report

My life is pretty carefully contained in the streets of the north side of Galesburg: Broad Street, Losey Avenue, Fremont Avenue, Dayton Avenue, Henderson Street, Seminary Street. If I spend the rest of my life on these particular streets I won't be angry. Everyone obeys traffic rules. The ice hasn't been too bad.

I figured I would get involved in local issues faster than I have, and the truth is, I'm still a little bit of an outsider. I fainted at the local Casey's the other day, and nobody even really knew who I was. They offered me a ride to the hospital in an ambulance, but I decided to pass it up. After all, it was only Carl Sandburg, Broad and Mary, and then I was home with the pizzas. Still they didn't figure out who I was.

We like the school so far, not that our kids are passing. Some of the time they aren't even attending. But having them attend sometimes is way better than in New Mexico, where kids told my son if he came back to the school, they'd "put some lead in him." We got tired of that wild-west kind of situation, and I assume all those kids were armed though I doubt they actually would have done it. Didn't matter; we couldn't get him out of bed. I don't know if kids here are armed too, but things have been much better here.

There are issues of the day: sales tax, community center, schools. I don't know enough to say anything intelligent. Give me some time. I'll try to get you some pictures; I actually like the town from all its different angles. I like a downtown where you go a block or two off the main street, and you're still downtown. I like having a college square just what, a block or two off the downtown. There's some action around, sometimes. The north side is somewhat work-a-day and plain sometimes. But I assume everyone will cheer up when the winter lifts. Until then!

Santa rules the Peoria airport

Back in the area after many years away, I am loving the things they use to promote the area. I love them in a kind of ironic way. I can't help it. I also love the area. I'm glad to be home!

Lawn chemicals

We moved four dogs up here with us in summer. The youngest was a big golden, very nice, a gentleman, who felt like he had to guard our girls. A golden something, he was large, might have had some pit in him, but he was mostly something else, short-haired. Anyway he died of cancer, less than five months after moving here. Cancer. Some people say it could be lawn chemicals; others say, no, that was too little time for lawn chemicals to get inside him and do that much damage.

His head began swelling and when we took him to the vet, they identified it as cancer. We've all been somewhat mourning him since we had to take him in last month.

I vowed, when I left the area, that pesticides in particular would be the downfall of this area (actually we lived in southern Illinois and I had lived in Iowa as well), but I never really did my research. I know that they are putting Roundup on all the fields. I know that corn fields in general are soaking up more pesticide than any of us could imagine. What I don't know is if this could kill a dog, or a kid, or anyone who got too close to it. I can sense that there's plenty of it around. I can see lawyers circling to sue Roundup for the damages it's caused. What I don't know is whether this specific area has that specific problem, or if our dog, Ballou, could have been victim of it.

If not that, what could it be? I am just wondering.

Hallowe'en report

The North side of Galesburg was inundated by trick-or-treaters; I believe there were hundreds. Not that I'm complaining; to me it's good that trick-or-treating is alive somewhere. The reasons it has died away, nationwide, I've put below, but it hasn't died away in our neighborhood. We ran out of candy, and so did many of our neighbors.

Of course most of the people you see out there are not our immediate neighbors. They come from the south side, the west side, the east side, and the countryside, all over, because they see our neighborhood, Broad at about Mary, as being lucrative in terms of hauling in candy. I can't really speak to how my neighbors feel about all this tourism; some are clearly into it and up to the challenge, having their houses totally decorated and even having a show out there. And some are doing full-length candy bars, too, which could run into some big money.

Overall I'd say the costumes were very creative. The balloon costumes, with the huge dinosaur and the alien carrying the kid, those are new to me. So are the lights going off in their face. Some were homemade. Some were barely thrown together at all. But people were mostly polite and they said "thank-you" and generally they refrained from taking a whole handful.

Here are the reasons it has gone down in so many places; it was never all that great in the countryside anyway (I suspect a lot of these kids were farm kids from the area). The first is much fewer children; this is especially true in the countryside. If you are the only kid out there and you need your parents to drive around on a busy highway, pulling over, that's no fun; a lot of times people will do that for their friends (who invite their kid over to trick or treat, and admire how cute he/she is), but it's no good for the older kids who want a better haul.

A few years back they had a razor-blade-in-the-apples-or-snickers scare, and this I think set it back considerably. The rumors were never proved true, not even once, but it didn't matter; if you sowed fear in the heart of the nation's parents, they'd no longer let their kids run free out on the streets after dark. In the big picture I think fear is playing a huge role here. I recognize some of the kids in the neighborhood already, but there are plenty that never get out to just play out on the streets like we used to. So it's no longer a matter of opening the door to kids you already know, like it used to be. A lot of these parents are just not letting their kids wander around unattended.

