Downtown Fort Wayne

Posted on July 7, 2022 by admin

RIP, Will Friend. I didn’t know him well, but did meet him at events over the years, and we got along. I didn’t realize he was quite that young.

Toward the end of the afternoon on Saturday, we took a walk in downtown Fort Wayne. Not long after parking the car, this caught our attention.

Not just any pedestrian bridge, but the historic Wells Street Bridge over the St. Marys River. A sign on the 1884 truss bridge names the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Akron, Ohio, as the bridgebuilder.

For nearly 100 years, vehicular traffic crossed the bridge, but in 1982 it became a pedestrian walkway. A view from the bridge, toward a less-developed part of the city.

After you cross the bridge, there is another elevated walkway, this one over a small section of riverbank. The blue building in the background is a block of riverside apartments, under construction. Move to Fort Wayne, young members of the laptop class. While rents don’t exactly seem cheap there — I don’t think anywhere counts as that anymore — there have to better deals than in the large cities.

The walk offers a view of the Fort Wayne — skyline isn’t quite the word. A view of a few larger buildings in the background, with Promenade Park in the foreground. We soon rested a while at that park, lounging around on iron chairs at an iron table, drinking soda. Rest: always an essential part of any walkabout.

Occasional party boats ply the St. Marys.

Away from the river is Freimann Square, home of the aforementioned Anthony Wayne statue, as well as a fountain and flower beds.

Not far is the Allen County Courthouse, designed around the turn of the 20th century by Hoosier architect Brentwood Tolan.

The figure on top, I’ve read, is a copper Lady Liberty that turns, as a vane does, with the wind.

A few decades pass and you get art deco. In this case, the Lincoln Bank Tower, another of those structures started just in time — 1929. Design by another Hoosier architect, Alvin Strauss.
It could have been the German American Bank Tower, but for some hard-to-figure reason the bank changed its name in 1918.

The Japanese Friendship Garden, on a tenth of an acre near the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, was gift of one of Fort Wayne’s sister cities, Takaoka. I had to look it up, even though I probably passed through it on a train the fall we went to Hida-Takayama. I suspect most Japanese, faced with the name Fort Wayne, would have to look it up, too.

The museum was closed when we got there, but the garden is always open. Bonus: the garden also features a 2002 time capsule under a rock, slated for a 2027 opening.

Elsewhere downtown: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Dating from 1860, it is the oldest church building in Fort Wayne, with its Gothic design attributed to Rev. Msgr. Julian Benoit.

Vigil mass was about to start, but we got a peek.

It isn’t the only sizable church around. A few blocks away is St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Not open. Too bad, looks like quite a looker inside.

Northern Indiana Dash

Posted on July 6, 2022 by admin

Ah, high summer.

That’s in Dallas. I’m not there. Today’s high here was 79 F., a dip from a hot and muggy 90s-day on Tuesday. Several degrees of latitude will make that difference.

One of these days, the times might catch up with Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne, leader in the Revolution and scourge of the Northwest Territory Indians, but for now, you can find him on horseback in bronze at Freimann Square in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a work by Chicagoan George Etienne Ganiere (1865-1935).

We gazed a Mad Anthony for a few moments as part of our trip through northern Indiana. I wanted to take a short trip over the long Independence Day weekend, but I didn’t want it to consume the entire three days.

So on Saturday, we left in mid-morning and made our way to Fort Wayne, where we stayed overnight. On Sunday, we returned across northern Indiana to get home, which took up most of the day.

We arrived in Nappanee, Indiana, for lunch on Saturday. I’m glad to report that Main Street Roasters (not so new anymore, it seems) makes a fine pulled pork sandwich. Yuriko said the ingredients in her Cobb salad tasted very fresh, and I sampled some, and agreed. The place was doing a brisk business.

We figured the main source for both fresh pork and fresh greens was the Amish farms in the area. Nappanee is considered the focus of one of the country’s larger Amish populations, though that’s a little hard to tell in a casual look around downtown, which isn’t so different from other Indiana towns its size (pop. nearly 7,000). Out away from town, though, you can see from the road farm houses and other buildings, clustered closer than in other rural areas, which is characteristic of Amish settlements.

In town, Plain People in carriages rolled by now and then. Some female store clerks wore the small head coverings common among Mennonites. The Amish tourist attraction in Nappanee known as Amish Acres closed in late 2019, and a more upmarket property re-opened the next year — in an example of bad timing, though it seems to have survived — as The Barns at Nappanee, Home of Amish Acres. Maybe all those extra words are going to cost you more.

