox College. After a couple of years I shifted to telling stories about my own Midwestern life.
Response
Little did I know, all of this would eventually lead me to
- hate mail from literally around the globe, sent by rabid fans of Phil Collins and scolding e-mails from an 80′s-era MTV producer (because of this column), and from one of the designers on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” because of this one,
- fan mail and phone calls from lots of senior citizens,
- many frantic, late-night e-mails to my awesome editor, begging him for an extension, and
- I’m happy to report, awards of excellence both years from Illinois Associated Press Editor’s Association.
