Welcome to Forgotonia

Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland by Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My holiday/vacation/part-time-employment-status reading blitz continues!

I was intrigued by this book from the moment I heard about it, not only because it takes place in Iowa (where I just moved) and on a farm (which is the way I grew up), but also because I discovered that I have a few small things in common with one of the authors, (namely that we both once lived and worked in the same small-ish town, and we graduated from liberal arts colleges located a stone’s throw from one another).

Anyway, in addition to having the true-crime hook, the story ends up being quite moving and creates a human picture of the alleged assassin, who, you begin to realize, was in many ways a victim. I appreciate the huge amount of work on the part of the authors’ having worked-in the social and historical research from the time, creating a rich picture of what life must have been like for people (especially farm women) involved in the story.

After the initial draw of the true-crime element, I did start to feel that, in the section of the alleged assassin’s trial, there was less of a hook-y mystery than maybe I had been hoping for. But it was still a compelling read.

And on top of the personal/local connections I mentioned above, it turned out that part of what inspired the research on this story was that it had been reported on (for a Des Moines newspaper) by a young woman who went on to become an award-winning author who was a contemporary of Eugene O’Neill–and she was from Davenport.
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I’m not a fan of sci fi. I can’t help it. I need character development more than anything else, and anything that’s too plot-heavy has the strange effect of boring me to tears.

But recently I read About Time, a collection of short stories by Jack Finney, who was well-known for writing about time-travel. Finney is also noted for being the writer upon whose work the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers was based. (And that’s just one of many of his books or stories to be turned into films).

So, why would I stoop so low as to spend time reading about time travel and the like, you ask?

Well, it has to do with a place–a small Midwestern city–where both Finney and I spent some time (although for him it was in the Forties or Fifties and for me in the Aughts).

The ‘Burg Immortalized in a Book

Specifically, the second story in the collection celebrates the real-life town in which Finney lived when he was a college student, and in which I lived during my first few years after college: “I Love Galesburg in the Springtime.”

It turns out, the place–Galesburg, Illinois–hadn’t changed much in the time between Finney’s stay and mine. And it turns out that both of us loved the same things about the place: namely, the very real and tangible reminders of an earlier America.

Despite its rough edges, the neighborhoods that are riddled with violent crime, and its loss of major industrial mainstays (like the Maytag plant, which has stood empty since the company shipped jobs to Mexico in the early 00′s), Galesburg has so many charms–so many signs of a time of prosperity that are long gone, but not totally plowed down (unlike in so many other places).

The first and only time I’ve seen Invasion, for example, was at a special showing at the beautiful old Orpheum Theatre in downtown Galesburg, where it’s hard not to imagine a vaudeville show taking place. (According to one legend, it was in Galesburg that the Marx Brothers–Harpo, Groucho, etc.–were christened with their stage names while in town for a performance.)

And in this short story, Finney celebrates Galesburg as a specimen of history-come-alive, lamenting the way we as a nation tend to replace structures and streets of character with the drab and nondescript.

And as he tells the story about strange occurrences taking place in this prairie city–such as a ghostly cable car rattling down the street, long after such things were outmoded–he mentions so many of the real-life landmarks that are not only still in existence, but which I passed by or encountered nearly every day that I lived and worked the ‘burg:

Local spots named-dropped:

• Cedar Street– I lived on this street (in a fairly crap-tastic apartment) for five of the six years I lived in the town.
• The gorgeous, ostentatious homes built by railroad barons on Prairie, Cherry, etc. streets
• The Kensington, a former hotel that has been turned into an independent living facility, but which, in Finney’s day, was a fairly grand establishment
• The Register-Mail newspaper, (for which the narrator is a reporter, and for which yours truly was actually a real-life reporter)
• The Public Square
• the brick streets

…the references go on and on.

And not only did I enjoy reading his descriptions of such real-life places I had experienced, but, as I was reading, one of these places came to life and, you could say, landed in my lap.

Special Delivery

I purchased the collection of stories containing “I Love Galesburg” several years ago, when I was still living in Galesburg; I found it at a rummage sale in what I think might have been the basement of the Central Congregational Church). But I finally sat down to read the book recently. And when I opened it, something fell out:

newspaper clipping from Galesburg, IL

It was a clipping–somewhat dated, possibly from the 1970s–detailing the impending dedication of…a parking lot. And describing the once-famed structure that stood in its place.