Across the street from Main Street Roasters (and not Amish Acres).

On Sunday, our first brief stop was at Magic Wand, home of the Magicburger, which can be found in Churubusco, Indiana.

We didn’t have a magic burger, but rather shared a strawberry milkshake to go. Among strawberry milkshakes, it was the real deal. The real tasty deal, straw-quaffed as we speed along U.S. 33.

Churubusco was a name I took an instant liking to. The town fathers apparently read in their newspapers about the battle of that name, and wanted the town to borrow a bit of its martial glory. According to some sources, it gets shortened in our time, and maybe for a long time, to Busco. I also noticed references to the place, on signs and the like, as Turtletown. Really? What was that about? I wondered.

The Beast of Busco, that’s what. Quite a story. A giant among turtles that the townsfolk never could quite capture. I haven’t had this much fun reading hyperlocal history — lore — since I chanced across a small lake in Wisconsin that is supposedly home to an underwater pyramid. Turtle Days was last month.

Another spot for a short visit on Sunday: Warsaw, Indiana. It’s the seat of Kosciusko County, with a handsome Second Empire courthouse rising in the town square.

Designed in the 1880s by Thomas J. Tolan, who died during construction, the Indiana Historical Society says. The project was completed by his son, Brentwood S. Tolan.

The square sports some other handsome buildings, too.

Warsaw is also home to a garden the likes of which I’d never imagined, and the reason I stopped in town, days after spotting it on Google Maps and then looking it up: the Warsaw Biblical Gardens.

The brainchild of a local woman back in the 1980s with access to the land. “It would be no ordinary garden — not a rock garden, nor a rose garden, nor a perennial garden — it would be a truly unique and beautiful Biblical Garden,” the garden’s web site says.

“Actually, we say ‘gardens’ because the Warsaw Biblical Gardens has a variety of areas: the Forest, Brook, Meadow, Desert, Crop and Herb gardens; the Grape Arbor; and the Gathering site. Warsaw Biblical Gardens is ¾-acre in size, and there are very few gardens like this in the United States.

“The term ‘biblical’ refers mainly to the fact that the plants, trees, flowers, herbs, etc., are mentioned in the Old and/or New Testaments of the Bible. These have been carefully researched to preserve the integrity of the Gardens’ uniqueness.

“The Warsaw/Winona Lake area of Indiana has a long religious history. That history begins perhaps with the Chatauqua times of Winona Lake, now being revived. [Really?] Many other famous historical religious figures made their home’s here, from Homer Rodeheaver to Fanny Crosby to Billy Sunday.”

I won’t pretend I didn’t have to look up the first two of those three. Regardless, it’s a stunning little place.

Go far — always good if you can manage it. But also go near.

Antiques of Naperville

Posted on June 30, 2022 by admin

Back on July 5, since of course the stretch from Canada Day to Independence Day at the very least ought to be a row of holidays.

At a shop called Antiques of Naperville, which is tucked away on a side street in that suburb’s downtown, there is a sign that says:

Take All The Photos You Want
Please
Tag Us @Antiques of Naperville
#shopdoggibson #brownbarnantiques

Sure thing. This doesn’t count as a tag, but it is a mention. I took the place up on its offer of no-limits photography, because there was so much stuff around. Interesting stuff. That’s all I ask of an antique store. Not every shop allows pictures, but is that not a mistake in this age of social media?

This was the place I found the Charley Weaver bartender doll, previously posted. Nearby him were these ties — and somehow they’re in the same bric-a-brac milieu as ol’ Charley.

Divers reading material.

Dell. We always had many more Gold Key comics than Dell, but there were a few around the house.

Paperbacks. Not that old. We had this book when I was young and I read it. And the next one.

Something we didn’t have: Shiva.

Shiva is the Destroyer, and it occurs to me that destruction doesn’t have to be dramatic and fast, does it? Sometimes — often? — usually? — destruction is gradual, happening off in a quiet corner or nook, but inexorable all the same. Such as for the objects in an antique shop, for instance.

Characters more friendly than Shiva.

I have to say it: Very interesting, but stoopid. You bet your sweet bippy.

“As seen on Antiques Roadshow.” This very thing, or just one like it?

A traveling game of chance, its sign said, used by con men. No doubt.

Items no longer needed by drivers, fortunately.

