Category Archives: Retail

Return to Mars

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I’ve now been to Mars Cheese Castle about n times. I pass its way often, and while I don’t always stop there, visits over 40 years have added up to n. Like Wisconsin itself, or Milwaukee, or a healthy number of other places.

After much of a day in Milwaukee, for the latest Doors Open Milwaukee event, we stopped at Mars, mere miles north of the Wisconsin-Illinois line on I-94. First thing, I decided to document the sticker situation at the base of the highway sign.

I don’t see you-know-who from a much larger chain of retail establishments whose mascot is known to dam streams and sue alleged lookalikes. There are no locations yet in Wisconsin, but he is waiting, biding his time.

At 80 feet, the sign is a story unto itself, with the Wisconsin legislature specially allowing the store to keep it when the whole complex had to be moved in 2011 to accommodate the expansion of the highway. By that time, 80 feet was too tall for a modern roadside sign, but Mars was grandfathered in. Could be that Wisconsin respects its ’50s roadside heritage.

Inside, the mouse is still around. I don’t know that he has a name. Maybe Mario Mouse, after the original owner of Mars Cheese Castle, one Mario Ventura Sr., a gas station owner who pivoted into cheese in 1957 after his gas station burned down. Pivoting into cheese is a thing you can do in Wisconsin. Eat Cheese or Die.

Tom recently sent me by email — out of the blue, coincidence or synchronicity? — a picture of us with the mouse from our ’22 trip around Lake Michigan. A favorite photo of us, he explained, and it is a good one.

Of course, I’d been there before, such as in ’15. The mouse seems to have moved since then.

Cheese hats and other extruded yellow shapes are for sale, along with edible cheese, sausage and other meat, candy, beer and many other comestibles, plus knickknacks, gimcracks and gewgaws galore.

Mars apparently has its own line of wine.

Lore associates mice with cheese – who’ll eat pretty much anything in your pantry – so why not wine? Another version of the mascot could be sprawled nearby, a wine bottle in his hand.

Wool & Co.

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Saturday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Can’t forget to note that, though some years I do, like National Gorilla Suit Day (January 31). Supposedly Long John Silver’s, the fish joint, was giving away fish for Talk Like a Pirate Day if you said something pirate-y, and even fish meals if you dressed like a pirate. Naperville – the nearest LJS after the one in Hanover Park closed – was too far to go for that, and it drizzled most of the day anyway.

As it did today, with bursts of stronger rain. Good to listen to drifting off to sleep, especially when the rain doesn’t come with dangerous winds or close cracks of lightning. Or, for that matter, when the volume of water doesn’t seem enough to overwhelm local drainage. So it proved. Your house is always the second-best place to experience a storm, anyway. The best place to enjoy a more vigorous storm is always a rental property.

After we were done in Elgin last week, at Yuriko’s suggestion, we went to Wool & Co. in South Elgin, out at the edge of the suburbs in new-looking development.

The entrance doesn’t much hint at the colors within.

I don’t knit, but I do like the colors.

I thought the shop might be part of a chain, but no. The South Elgin location is it, for now. As its web site puts it: “Visiting Wool & Co. is akin to being at a friend’s house… a friend with over 10,000 skeins of yarn!!!”

M.D. Trains, Blue Lotus &c.

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Labor Day weekend is nigh, and even in a semi-retired state, I look forward to these three-day weekends, especially if the weather is still warm. Actually temps have been pretty high these last few days, which means that sitting on the deck well into the evening is comfortable, once the mosquitoes have calmed down.

Think I’ll take a stretch off just because. Back to posting on September 13.

The other day while out on the deck before sunset, listening to the loud cicadas, I made up a 19th-century religious movement, in outline. As one does. A farmer in early 19th-century Ohio proclaimed that the late summer cicadas are actually trying to communicate with mankind, but that the last people who could understand them were the ancient Israelites (using the Hebrew term for “locust”). Some Israelites were able to interpret their song as revelations from the Lord, which formed the basis for the lost Book of Locusts. After the destruction of the First Temple, the locusts spoke no more.