Finally, the churches started their whole trunk-or-treat programs. It was a response to the fear, really, but also a response to the idea that they didn't really like all the death and blood themes of Halloween anyway. They just figured, we can provide candy for our kids, and do it in an environment where we control some of the images that they see. Churches cut into the Halloween traffic simply by ensuring that lots and lots of kids got plenty of candy whether they went out in the evening or not. Downtowns and malls also had a kind of controlled trick-or-treat, but anything that cut down the neighborhood aspect of it was disrupting the holiday. Some whole towns have canceled trick-or-treating in favor of controlled parties or whatever; my experience is that everyone is still getting more than enough candy, but the essence of the holiday has changed considerably.

I have friend who bought five pounds of candy and spent the evening waiting, lucky to get one or two kids. We on the other hand bought ten pounds and ran out easily. It's a custom which by the way has moved across the pond where they've taken to it with gusto. But it's not really healthy here, because it's no longer a neighborhood thing, really. The neighborhood aspect of it was the best part, and, of the hundreds of trick-or-treaters we saw, probably only a few were from the neighborhood.

orange leaves

The peak of the season has hit Broad Street - not only orange, but also red, brown, green, yellow - a splay of color which might be usual to people around here but to us, from the desert, is really quite impressive.

We were living back in the mountains - we had lots of pines, and a few other things, I wouldn't call it a lack of color, but it was nothing like here. My daughter misses the steep hills that we had to drive every day to get anywhere. Mountain cliffs with a cliff running up to the right of the car, and shooting down into the valley to the left. More than one close call with the ice and the lack of four-wheel-drive. Deer and elk all over the place. To me, I miss it, but I'm relieved to have only a mile of brick street and orange leaves to get out to where I'm going.

The biggest benefit to us, frankly, is that our kids are in school. Out there in the mountains, once they fell out, and the small mountain-town school couldn't handle them, there was literally nowhere to go. Here, they can handle our kids. They've decided, they're ok, they can get along, they'll fit in.

I walk four dogs, most days, on streets near the intersection of Broad and Mary. Selden, Cedar, Cherry, Prairie, Losey, Grove, those kinds of streets. Lots of orange leaves and bricks all over the place. Lots of beautiful houses too. Some of the Victorians are incredibly well taken care of. Some are gorgeous houses, but not incredibly well taken care of. I get a pretty good view of it all - I have to pick up these dogs' poop, unfortunately, but aside from that it's really very nice out there on the streets of Galesburg's historic north end. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't actually prefer the suburbs.

Today we went out to Lake Storey and walked a while in the woods. It too was incredible, as it too is at its peak. The lake is incredibly low. But, being from New Mexico, we can tell you, "you don't know from dry." The mere fact that there was water, there was a heron, there were fish out there getting ready for winter - it gave me a good feeling. Back in the Midwest, we are adjusting to the climate, wondering, yes, what happened to all those floods they were complaining about earlier, wondering if we brought some kind of drought with us. I can't answer that. I'll bring pictures. I'll decorate this blog. It's all about Galesburg, and at the moment, I'm grateful that Galesburg saved our lives.

Famous Writers of Galesburg

A little while ago The Burg newspaper listed the ten most famous writers of Galesburg. I'm not sure if they listed Carl Sandburg but I'm sure they mentioned him; he's iconic and practically represents the town. But who else did they have? I've lost the article now, and I can't remember a single other name on it. Yes, the English professor at Knox; yes, a couple of other local luminaries. But I don't remember them.

I'm going to construct my own list, though, and that's because I'm genuinely curious about the writers like me who have chosen Galesburg as their home. I have been attending book signings at the Wordsmith but there, I've mostly met writers in the area who consider Wordsmith to be the best place to get some local recognition. From those I've learned that it's a rough life, going around peddling your books, and for the most part, I can't call any of them successful. At one that I attended, the place was virtually empty, both town and bookshop, and it was a Saturday afternoon. At another the bookshop was getting lots of business but the writer wasn't; people weren't interested in a book that he had spent a good portion of his life on.

From that and other experiences I've decided to not be in such a hurry to get out there and present myself as a writer, signing books myself, etc. What good is it if nobody shows up anyway? Here these poor people had prepared whole piles of hardback books with the intention of signing one after the other. And I can't say it was because they were poor writers; probably they were better than I am and their books, anyway, are impressive to me. I don't have a single hardback to my name, and am not even sure I can get Wordsmith to sponsor me.

My guess is that it's a sign of the times. Books are out of style; about half of their readership has gone online; people are in the habit of avoiding public situations. Kids, I've noticed, have been trained this way. Social distancing, stay away from people, etc.; for 65 years I was very social and a couple of years of pandemic didn't get me out of the habit. But other people, young people in particular, are just not ready to go up and talk to somebody about a book. Book? What's that? They may be feeling a little alienated.

It's a typical small town in lots of ways. I kind of like it; I've been thinking that 30,000, or whatever it stands at now, is about right for me. I'm baffled by a few things, like how it can have a single hardware store, that is closing no less, and nobody around to replace it or buy out what is clearly necessary. Some mysteries will just have to clear themselves up with time. But in the meantime, I'll keep a running list of writers, a list of my own, and report occasionally on them. Why not? You deserve to be informed.