Yuriko pointed out the inhabitant of a chair in the shop.

For a moment I thought it was a doll or cushion of some kind, but then one of the dog’s paws twitched. It was a living dog. Probably the most inert dog I’ve ever seen, and a lot of dogs are inert a lot of the time. This dog paid no attention to any of the people shuffling through the shop, and barely acknowledged it when Yuriko petted him.

Art Show at Naper Settlement

Posted on June 29, 2022 by admin

Parking in downtown Naperville on a sunny summer Sunday takes a little time, featuring as it does slow drives through a few full parking lots and passing by other lots that look full, while navigating the crooked grid of streets and keeping an eye out for a free flow of pedestrians.

I’ve been on worse parking treks. Before too long, we found a spot at Naperville Central High School, whose lot was open and no charge. To reach the riverwalk from there, you have to go around Naper Settlement, an open-air museum covering 12 acres and featuring historic buildings from the vicinity.

Unless you go into the museum, which we didn’t particularly want to, since we’d been there before. September of ’09, when we attended a pow-wow.

Then we found out that an art show was going on, with no admission to the grounds. So we popped in for a look-see.

“Since 1959, the Naperville Woman’s Club has presented a free art fair in the summer,” the Naper Settlement web site says. “The longest continuously running art fair in Illinois, this event brings a weekend of art and artistry to Naper Settlement in a free, fun, and family-friendly environment.” My italics.

Some nice work was for sale. We managed not to buy anything, remarkably enough.

In that first pic, he’s selling ceramic graters. Not something I would have thought of.

I was more interested in taking a look at the buildings, even though most of them were closed. The crown jewel of the museum, of course, is the handsome Martin Mitchell Mansion, which we toured those years ago. I didn’t remember much about Mitchell — just that he made money in bricks, many of which are evident in the house, and that his daughter was a dwarf who willed the property to the city.

The Daniels House.

Hamilton C. Daniels (1820-97) doctored in 19th-century Naperville. Wonder whether, toward the end, old doc Daniels was still a miasma man or he came around to germ theory.

The Century Memorial Chapel.

Formerly St. John’s Episcopal in Naperville, dating from 1864.

The museum also has some nice gardens.

Speaking of gardens, there was a special display of Victory Gardens. Boxes honoring the originals, anyway, and individual service members.

Something I learned from the signage: In 1943, seven million acres of Victory Gardens were planted, producing 40% of the nation’s fresh produce that year.

One more structure, though there are 30 all together on the grounds: the Murray Outhouse.

How many outhouses in the world are named? There have to be others, but there couldn’t be that many.

Along the West Branch of the DuPage River

Posted on June 28, 2022 by admin

Naperville, the second-largest Chicago suburb by population at nearly 148,000, has much to recommend a casual visitor, either in warm months or colder ones. (Way-far west Aurora, surprisingly, is number one at nearly 200,000 souls.)

Sunday was warm, but not hot enough to keep us from a stroll along West Branch of the DuPage River, which passes through downtown Naperville, and is in fact one of the village’s main amenities. The river is broad at that point.

But not that deep. A foot or two at most, yet deep enough for ducks and kayaks.

The walkways along the river are fairly narrow.

Both banks are connected by wooden foot bridges.

With small parks and other features on either side.

Including some artwork. Such as “Wall of Faces,” whose plaque says that it was “created by Naperville school children and molded by local artists to represent the casualties of September 11, 2001.”

And a bronze Dick Tracy. I don’t think I’d noticed that before.

It’s been there since 2010, so I just wasn’t paying attention. But why Naperville? I associate the comic policeman with Woodstock, Illinois, home of creator Chester Gould. The plaque explained that Dick Locher (1929-2017), who was one of Gould’s successors in writing and drawing the comic, lived in Naperville. In fact he was a multi-talented fellow, creating this statue as well.

Household Hazardous Waste Run ’22

Posted on June 27, 2022 by admin

There are five permanent places in the state that will take household hazardous waste off your hands, no charge beyond your taxes, according to this Illinois EPA site, plus collections that move from place to place.

One of the permanent facilities, the closest one to where we live (I think), is in Naperville, open on Saturdays and Sundays 9 am to 2 pm. That’s what took us to Naperville on Sunday. Mid-morning, I loaded the back of the car with a variety of chemicals previously found in our garage: cans and bottles and other vessels tucked away in open cardboard boxes so they wouldn’t clatter around too much.