Who is suddenly able to understand the cicadas in the (19th century) present? The farmer, of course (Robert, let’s call him). He listens closely, and it turns out the Lord is laying down some new rules ahead of the Second Coming, via cicada song. Including how to organize a new church with Bob as its head, and an exact time for the Second Coming, like the Seven-Day Adventists. Bob gathers a few hundred followers. One of their main rituals is the “Summer Listening,” as they gather outside in the late afternoon and Bob, in a trance, interprets. Some of his grown sons soon have the ability too. Locust Listeners, their neighbors derisively call them, but soon they themselves are using the term.

The day for the Second Coming comes and goes, and Bob has a new revelation for his disappointed flock: they should be listening to crickets as well, to complement cicadas. That will reduce the chance of misunderstanding, as clearly happened with the date of the Second Coming. Groups of Listeners start staying up all night to listen to crickets, but others are dismayed, sparking a schism.

I could go on, naturally – how a few dozen Church of Listeners congregations still exist in the Midwest (and California, of course), how one of the great entomologists of the early 20th century grew up as a Listener, how a descendant of Bob erected a historic landmark in Ohio – a bronze cicada – in 1979…

* * *

On the historic square in Woodstock last Saturday, something intriguing. This setup graced a shop window, though I took the image once I’d entered the building.

We’d found a model train store: M.D. Trains.

Those kinds of shops are few and far between, but not impossible to find. M.D. Trains was empty when we entered, except for an older man I took to be the proprietor and a younger fellow I took for an employee, both sitting near the front, chatting.

“You want to buy everything, don’t you?” the older gentleman said to us. Later I heard him say it to other people entering the shop. “Everything” meant a lot of stuff in a glorious clutter.

“If only,” I answered. I didn’t really mean it, since I’m not in the market for a room full of model train cars, tracks, accessories, sets and model trucks, and ephemera. Still, I enjoyed looking around the store.

There’s more than just merchandise. Square in the middle of the store is an intricate model train layout, much more elaborate than the one in the window.

But I did buy a small toy engine for $5. You can’t go in a place like that and not support it.

* * *

I’m glad to report that Blue Lotus, a Buddhist temple housed in a former Congregationalist church, is still active in Woodstock.

In fact, I believe they’ve added some depictions of the Buddha lately.

One of these days, Blue Lotus is going to be open when I happen by. I’d like to see how the temple interprets the space.

Woodstock Square

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Back in 1858, someone bothered to take a photograph of the spanking-new McHenry County, Illinois, courthouse – and what a bother it must have been, considering the state of camera tech at the time. Then again, it wasn’t like the photographer had to tell the building to be still.

Here in 2026, point and shoot.

The design of John Mills Van Osdel (d. 1891), described by Wiki as the first Chicago architect. Is that so, I wondered? Whatever I’d read about him – and I did a fair amount of reading about Chicago history when I lived in the city for the first time – had long since evaporated. Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men in Chicago, Photographically Illustrated by John Carbutt (1868) tells the Van Osdel story, and quite a story it is.

The first mayor of Chicago, William Ogden, hired him to build structures in the infant metropolis, and soon Van Osdel was designing them, too. This was back in the days when someone could learn to build buildings from a builder father and later reinvent himself as an autodidact architect, with all sorts of 19th-century ups and downs along the way.

Next door, a smaller building, but also handsome.

Formerly where the McHenry County sheriff lived, with a jail in the basement. Now home to KellerHaus, a local brewery and restaurant.

County government moved out of the building more than 50 years ago, to someplace less aesthetic but not too bad. Later, Woodstock Square (my guess would be late 19th century) took its present form, a green crossed by sidewalks.

The park is home to a gazebo. And a bandstand. Or two gazebos or two bandstands. Authorities disagree about which is which, and entire academic careers have been staked on determining the difference. Or not, I made that up.

Woodstock Square, Illinois

A memorial to the men in blue from McHenry County, erected in the “We’d better get moving on this” year of 1911.

Woodstock Square is ringed – squared – by some handsome commercial structures of pre-Great War vintage, mostly.

Including a fair amount of boutique-ification.

Which makes for some colorful spots.

Smaller, but adding just as much to the character of the square.

We had lunch on the square. At a diner along traditional lines, and tastier for it.

Afterward, the square told us the time.

Note that Bill Murray isn’t trapped in this clock face. Tying in with the movie is only going to go so far.

Tom’s Farm Stand

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The tropics have temporarily set up camp here a few degrees south of 45 degrees North, with a run of wet, humid days. Not quite as hot as the actual tropics might be during the intermissions between rain, but warm enough.