I was already aware, because of my time writing and reporting in Galesburg, of the world- famous horse stables that had stood in the spot mentioned in this clip.

But when it fell from the book, the clipping felt like being visited by a small ghost of the past–tucked away by a person who, like the narrator of “I Love Galesburg in the Springtime,” lamented the loss of grand structures–and hand-delivered to me, in a way that Finney himself most assuredly would have appreciated.

As for the rest of the collection, truthfully, I was bored by some of the stories, and in others, I couldn’t help but cringe at the quaintness and dated-ness. (More than once, Finney’s depiction of women betrayed a Mad Men-treatment-of-office-girls sensibility).

But other times I identified deeply with his sense of nostalgia, his concern that, when we progress as a society, it’s often at the cost of losing something else that seems inherently more dignified somehow. (You can’t tuck clippings away inside a Kindle.)

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A note about this post: despite what you might begin picturing, I am not, as of this writing, wearing Birkenstocks, eating out of a bag of homemade soy-granola, or stinking up the local library because of my refusal to wear chemical-laden anti-perspirant.

You may, however, go ahead and call me a tree-hugger. (Or if you can come up with something catchy and alliterative for “obsessive recycler who freaks out if she sees nary a Post-it going into the trash,” let me know.)

Chapter 1: Footprints in the (Toxic, e-Polluted) Sand

If you’ve stopped by here recently, you now know that I have some difficulty letting go of sentimental things.

But now I must admit that it’s not just mementos I find hard to throw away.

I feel incredibly guilty any time I know I’m throwing away something that will end up in a landfill.

And that’s on a regular day. The moving process only increases this anxiety.

Dragging old mattresses and box springs to the curb, (as I did on moving day), makes me not only worry about the environmental footprint I’m leaving, but also, about how many other people in the world are dragging their crap to the curb on a regular basis and don’t give a f#$%. (Like the neighbors in our apartment complex who left this the other morning. I had to fight the urge to chase after them and beat them with a bamboo-handled, made-from-repurposed-dental-floss tennis racket. [Just kidding, they don't make those. ...do they?])

And it’s not just the broken futons I’ve deposited over the decades that make me feel bad. I hate throwing burned CDs in the trash. I’m not worried about whatever data might be on them, so much as how the physical thing is (not) going to break down.

And I need to know that when I do finally force myself to part with my good-attendance certificate from sixth grade, I can at least make “use” of my trash.

So as soon as I moved to Davenport to join my husband a month ago, I began gently but firmly insisting that we needed to start sorting out recyclables even though the apartment complex doesn’t have curbside pickup. Doing so, however, would create even more clutter in our apartment, (and perhaps it’s not a stretch to say my husband, C-NOR, is a bit of an anti-clutter fascist.)

But upon watching him throw a “perfectly good” milk jug into the “regular” trash, I shuddered, then walked over to the can and retrieved the offending numeral-one-in-a-triangle receptacle: “Nuh-uh. We are so not doing that.”

And that’s only a hint at my level of  obsession.

Chapter 2: Doing the Can-Can

For several months this past year,  when I would go out for a walk–especially in late spring after the college kids had vacated the rental premises near the campus–I’d take along a plastic bag and pick up bagfuls of empty beer cans so I could recycle them.

It felt like a sort of twisted, adults-only Easter egg hunt, like, I spy a Four Loko under that bush! And then I’d actually scurry over to get my hands on the giant thing before some other crazed recycling-addict could get their grubby paws on it. (Or more like get their paws grubby on it. But whatever.)

And you thought they'd been banned. How wrong you are.

True, this strange hobby sometimes earned me looks from people driving by. (Sometimes I worried about seeing myself in the police blotter:

“At 5 p.m. Monday, a resident reported seeing a woman in business-casual attire, in the front yard of  house at the corner of University Drive and Rental Apartment Row, allegedly in a scuffle with a transient over a tobacco-spit-containing can of Keystone.“

But I did gather, and recycle, hundreds of empty cans from those littered lawns.

So of course there was no way I could live in this new Dumpster-only apartment complex without coming up with some sort of solution.

Chapter 3: Fling, Flang, Flung

My first week here, (rather than sending out resumes to become more than marginally employed), I Googled and called around until finally figuring out how and where to take our recyclables.