The village of Naperville says that acceptable items include aerosol cans, automotive fluids (including oil, gasoline and anti-freeze), car batteries, fire extinguishers, mercury, paints and stains (oil-based only), peanut oil, pesticides, propane tanks, solvents, thermostats and “unknown hazardous substances.” That last one, I have to say, is pretty bold of the village.

Unacceptable: ammo, compressed gas (except propane), explosives, helium tanks, latex paint, paper or glass or wood — those three generally aren’t hazardous, unless some falls on you, or fuels an out-of-control fire — radioactive materials, sharps, tires, trash or alkaline batteries.

I had none of those. Of the acceptable ones, I had everything but car batteries, fire extinguishers, mercury, thermostats and peanut oil. Peanut oil? Apparently it gums up pipes in high concentrations. Also, I had no unknown hazardous substances, such as boxes one finds floating in the bay.

Since offloading your household waste down in Naperville is first come, first serve, I imagined waiting in a long line in my car, each car belching out auto emissions as they snaked slowly toward the pickup point, where masked state employees appeared and disappeared according to some schedule opaque to me. Hours might be lost to the process.

When we got there, exactly no other cars were ahead of us, and only one came in behind us. A man wearing a white clean suit — are there any other colors? — but not a helmet, asked were we were from, and I told him.

Then he and a partner, also be-clean suited, quickly examined everything in the back and removed everything but a single can, which in their opinion was empty, and could be put in regular trash. That was it. Took all of about two minutes, once the driving was done. Sometimes things work as they are supposed to, even when dealing with the state. Seldom is that written about or mentioned. So I’m doing that now.

Naperville is nearly a half-hour drive from where we live, meaning we weren’t about to turn around and go home right away, burning the gas just for that. So we spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon there. I’m glad we did, because otherwise I wouldn’t have made the acquaintance of an homunculus Charley Weaver.

More on that later. Enough to say now that someone my age just caught the tail end of Charley Weaver.

Regal Country Inn, 2017

Posted on June 26, 2022 by admin

Rain yesterday morning, cool temps in the afternoon. Cool morning today, pretty warm but not blazing hot in the afternoon. Saw a few fireflies last week. Harbingers of high summer, they are. Always glad to see them.

Has it been five years since our last visit to the UP? Apparently so. I wish I’d taken more detailed pictures of the place we stayed, the Regal Country Inn in Wakefield, Mich., which wasn’t remotely regal, more-or-less country, and certainly an inn.

The motel was located on U.S. 2, which passes along the roof of the United States.

The reason I should have documented the place better is sic transit gloria mundi.

Ah, well. Wonder whether the place fell victim to the pandemic or merely the slings and arrows of commercial fortune.

It was a pleasantly comfortable independent motel, owned by the fellow who greeted us at the front desk.

Bob, I’ll call him, because I don’t remember his name, but Bob fits. Bob gave me a discount for paying in cash. Good old Bob. Maybe our stay was off the books. I didn’t ask.

We stayed in a second-floor room, near an opening over the lower level and among a fair amount of bric-a-brac.

His cutout was there, but as far as I know the place didn’t claim that the Duke ever stayed at the Regal Country Inn.

Jerome Huppert Woods

Posted on June 21, 2022 by admin

As forecast, temps didn’t break 80 degrees F. on Saturday. A good day to hit the trail.

A trail, anyway. The one we hit happened to be the Des Plaines River Trail, which parallels the river of that name, on a short section through Jerome Huppert Woods. The place might be named for this man, a casualty of WWII. How many Jerome Hupperts have there been? He was from Wisconsin, so that would be a little unusual, but hardly impossible.

The woods are a small slice of undeveloped land along the river. My guess would be that the Cook County Forest Preserve District was able to acquire most of the land along the Des Plaines because it is prone to flooding. A little further from the forest preserve land at that point, the suburb of River Grove surrounds the area, and it’s fully developed.

The reach the trail proper, you go along a connecting trail from a parking lot and recreation field to a short, graffiti’d tunnel under a road.

There’s enough undeveloped land in the area to support some large fauna, looks like.

I don’t look at the creature and think Bambi. Rather, I think, deer ticks, vector of Lyme disease. Best to keep your distance. Still, it was nice to see.

Recent rains seem to have created, or at least enlarged, a stagnant pond that isn’t visibly connected to the river.

Otherwise, lots of green. Lots of flowers. Lots of trees.

With views of the Des Plaines from time to time.

Along with abandoned structures.

