The Devolution of Our 2020 Christmas Tree

Posted on January 10, 2021 by admin

Today was the last day for the Christmas tree. As usual, it’s been nice having it around, but its time had come.
Before long, I’d removed the ornaments. No one volunteered to help.
Including Eggplant. I think we bought that one at an impromptu crafts sale at an apartment building near where we lived the year Lilly was born. I expect she was there with us, strapped in a carrier.
The lord. Got him about the same time as Eggplant, though I can’t remember where. I like to think of him as one of the 10 Lords A-Leaping, resting between leaps.

Soon all the ornaments were off. Except the Star of Bethlehem. It’s always the last to go. I bought it at a garage sale years ago because it is a gold colored version of a silver star I put on our tree growing up. The exact same style.

After everything was off, I dragged the tree outside. The dog decided to investigate the mass of needles left behind in the living room. We will find needles in odd spots for months. Until next Christmas, probably.
Last stop (on our property, anyway): the curb.
That’s the tree well-illuminated by the nearby street lamp.

Flags of Insurrection

Posted on January 7, 2021 by admin

That doesn’t look too bad for January.
Been reading a lot about the insurrection today, partly because it’s my job, partly as an American citizen who ought to take an interest in the political illness gripping the nation. With any luck, in retrospect, yesterday will be the day the fever broke. But I’m not betting the mortgage money on it.

Oddly enough, Quartz published an article about the flags carried by the insurrectionists. I was inspired to look into the matter when I noticed some flags that I didn’t recognize in the many photos of the event.

Besides the modern U.S. flag, many others are recognizable, of course, such as the 13-star U.S. (Betsy Ross) flag, the Confederate battle flag, the Gadsden Flag, the U.S. Marine Corps flag and the Thin Blue Line flag.

Even odder, according to Quartz, “the flags of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam were spotted in the mob.” Go figure.

Some I’d never heard of: the Republic of Kekistan flag, the Three Percentage flag and the VDare/Lion Guards of Trump flag. Usually ignorance is a bad thing, but I’m glad I’ve never heard of any of those before.

Spring Valley Winter ’21

Posted on January 6, 2021 by admin

I don’t know Rep. Mike Gallagher (R.-Wis.), but I believe he had the spot-on quote for the day, which I heard on the radio this afternoon: “This is banana republic crap.”

Five months ago, the full flush of summer marked Spring Valley. Two days into the new year, the place was markedly brown and gray and white.We had a pretty good walk anyway, especially since the paths were mostly clear of ice patches.
Snow and ice fell during the last days of December, and on New Year’s Day itself, but it was above freezing the next day, enough to melt some of the ice. Not much ice on the creek either, but I wouldn’t want to fall in.
The unpaved trails offered the crunch of snow underfoot, a sound I like.
The peony field.

The snow was wet enough to cling to most of the trees.It sifts from Leaden Sieves —
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road —

(Emily Dickinson)

Pratt’s Castle, Elgin

Posted on January 5, 2021 by admin

It’s becoming clear that my approach to travel — to finding things to see, anyway — has had two distinct phases. One is before I started using Google Maps, the other after I did, a phase that I expect to continue for the rest of my life.

Visiting Voyageur Landing (see yesterday) only counts as travel in the technical sense that we went to a place that isn’t home, or even in our neighborhood. Even so, it was a new destination and before we went, I scouted it on Google Maps.
Pratt’s Castle? I had to found out more about that, and I did.

“A man’s home may be his castle but when was the last time you actually saw a castle in a residential neighborhood?” says Historic Elgin. “Medieval history buff Harold S. Pratt built this imposing replica in 1937. His real home was nearby on Douglas Avenue.

“Pratt modeled the design on a castle he saw along the Rhine River while serving in World War I. This building was a private museum housing Pratt’s personal collection of medieval artifacts. The 50 foot tall tower is surrounded by a mini-moat and a working draw bridge.

“The castle is still in private ownership, although, [sic] Pratt’s collection is no longer here. So, please respect the privacy of those living here and stay on the bike path.”

More about the castle is here, but I haven’t found out much else about the fate of Pratt’s collection, probably because I haven’t bothered to contact the Elgin History Museum. Since we were planning to visit the nearby Voyageur Landing, I made a point of seeking out the castle as well. Google Maps at work, in other words.

First you go to Trout Park River’s Edge, which sure enough is at the river’s edge.
A trail leads both north and south from there, part of the lengthy Fox River Trail, formerly a railroad line (and the green line on the map above).
A ten-minute walk southward takes you to the castle.
Structure. It’s about as much of a castle as Mars Cheese Castle. Still, worth going (slightly) out of our way to see.

Voyageur Landing

Posted on January 4, 2021 by admin

Two days after Christmas, it was warm enough to visit yet another forest preserve. This time of the year, any day above freezing without patches of ice counts as good enough for a walk. Snow and ice would fall a few days later.

We went to a relatively small patch of land in Kane County, hugging the west bank of the Fox River: Voyageur Landing.

Did roving Frenchmen pass this way in centuries past? Could be. In late December 2020, not many people at all were there, just us and a dogwalker and a jogger or two.
The preserve stretches to the north of the bridge that takes I-90 across the Fox.
From there you follow the river.
Through the wintertime forest.
She found a large number of places to sniff. Not so surprising even for an old dog.

Debris Under the Tree

Posted on January 3, 2021 by admin

Another Christmas, come and gone. We opened presents in the morning that day, as usual.