Luckily, I discovered there is a drop-off facility just a few miles from where we live.

Along with the public library, this is the other hip local spot I've been frequenting.

But it’s still less than convenient to take the items to this place ourselves. And rather than store our rinsed-out refuse in a garage, (which we don’t have), we have to find an out-of-the-way place and organized way to let stuff accumulate until there’s enough of a pile to necessitate a trip to the facility.

At first I thought I had come up with a genius solution.

When we were planning our wedding and reception earlier this year, one of my goals was  to be as eco-friendly as possible. I found recyclable beer cups (did I mention our wedding reception, was, technically, a kegger? See profile pic at right), and I ordered some pop-up recycling containers called Flings, in which guests were asked to deposit the ceremony programs and, later, their empty cups.

The handy little pop-up receptacles were smaller than I had hoped, but they held up well and did the trick.

So I figured we could use one of these in the apartment for our junk paper.

But I had that thing stuffed in, like, an hour after moving in.

And then when I took it to the recycling facility, I had to upend it inside the mouth of the giant bin, which is protected by these rubber-curtain flappy things. In the process of trying to shake the stuff out of the container and into the bin, my genius solution collapsed in on itself and got caught in the rubber flaps.

Finally, I got so frustrated I just dumped the whole damn Fling in there and stomped away in a huff, startling the retired grandpa guy behind me with my foul mouth. (Sorry, sir.)

Finally, a few days later, I ordered a set of matching, wipe-able-out-able color-coded bags on Amazon.

So now we’re hiding them behind the kitchen table–until they fill up and it’s time to take them to the facility. (But only if it’s not rainy, cold, too dark out, too early, too late, or, is a Tuesday and I just don’t feel like it. You blame me? You take it there, then. Isn’t it your turn, anyway? Oh and the dishes too. Thanks!)

Recently I shared with you that I got hitched after many years of single-hood.

And I also told you about how, subsequently, I left my animal-infested rental cabin (in rural, small-town Illinois) to move in with my husband in semi-metropolitan “Quad City” area in Iowa).

Hence, it’s time to share with you some thoughts about crossing the state line and becoming an official Davenportian, as I like to say.

(I also like to call Bettendorf [one of the cities in this area] “B’dorfadorf,” in the style of “badonkadonk.” You may call it that as well.)

1. DMV Delight

My transformation became official on my second day here, when–upon realizing I was about to become an illegal driver in two states (my IL sticker set to expire)–I shucked out an arm and a leg and got my vehicle registered in Iowa.

Thankfully, I’ve got an aging Honda. They charge you by year and size of vehicle here. (Yet another reason not to drive a tank.)

my proof of purchase

When I opened the door to the Davenport driver’s facility, I wasn’t upset when I saw how many people were seated in the waiting area. Cool, I thought. Now I can get all those jokes on the sitcoms!

Where I grew up, in rural Illinois, not only did I not have to take a number at the DMV, but, the person at the desk would usually wave me over, call me by my first name and ask me what my mom has been up to lately.

So I have to admit I was almost disappointed when the Iowa DMV workers whipped me through one line to the next and I was in and out in under an hour. No chance to build up cred as someone who has finally lived a “big city” experience.

But I did take away one memorable moment: I discovered that the state of Iowa has some kind of weird dental discrimination.

When it was time to get my new license, as I stood in front of the blue background cloth, the lady manning the camera commanded me to brush my bangs off my forehead. “No problem,” I told her.

“No teeth,” the lady said.

“Huh?”

“You can smile, but you can’t show your teeth,” she said.

“Oh…okay,” I said.

What’s the state of Iowa got against a toothy grin? I don’t get it. But I didn’t want to argue. This lady might have had the power to deny me residency.

So I grinned, weirdly, and now I have a very Kermit-the-Frog face on my ID.

2. All Moody, All The Time

(And no, I’m not talking about my husband discovering what I’m really like now that we live together. Ha!)

I wonder what Elvis Costello could come up with if he were asked to update “Radio, Radio” after spending just one day in Davenport, Iowa in 2011.

Ever since high school, (or, for the past 15 years up until now/ having access to Spotify), I’ve envied my Seattle family members, college friends from Chicago, and others who lived in a place where there were radio stations playing music that was actually recorded in the current year.