Eventually, we came to River Grove’s River Front Park, where we turned around. Not before resting a few minutes in the park gazebo, though.

As always, nice to find a gazebo. Obscure suburban parks are better for them.

Colorado Plateau ’22 Leftovers

Posted on June 9, 2022 by admin

I’ve changed the name of this trip. What, doesn’t everyone name their trips? No? Anyway, Colorado Plateau ’22 is better than the ridiculous NV-AZ-UT 22, which looks like a part number in a tool-and-die factory.

But not quite all on the Colorado Plateau. Just outside Las Vegas, maybe five or so miles from where that city finally peters out on I-15 toward Los Angeles, is Seven Magic Mountains.

Magic, maybe, mountains no, at least not in any literal sense. An art installation by Ugo Rondinone, a Swiss artist.

We only passed through Zion NP, stopping only for a few minutes on the side of the road.

Near the entrance.

At the entrance.

A different entrance: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A small bit of the vastness of the place, more than 1.8 million acres.

I knew that was a road I wanted to drive a little ways at least, to check out the views. My instincts were right.

When we were nearly in Page, Arizona, we stopped for a few minutes at a viewpoint over Lake Powell. I was flabbergasted by how low the lake looks.

And so it is. The lowest level since the lake was built. Lake Mead is low as well, so much so that (possible) mob hit victims have been discovered. Apparently the idea of draining Lake Powell to fill Lake Mead is being entertained by officialdom, I read, though it’s hard to know how seriously.

The cookers at Big John’s Texas Barbecue in Page.

Man, Big John made some mean ‘cue in those cookers.

The Lake Powell Motel, also in Page, where we stayed. For the second time. We were there in 1997. A one-minute walk to Big John’s.

When we stayed there 25 years ago, the property was called Bashful Bob’s Motel. Sometime in the 2010s, new ownership changed the name and spent a fair amount renovating the interiors so that they are pretty nice two-bedroom apartments. Back in the late ’90s, the rooms were old, but pleasant. I wonder if I have the ’97 bill somewhere to compare rates. Maybe.

Also, it’s clear that the owners had to renovate to compete with the numerous chain hotels in the town. Bashful Bob didn’t a lot of that kind of competition in the old days, just smaller properties, a few of which linger still in Page.

The Red Rock started as housing for workers building Glen Canyon Dam, built in 1958 by the Bureau of Reclamation. Actually, I suspect Bashful Bob’s started out that way as well.

In Moab, Utah, we stayed at the Apache Motel. We found it a most pleasant place to stay, and with a touch of movie history to it.

Clean, comfortable, not particularly cheap or expensive, feeling very much like a ’50s motel, though with a few modifications. The motel doesn’t let you forget that the Duke stayed there when filming movies nearby. Other stars did too.

One more feature at Temple Square in Salt Lake City: the Handcart Pioneer Monument.

More Mormons in metal: The centerpiece of the This is the Place Heritage Park, which is on a hill at the edge of the city, where B. Young reportedly told his followers This is the Place, as in, to settle. We dropped by for a short look.

At the base of the memorial are six figures depicting important in the history of this part of Utah who weren’t Mormons, such as a couple of fur trappers, a chief of the Shoshone, plus adventurers and explorers.

Including this fellow, John C. Fremont.

That’s my presidential site for the trip. Ran for president in ’56, after all.

High Desert Flora

Posted on June 8, 2022 by admin

Not quite all the places we visited in May count as high desert, but mostly that’s what we saw, including a wide variety of plants. I looked at them mostly for aesthetic enjoyment, since I’m woefully ignorant about natural history, and when I try not to be, the information mostly isn’t retained by the sieve of my mind.

Still, I know a Joshua Tree when I see one. These were outside Las Vegas. The further east you go from there, the fewer you see.

Smaller than many of the yuccas at Joshua Tree NP, but Yuriko, who hasn’t visited that park, was suitably impressed.

Moving on, flora at Zion National Park.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Owl Canyon, near Page, Arizona. Amazing the places life can cling.

Also near Page.

National Bridges National Monument.

Arches National Park.

Canyonlands National Park.

Salt Lake City.

The flowers were at Temple Square, near the Assembly Hall. The second image doesn’t look much like a city view, but it was, in City Creek Natural Area. The ground gets pretty steep pretty fast as you move away from downtown.

A 180-degree turn at that point, and you see this.

A nice change from desert scrub, though desert flora has its fascinations.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There