Not as usual, we had a family Zoom in the afternoon. My brothers, and my nephews and their expanding families, Lilly, and Yuriko and Ann and I were all linked. A geographic diversity: Texas, New York, Washington state and Illinois. We had an enjoyable time, even if the connection was wonky occasionally.

Later in the day, our Christmas movie was The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original version, of course. I hadn’t seen it in at least 30 years, but it was as good as I remember. The movie also inspired me to look up its source story, “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, originally published in Astounding in 1940. No doubt a copy of that edition is somewhere in the house in San Antonio, among my father’s sizable collection of SF. I’d never read the story before, so I found in on line. I did know about its unnerving, surprise ending, however. I heard about it from a college friend years ago.

Another New Year’s Day has gone as well, featuring ice precipitation on top of an inch of two or snow that had fallen a few days earlier. Not enough to rise to the level of an ice storm, but enough to keep us within our walls, occasionally listening to the tap-tap-tap of ice hitting the ground or roof, but mostly paying attention to electronic entertainment, or lost in a book or two, for me including American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Jon Meacham, 2009) that I put down this summer and which I’m finishing now, about half way through. Big things ahead: Old Hickory is going to destroy the Second Bank of the United States and go up against nullification, and win, along with a second term. He’s already set the Trail of Tears in motion.

12 Pix 20

Posted on December 22, 2020 by admin

Back to publishing on January 3, 2021, or so. Who knows, there might be snow by then.

Twelve pictures to wrap up the year, as I have in 2016 and 2017and 2018 and 2019, though this time around I won’t bother with a rigid, one-picture-for-each-month structure. They will be roughly chronological.

Chicago
Los Angeles

Azusa, California

Schaumburg, IllinoisWest Dundee, Illinois

Schaumburg, Illinois

Baraboo, WisconsinBeverly Shores, Indiana

Carbondale, IllinoisSchaumburg, IllinoisChicago

One bad apple

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all.

Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Or Christmas at the Cemetery

Posted on December 21, 2020 by admin

The Great Conjunction was up there this winter solstice evening. For us, behind all the clouds.

As December days go, Sunday was above-freezing tolerable, and unlike today, mostly clear. A good day for being outdoors for a while, which is what I did at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Queen of Heaven is the southernmost of a pair of large suburban Catholic cemeteries, adjacent to each other, with a major east-west thoroughfare, Roosevelt Road, separating them. To the north is Mount Carmel Cemetery, permanent home to bishops, gangsters, Boer sympathizers and many others.

Queen of Heaven is newer, post-WWII, and more understated of the two, but with its own charms.

Including a handful of stately mausoleums.
Pretty soon I began to notice the Christmas decorations. A lot of them. I was inordinately pleased by the sight. I ought to visit more cemeteries in December.

I also noticed that the cemetery was busy. Not urban center busy, but busy for a cemetery. Even at the largest and most picturesque cemeteries, I’m very often the only person in sight, or one of two, including groundskeepers sometimes.

On Sunday at Queen of Heaven, I saw a dozen people or more by themselves or in couples, along with three or four small knots of people. Those gatherings didn’t have the look of funerals. I got close enough to one of the groups, driving by slowly, that I could see the people gathered around a new grave, maybe a few months old. Must have been their first Christmas without the deceased, and there were there to pay their respects. Talk about life-affirming.

Rolling Knolls

Posted on December 20, 2020 by admin

The weekend turned out to be fairly mild, with temps over 40 during the days and no rain or snow. Time to find a new forest preserve and take a walk. We went to one to the west of us, but still in Cook County: Rolling Knolls.
That sounds like the name of an upscale housing development out toward the exurbs, with nary a hint of land contour. But actually the 55-acre forest preserve rolls along pretty well, with a variety of modest hills.

It used to be a standard golf course, but in 2017 the grounds were modified to accommodate frisbee golf. Or rather, disc golf. Just looking at a few sites devoted to the sport, it’s pretty clear that the disc golf writers anyway eschew any talk of frisbees, maybe regarding them as those Pluto platters that hippies used to toss around to amuse themselves.

Disc golf then. I don’t actually have an opinion on its nomenclature, so I’ll go along with writers such as this.

So we wandered into the course, passing by a couple of the holes.
There was a scattering of people playing, usually clusters of three or four young men, though two of the groups included a young woman. We managed to stay out of the way of play, but that wasn’t hard considering how few people were around. Before too long we found a dirt road.
It led south to a trail that winds around the edge of the preserve. Looks a little remote, but the sound of traffic in the distance was a constant.
Past the browns of the season.
Rolling Knolls Glad to see a flowing crick. Wasn’t sure its name.

Later, I found out: Poplar Creek. I’ve walked its banks before.

The Evolution of Our 2020 Christmas Tree

Posted on December 17, 2020 by admin

Decorating the Christmas tree was a multi-day process this year. I remember earlier years with younger girls around, when there was no suggestion of delay. Those days are over.

The first day, no ornamentation.
The next day, I added lights.
Two days later, Ann and I got around to hanging ornaments and tossing icicles. Note the dog under the tree. She’s been parking herself there sometimes, unlike in pervious years when she’s mostly ignored this sudden and probably inexplicable (to dogs) plant presence.
Even now, the Star of Bethlehem — the last thing to go on the tree and the last to come off, because personal tradition demands it — isn’t up yet. That’s because that would mean getting the lopper out of the garage and using it to remove part of the long top of the tree. I’ll get around to that task soon.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Author Archives: admin