As a kid, I had no problem getting access to the tunes I loved, because, first of all, I had no concept that there was anything other than Top 40 radio, and because second, I actually loved what was mainstream and popular, from Whitney and Bobby to Wham! and Belinda Carlisle.

These days, whenever I listen to Top 40 radio, in any location, I hear myself saying things I (of course) swore I’d never say: “Gah, what is this crap? That little Katy Perry is just another flash in the pan, you wait and see.”)

But now that I’ve moved to a place that actually has some population–a place I totally assumed would have at least one decent radio station, if not several–I find myself actually excited when I land on a station that’s playing anything recorded after 1978.

When I run errands or drive to work, and it happens to be a time when I’m not interested in listening to NPR, (i.e., news over, classical music begins), I scan the stations and it goes a little something like this:

“I can’t drive fifty-five” (skip) “…I was born on the bayou” (skip) “Today’s Tom Sawyer …” (skip) “…I ain’t no Fortunate Son” (skip) “…hold on to that feel-ay-ee-ay-in’… ‘” (skip) “….please join us in prayer here at Moody Bible Radio–”(skip)…”…I ain’t no senator’s son…” (skip) “…welcome to the Women’s Connection, where today’s focus will be: ‘How can be we work Jesus into our morning carpools?’” (skip)

 

Now, mind you, I love Credence and Journey and Rush. (Sammy Hagar, though, not so much). And I’m fully aware that ClearChannel owns the entire world and the days of varied radio are long over. But why can’t I find at least one station playing something other than classic rock?

Oh wait. I can.

Between every snippet of 70s-era guitar solo, I land upon admonitions to stop sinning and get with God before He smites me down right then and there in the automatic car wash.

The other day in my 5-minute drive between dropping off recyclables and stuff to donate to Goodwill, I got yelled at so vehemently by a guy declaring that life. starts. AT. CONCEPTION, I was starting to feel guilty for something I hadn’t even done.

3. Cross-Town Traffic (Brought to You by Big Brother)

At the risk of making myself sound like a serious hick, I have to admit that I’m still culture shock over the fact that there are two, four, even six of everything here: Hy-Vees, Targets, Wally-Worlds, Paneras, etc. There are two shopping malls, a “north” and a “south.”

And, while I haven’t really patronized any of those too much since I moved here, I have been running around a lot doing errands–partially related to moving/getting settled in, and partially to be a helpful housewifey type (since I’m only partially employed and my husband is double employed). So, whenever I ask my him how to get to some business or facility, I love that I can legitimately use phrases like, “Is that downtown?” Ooh, so urban.

On the other hand, I am so not used to actually having to wait (more than 3 seconds) at stoplights.  Or the fact that, on my drive to and from work, I pass through no fewer than three “photo-enforcement zones,” otherwise known as intersections through which, at any time, I could be videotaped and subsequently mailed a mean-ass letter saying I was going too fast (or interpreted a yellow light as “speed up.”)

My husband, Chris, has already received at least 2 of these evil letters in the mail in the last year or so, complete with a link to a video of himself behind the wheel. (And no, he claims, he was not caught picking his nose.) And a co-worker at my new part-part-time job told me she’d received a few as well, but, hey, “There’s a silver lining. They don’t affect your insurance.”

Well, I’m used to living in a place where the only “stoplight” in the entire county was a blinking red light on a pole.

4. The Final Nail in my Coffin of Nerd-dom

I have always–always–thought that if I lived in a place of any size, I would patronize the local music clubs and go to shows whenever anybody decent was in town.

But, in the weeks since I’ve lived here, I’ve already missed a couple shows of note: a group of Communion folks performing at the club with the weird name, and Paul Simon at the big arena (i Wireless). And the talented singer/songwriter M.Ward will be in town in a couple of days at RIBCO.

Question 1: Am I a drooling fan of any of thee above? No.

Question 2: If any of these acts had come to any of the small towns where I previously lived, would it have been thee biggest moment of the year? YES.

The truth about my new life is that, instead of spending time at rock shows, I’ve been…(tucks head down in shame)… hanging out at the library. Actually, make that libraries.

Did you know that there are places in this country that you can go to and find books and music and movies and that they let you take them home for FREE??? And that some of them even have coffee shops inside?

The linked library system in these quad cities is amazing. I can’t stop checking stuff out. And wondering aloud, “Why did I ever used to buy books, again?”

