Art Deco

The decorating season is long and seems to be composed of two different segments, each two months. The first, Halloween (Sept. 1-Oct. 30) has been growing considerably, to the point that a visitor from out of town might believe Galesburg is totally overtaken by fall deco. In fact though I think it's me; all small towns of about this size are into deco. What else is there to do? You have two full months to show the best you can do before you switch over into the Christmas stuff.

At first I thought the fall had overtaken Christmas, but the Christmas deco is still going strong and it will start on Nov. 1, as the fall deco people have long got tired of their pumpkins and skeletons and are ready for some different themes. In a way you can say that Christmas is a little more limited, having only red and green as true colors, and snow, sleds, Santa, and reindeer can hardly compete with the fabulous variety you have in fall. Fall these days has moved beyond skeletons and bats, pumpkins, hay bales, and witches. I sometimes think it's glorifying axe-murderers, and maybe it is, or maybe that's just a reaction to Santa. Do you really want an axe-murderer on your front yard, with all that bloood, for two months? I suppose so, especially if it took you four or five months to make it.

My goal by the way is to start documenting this stuff a little better. If a town goes to all this work to decorate, the least the rest of us can do is pay tribute to it by documenting. I don't think Galesburg is that different from, or better or worse than, towns of similar size; my guess is that this is happening all over. September 1, people are dying to get out there, and they do; it's all they can do not to decorate the other months of the season. But I have noticed, by the way, that flag season now starts at the beginning of May and stretches on well into August.

So what happens in January through April? Mostly people just keep their Christmas decorations up. They went such trouble, especially with the lights, that it's a shame to take them down anyway. You have to have something out there. We have this kind of hanging Santa, I kind of forgot to take him down, and he's there to show our nominal agreement with the idea decorating. Maybe I can't keep up with the Joneses, but at least I can make an effort.

The Mall

I was coming down out of Target today, and looked across the U-Haul, and saw the entrance of the old Mall, Carl Sandburg Mall. It was quite impressive, actually, though the mall has been closed for many years. I don't even know who owns it, so I'll just say, you can take my ideas or leave them, I'm just an average Galesburg resident. I did not shop much at malls even when they were in their heyday, so my advice may not be valuable.
But Galesburg is in the position of many towns of 30,000 or so (23.000?) - it just can't support a mall very well these days. It's partly because the wealthy are doing all their shopping online, and many of the big stores are in trouble no matter where they are. But since the pandemic the whole concept of going to a single place for all kinds of high-end shopping has just kind of gone out of style. People don't necessarily want to be seen in such places, because they just don't want to go out in general.

So what should this person/these people, owners of our mall as we know it, do? I notice that it has a few new tenants. It has not done anything to pave or improve the parking lot or the road around it; Mall Drive is the pothole capital of Galesburg.

In some places, malls as we know them have been repurposed in very interesting ways. Community center? College? Factory or set of factories? These are all interesting possibilities. Maybe what we/they should do is investigate. Maybe the community should get involved.

We could buy it cheap, probably, if we had a good idea.

Railroad Days

I'm not in the position to mention much about Railroad Days, which came and went last week, because 1) I'm very busy with family these days, and they were booked so solid over the weekend that we never even went; and 2) I was actually grateful, since I'm not one for cotton candy or carney games which is where such things utlimately lead. I've had twelve kids and almost all of them got sucked into carnivals at one time or another and I'm beginning to have a bad attitude.

There are other things besides carney things, though, and unfortunately I missed those too. Train shows is to me the best example. I like those, just didn't have time.

One thing I noticed was that it didn't have much social media or online presence. As late as the day before it started, I couldn't find a schedule online and when I finally did, I couldn't read it well. Somebody had dropped the social media ball. But I took that as a challenge. Obviously they need volunteers, and this is something I could do.

Hopefully next year! See you then!

No Kings - NW corner of Broad and Main (the traffic circle) - SAT 2-4

It's important for Galesburg to get out and protest. Do we want the president to simply send in the troops any time he feels like it? It's one thing that we don't agree on what constitutes an out-of-control demonstration - what happened in LA was never out of control. It's more that he's picking a fight deliberately so that he can show that he'll use the Marines on his own people without hesitation. We are the enemy. The constitution is the enemy. Civility is not part of his consideration.

I'm a Door Dash driver in Galesburg. I've gotten to know the workers at most of the fast-food places. That's not to say anything, really, except that I love the place as a place to live and work. I would say that about the USA in general, as I have been in other places, except that it is coming apart at the seams so quickly these days. It's like it's devolving into civil war.

Stay peaceful. Stay cool. Don't back down. We have our constitution, and we believe in it, even if our own president doesn't.

Tour of Galesburg restaurants

These days I dash a lot in the mornings. That means I go to Starbucks a lot, and Dunkin', and McDonalds. I get a general tour of all the restaurants in Galesburg. Not quite all though; some don't do Doordash.

One of those I don't do is Judy's; I've only set foot in it once. That was to give Judy a book and to tell her I thought she was a social media pioneer, I admire her movies, and I want to write a book with her. Since then I've seen her a lot (I live on her block) but still haven't eaten a pancake. She gets a lot of business from out of town but not so much. from the neighborhood.

Tres Cafe is another one that seems to get people from far and wide, as opposed to people from right there on that side of the tracks. It's cornered by trains and sometimes the trains stop on the tracks, making us dashers sit or go all the way around on Losey twice just to get there. I'm curious about their food too. The fact is my wife has a sore back so we don't go to any restaurants, and those few minutes I'm inside, waiting for that order, are the few and only minutes I can be taking in the atmosphere. That is true for every restaurant.

I'm glad Arby's finally got doordash, as I kind of like going in there. I also like Masa's, Coney Island, McAlister's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Lenny's, Culver's, Steak 'n' Shake, Taco Bell (2), Joy Garden, Jersey Mike's, Chipotle, Burger King, the usual. I like them all, even the pizza places, though a lot of them have their own drivers, and they make me wrap the pizza up in my red bag which is not really a problem. I like the ones in Knoxville. I can tell you a bit more about them than you really need to know. I do Landmark, PHO and some of the fancy places too, and I like that because I feel that if you're going all out to get really good food you might as well get delivery too, kind of like the hotel rule.

Another place that doesn't have it is Taco Hideaway, which I just found out about, tucked out in a field out by the tracks in the southwest part of town. Check it out. I can't really describe it here except to say that I'd like that guy to try doordash, just so I could step in the place a little more often - it's hopping, or at least was, last time I was there. Another good place is the little one on Academy, near the library; my wife calls it Jarochitos but I don't think that's the right name. Delicious and very friendly! We go there for takeout, since we never do the dining experience.

I don't think I got them all, and I know there are others that just don't get doordash. It may be too complicated to get it, or maybe they have their own drivers, like Domino's or Alfano's. Pizza Hut kind of does both. I dash Little Caesar's a lot, but really if I had my druthers I'd eat at Smokin' Willie's or something, even if I have sodium restrictions. Smokin' Willie's had trouble when they moved and DD had trouble with it and kept sending people back over to North St. which was ridiculous, and maybe it was just too much for them to deal with. They are also like Perkins in the sense that they do orders in the order they come in, which forces dashers to wait around in busy times, and it's not a good way to do it. If you do DD you have to be willing to time your order for a quick arrival so that people get food on time, and dashers don't quit from not wanting to stand around. Our life is bad enough, we shouldn't have to smell all that delicious food and not even take a break.

That's a general report - that's Galesburg on your average day. Dozens of cool places.