That didn’t keep us at home this weekend, and on Saturday while tooling along US 20 in Bartlett, Illinois (Lake Street, locally), we noticed that Tom’s Farm Stand was open for the season. The sight of the stand inspired in Yuriko a sudden hankering for corn on the cob, so we stopped.

Tom’s is between the road and a wall of corn.

I don’t know whether that cornfield is part of the farm. That would certainly be convenient for Tom or his heirs, but anyway we found corn for sale, along with other opportunities to take still life photography.

Also known as the Bartlett Farm Stand, it seems.

Other chalkboard signs.

My images didn’t capture it, but the place was fairly busy. I don’t know whether you can call the stand a Bartlett institution or not, but it does have staying power: founded in 1961, just like me, and maybe going to outlast me.

Formerly Known as All Chocolate Kitchen

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On Third Street in Geneva, Illinois, a few weeks ago, we went looking for something cold to drink, since it was a warm day. A place called Coffee, Cones & Cabernet looked like it might provide something refreshing, and it did: iced coffee for Yuriko and lemonade – really good lemonade – for me. We weren’t in the market for the cone or cabernet part of the equation at that moment, but I’m sure everything else there is good, or better, certainly to judge by the racks of chocolates behind glass or the aroma produced by a coffee maker.

When selling luxury comestibles, retailers are at risk of a posh sameness, but there was absolutely no risk of that here. We’d stepped into the former All Chocolate Kitchen, whose legacy includes a display of sculptures around the shop: a life-sized depiction of Neil Armstrong in his moon suit, a dinosaur, a peacock, a New Orleans jazz man, and more, all made of chocolate and sugar.

The centerpiece chocolate sculpture is an enormous tree, “Chef Roby’s Enchanted Tree, ” lording over the customer seating area at center of the shop.

A thing of awe: 1,200 pounds of dark, milk and white chocolate, 23 feet tall and three feet in diameter. You know, as big as an actual tree. Chocolate isn’t usually accorded such permanence. I know I don’t think of it that way.

No samples, please.

Sugar is also a medium at this unusual gallery.

The shop changed hands only in November, when an employee, Marissa Kirch, bought the business from Chef Alain Roby and his wife Esther Roby when they retired.

Apparently we’d happened onto the work of Chef Roby, as famed a pastry chef as that profession has, at least to judge by his fairly long list of accomplishments and the fact that I don’t know much about that particular world. If for some reason he isn’t as famed in that world as I think he is, he should be.

“Coffee, Cones, & Cabernet continues to adhere to the recipes of Chef Alain Roby and the previous business and employees of All Chocolate Kitchen,” the shop web site says. “Chef Alain Roby is a three-time Guinness World Record holder, a world-renowned pastry chef, and an author who has made multiple appearances on the Food Network and The Martha Stewart Show.”

Being on the Food Network or rating an entry (or three! including world’s longest candy cane) in Guinness World Records is all well and good, but I’d say the grand scope of Roby’s talent is nowhere more apparent than the shop itself. We can start small – which isn’t small at all, considering the effort that must have gone into it – and work up from there.

A 50-lb. sugar peacock.

A chocolate dinosaur behind electrified bars. I’m sure you’d get an unpleasant but mild shock, but even so that’s a first at a chocolate shop. Or any kind of shop. I didn’t test it.

Neil Armstrong, bold explorer, done in white chocolate. Looking a little unnerving close up, to be honest, but still, quite the work.

Says blues in the background, but I’m reminded of jazz.

An homage to the shop itself, in sugar and food coloring.

We lounged around a little while, savoring our respective beverages, and enjoying the fact that the shop was about 15 degrees F. cooler than the outside. It occurred to me that the HVAC system has to work flawlessly during the summer. I hope it continues to do so for many summers to come.

Geneva: Pink Flamingos & Pocket Parks & Sewing Machines

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Not long ago, I was reminded that I need to acquire at least one pink flamingo for the deck, since the previous one — a dollar-store purchase when $1 was still the usual price — had fallen to pieces after repeated summers and winters. I was reminded because I saw some out in the wild.

We’d parked on Hamilton St. in Geneva, Illinois, a street distinctive for its plantings on the odd land shapes created by the various angled meetings of streets, parking lots and sidewalks.

Other examples, among a number on the street.