(Oh, and speaking of the driving situation earlier?? This sign at one of the Davenport libraries was definitely a first for me.)

In Conclusion and In Sum

The verdict, in the big picture, is this: I absolutely love living here so far. So much so that, with frequency, I’ve been shaking my head and going, “What took me so long?”

I have creative interests, so of course I need to live in a place where there are art museums, concerts (I will go, eventually), actual downtowns.

I do wonder, though: As I start to get more and more comfortable in a place where, (as you can kind of see in the background of the library pic linked above), there are cookie-cutter houses popping up everywhere, and where I can hit a Target just by throwing a rock, (but also where the neighbors in our apartment complex are not only strangers, but people who seem to attract the police on a daily basis), will I miss at least some parts of living in a small town?

What if I lose a part of my authentic self by becoming less rural and more suburban?

Mostly, I feel I’ve already gained so much by living here. (And, no, not just weight from better restaurants).

It’s not just the schlepping of so much stuff from one place to another, and the ensuing chaos (although that really, really does suck).

It’s that moving always (this time especially so) creates in me an overwhelming feeling of failure. (Don’t worry. Poop will be mentioned in this post).

The type of organized, clutter-free, bandana-wearing mover I will never be.

I had a full month to get ready for this move.

And I did try to donate several things to the Salvation Army, and to take small loads one-by-one from my place in Illinois to my husband’s in Iowa.

But come move-out day, the process of packing–or, more truthfully, the “process” of “shoving all of my s#$% in its current disorganized state into un-labeled tubs at the very last possible moment”–becomes a forced intervention. It’s been this way each time I’ve moved from one place to the next, even though I swear I’ll do better next time: friends and family who got suckered into helping discover that the boxes they agreed to help load into the truck or van are actually not…um…packed.

I can see now (about two weeks post-move) why I put off packing. It’s because having to physically deal with all of my crap means having to face up to a lifetime’s worth of failure.

In other words, schlepping multiple plastic tubs of stickers, fancy cardstock paper, and glitter glue forces me to admit how many evenings–how many weeks, months, years now–I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to do something constructive while watching TV, not just sitting there eating junk food.

As I boxed it all up this time to give it away, I sighed in defeat.

I am, and will never be, a person who uses glitter glue. I will never make anything with scraps of pretty ribbon. (I will, however, have dropped enough loose popcorn kernels to have planted a field between the sofa cushions.)

And this is not to mention the decades worth of unorganized photos I’ve been meaning to transform into a beautifully chronologized scrapbook of my youth.

As I sat in a circle of shoeboxes stuffed with sentimental crap, I had to admit to myself that it’s just never going to happen. (And so it’s the world’s loss that the Spring 1995 State Pep Band Showcase won’t be preserved for all time after all.)

But, worse than this, dealing with all of my tangible stuff forces me to face another ugly truth:

I’ve got some things in common with those people on that show who live amongst  excrement.

(Although, at least unlike this one poor guy they featured, ["Steven"], the poop is not my own).

Here are three reasons why:

1. I keep useless stuff, like empty glass bottles, because I truly believe I’m going to find use for them someday. (Real Simple.com, you and your “New Uses for Old Stuff” column are nothing but evil, evil enablers).

2. The idea of wasting things–like the perfectly good bottle of Tobasco sauce I threw in the trash this morning at my husband’s insistence (because neither of us like it, but which probably cost a whole $3 when I bought it to use one teardrop of in a recipe)–causes me sincere anxiety.

(Sometimes I try to defend this anxiety by saying it comes from my grandma’s family having been so poor during the Great Depression, they had to live in the chicken coop at one point, [after their home caught fire]. But seriously, that was my grandma, not one of my parents or even me. And it’s an effing bottle of Tobasco sauce. If our own home catches fire one day, Chris and I will not be saved from poverty by holding on to T-shirts from my college days or food products we didn’t use up completely. (, we don’t even have a chicken coop.)

But worst of all, like those people on that television show,

3. I (a person who thinks she is so self-aware, she makes fun of other people for not noticing their own denial), have been guilty of living in denial.

warning signs, perhaps?

Here’s a little bit more on that last one.

On the night before my third and final schlepping trip involved in this move, my husband and I were at his parents’ house mooching off their laundry facilities (and cable) when we landed upon an episode of Hoarders (and, perhaps as Chris’s attempt to send me a message, he kept it on that channel).

In this episode, a man had dozens of cats taken from his home–several of them alive but sickly, and several more, it is revealed (after animal-control people raid his home), have been rotting away dead in the ceilings and rafters.

The shrink on the show, noting how blind the guy seemed to have been to his situation, just kind of shrugged.

“This had just become ‘normal’ for him,” she said.

The animal-control people on the show, and the people in the room with me (Chris), announced their disgust (rightfully) with this supposedly-cat-loving man, scolding him for his neglect.

But at least twice, I said out loud, “I feel sorry for the guy.”

But what I didn’t say aloud was that–in at least some small way–I am this guy.

Now, it might be true that when we had moved all my crap earlier that day, it was just regular old dust and shedded cat hair that covered most of my possessions, (as opposed to actual dead cats).

And when I had to give away my kitty to a family friend before the move, I think she (the cat) was in perfectly healthy condition. (“Think,” because I hadn’t taken her to the vet since…ever. Okay, procrastination will be covered in a separate post. Later.)

But, would a healthy person who keeps her home orderly and in control ever have to admit this? :

A couple of years ago, I found a small turd–produced by an unidentified source–on the middle of the floor in my house. And after a few seconds of concern, I scooped it up, threw it in the trash, and then pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

My brain, at this time, recognized the factual information that something or someone had pooped in my house, and that the thing was not the cat.

Appropriate action(s):

• call Animal Control?
• call a friend or family member to help search the house to locate source of said feces?
• go to store and purchase live trap?

Good news: any of these answers qualify as correct.

And yet.

Reasons appropriate actions were not taken:

• wasn’t sure if the impoverished Illinois county I lived in even had Animal Control.
• family members lived out of town; friends in the area were busy putting kids to bed.
• probably also had graduate paper to write or entire novel to read by next day.
• no local store at which to purchase said trap (nor money with which to purchase it)

Consequences:

• Being greeted unexpectedly–a full day or two later–by a live, mid-sized possum in my living room. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, when I was sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching True Blood.

Imagine the look on my face, (and the noises I made), as I bounced and scampered across the room, alternately trying to get a look at the thing (to make sure it was still there/that I was not hallucinating) and to get the hell away from it.

Imagine the sound of my voice when I called my landlord– and then, when he wasn’t home, my friend Emily, who had to talk me down and try to convince me to throw a laundry basket over the vile thing (which, by this point, was eating out of the cat’s bowl).

(The landlord, eventually, came over with a broom and got the possum outside. He did not, however, do anything to make sure the house was properly protected from future animal intrusions, meaning this would not be the last visit from a woodland creature to my living room.)

The moral of this story is that, thankfully, while I was not actually hoarding possums (oh God, please don’t let that be a future episode on TLC), I can relate to feeling so overwhelmed, and so unable to solve problems, that the problems themselves–ranging from too much clutter, to inertia and stuck-ness and helplessness in the face of being alone–just become the “normal.”

The other moral is that if you find an unidentified turd on your carpeted stairs and you don’t actually do anything about it, it’s probably time to–among other things–let go of the crafting materials you’re not using. (Do you really think Martha Stewart, for one, would live among opossum?)

As you might know from having read my post about our potentially questionable choice of wedding venue, “C-NOR” (Chris Norton) and I got married a few weeks back. (Yay! Oh, and, btw for my loyal readers: I decided to stick with my last name. So, all that neurosis over punctuation was totally worth it.)

So now I live in Iowa, and not only am I out of the Forgotonia region proper, but I’m actually in something of  a metropolitan area now. (They have bookstores here! And coffee shops! Giddiness abounds!)

So should I keep a blog about life in the “rural Midwest”? I’m not in a rural area anymore. But I was for more than 30 years, and I consider my having grown up on a farm and in a small town to be a defining factor of who I am.

Should I keep the name and just blog about whatever I want to, (with a clickable explanation at the top that says “about the name”)? Or, if change it altogether and create a new URL/address/place for you to bookmark, will I lose you because I already went from Blogger to WordPress (and sometimes debate going back to ye olde Blogger stomping grounds)?

With so many good blogs out there to read, not to mention websites and newspapers and magazines and all the other things competing for our attention, what will make it worth your time to keep coming back? Why should I keep up a blog at all?

I guess the answer will be that if I feel like I have something to say, I will try to get myself to just say it, and hopefully it will be entertaining or valuable to you, too.

Thanks to a couple of tips today, I learned that the history of the so-called Forgottonia movement was featured on HBO last night as part of the series How States Got Their Shapes.

I haven’t tried to play this video myself yet, so forgive me if I’m wrong, but it looks like you can watch the full episode on the show’s web site.

If you’re like me, it’s always a bit exciting to see this little place we call home being discussed from the outsider’s point of view. As one friend put it, (a friend who, like me, is a lifelong resident of the region) :

 

“I still cant believe this was actually on tv. Fandon freakin IL was on the History Channel!”

 

1. According to a story from the Western Courier, the owners of DJ’s Steakhouse (formerly the Macomb Dining Company) are hoping to up the classiness factor of Macomb by opening a new restaurant and lounge called, get ready for it, Hangovers. (Apparently this is the place to go before you head over to Detox.) According to the story, the new place will be located at 518 West Jackson St., which, according to the magic of Google Maps, could be in, or right next to, the defunct Diamond Dave’s/ Islands/Shanty Shack.
2. You will soon be able to by alcohol at Walgreens, according to the same story linked above. (Woot woot, one less reason to go to Wally World?)
3. The Macomb Square apparently has a bit of a red-light district element developing? Surely this can’t be the case. But: “Man arrested on prostitution-related charges,” according to a local radio station. Wha-huh?!?

Once again, I’m going to have to miss it this year. But if you’re looking for something to do this weekend, and an excuse to be outdoors, you should think about attending the “open house”—(a.k.a permission to visit legally)—at the property once known as Vishnu Springs.

As loyal readers know, the legend of Vishnu Springs—a once-bustling little resort that became a ghost-town, an invisible-from-the-road spot in the remote-est of places in McDonough County—has long been an obsession of mine.

But before you go, could I please offer a[nother] piece of unsolicited advice?

I encourage you to steep yourself in the idea of the place first.

This week, a co-worker (formerly a suburbanite) asked me if she and her kids would get anything out of the event. I thought I should answer honestly that, once you find the place, there really isn’t all that much to see.

(more below, after the photos I took when I was **definitely not trespassing there** in 2007)

Vishnu Springs Capitol Hotel backside (north)

But, if, like me, you get the chills from standing in a certain spot—an almost entirely forgotten spot—and thinking about all that once took place there, you’ll get more from the experience.

In other words, think about the fact that out in the middle of nowhere, there was once a town so popular, it included a railroad stop that brought tourists from Chicago. That it was rumored to be a hideout for Al Capone. That WIU students from the counterculture era made their way out there to live communally and play music and…do other things. And that every person who spent time there, all those years ago, thought his/her own time in the world was just as important as believe ours to be.

So yes, I think anyone who has an interest in history and ghost towns and local legends can “get something out of it.”

Here are the open house details (from the Facebook event page, where one respondent—perhaps reflecting the spirit of his time there in a certain previous decade—wrote that even though he can’t be there, “Smoke one for me!”

The second opportunity for the public to visit Vishnu Springs (Ira and Reatha T. Post Wildlife Sanctuary). A short historical and educational update will take place at 1:30 pm. Take this opportunity to come visit Vishnu without the risk of having to “trespass” to do so. More information about Vishnu Springs is at www.vishnusprings.org.

UPDATE: Mea culpa: As a certain unnamed reader helpfully pointed out, this entry below (originally published Oct. 3)—or at least its reference to a certain movie —is a bit of an anachronism, since the tower didn’t go up until the 00s. However, said reader, who also happens to be a longtime friend from my home stomping grounds, says, “I say we get a 12-pack and give it a try.”

Over the weekend, C-Nor and I took a walk around the hamlet of Ferris, Ill., which is about a stone’s throw from the farm where I grew up. (It’s just a few miles north of Carthage, Ill., and its young people have been bussed to the Carthage school system for many years.)

Chris took this picture of the water tower. As he was doing so, it struck me as surprising that, having grown up here in the 80s, in the era of the iconic teen movie, none of the bored teens (including me) ever felt inspired to climb atop it and paint the word “SAVE.”

(It would have been a lot cheaper and easier than emulating the movie by taking a day trip into Chicago, that’s for sure.)

Bueller? Anyone?