Nice. I suspect volunteer planting and maintenance, but that’s only a hunch. A nice scattering of greenery in a hard-surface context regardless.

Or they might represent a city-sponsored activity, since greenery is an important aspect of the grounds around the 1913-vintage Geneva City Hall.

Going for that prairie look, and not the kind attributed to FLW, but actual grass prairie.

A little more municipal whimsy.

Not far from City Hall is a handsome brick building with “Sjodin Est 1961” on a lunette on top and a smaller stone plaque over the door that says “L. Warber 1928.” Sjodin must be an early version of Shodeen, the residential developer that occupies the building.

On the same street is Creative Sewing & Quilting, a sizable shop devoted to the sewing arts. Yuriko was keen to spend a while there, and as I prepared to continue my stroll, I noticed the shop’s collection of antique sewing machines.

Everyone knows Singer, but there were also other brands.

All news to me, since it’s an industry I know little about. But I know this: without sewing machines, in the days of hand-stitched clothes, I’d probably only have one set of workday clothes and one of Sunday clothes, which would be the case for most people.

Downtown Glen Ellyn: The Historic District

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Even modest buildings have a history. Or point to a history.

Just not much visible history in this case. Yet under this building in downtown Glen Ellyn, Illinois – in the Glen Ellyn Downtown North Historic District – is the main creek that used to pass through the village. Indian Creek, flowing for about 100 years now through an underground manmade channel. Civil engineers were busy in the 1920s.

An article published in 2023, “The Creeks of Old Glen Ellyn, Part 1” by Robert Elliot, offers a bit of detail: “Though we do not know exactly when, the creeks which flowed through old Glen Ellyn were slowly moved underground. Indian Creek appears to have remained above ground for a long time, although it too eventually fell victim to development. Although the exact year remains unknown, it appears that Indian Creek was mostly moved underground in 1922, when a dry goods store was constructed where it used to flow under Main Street. Today, Oak & Steel occupies the same location.”

Glen Ellyn was once marked by open creeks and small ravines and other irregularities, much like the rest of Du Page County. Like in much of the rest of the county, or the nation for that matter, that wasn’t consistent with modern suburbia, so the terrain was modified – in the same spirit as controlling the Mississippi or digging the Panama Canal, if not the gargantuan scale.

The 1920s also saw brisk commercial development near the Glen Ellyn interurban station, and it is these buildings that make up much of the historic district today. Such as a bank building, a sturdy-looking edifice built to re-assure in the days before the FDIC. Sturdy and elegant, I have to add.

The Glen Art Theatre. A spot to take in a motion picture, now as then.


“The Glen Theatre, formerly a single screen theatre, opened in February 1927,” says Cinema Treasures. “It was designed in the Tudor Revival style, along with the storefronts on either side of the three-story building. The architect was William B. Betts of Park Ridge, IL, who also designed a number of other movie theaters in the Chicago suburbs. Originally, the Glen Theatre not only featured motion pictures, but live stage acts, as well, and contained a Barton organ.”

Other historic district structures.

The site of the interurban line station. These days, it includes 2 Toots, a restaurant that delivers your burger and fries by model train.

I didn’t confine my peregrinations to the historic district, mainly because I didn’t know about it until later.

Just outside the district, a couple of churches.

More apartments up/retail down structures.

The Village Office, looking a little New Englandish.

The interurban line that once came through Glen Ellyn, the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Electric (CA&E), is long gone, as they all are. But it left a legacy, namely the Main Stem of the Illinois Prairie Path.

Worth a short walk or a long one. Traversing Du Page County is possible on its 61-mile network. During my recent visits, I walked maybe 1 percent of that distance, but I’m considering other segments.

Downtown Glen Ellyn: Murals

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Today I noticed that Animal Crackers (1930) is on one of the streaming services I subscribe to, so naturally I watched the first 15 minutes or so. As you should do, to enjoy Groucho’s definition-of-jaunty rendition of “Hooray for Captain Spaulding.” I was happy to see that the print included a full version of the song – without a briefly jarring cut of one of Groucho’s lines that has marked the song every other time I’ve seen the movie.

Namely, this line:

Mrs. Rittenhouse: He is the only white man who covered every acre —

Spaulding: I think I’ll try and make her —

Guests: Hooray, hooray, hooray!

Exceedingly mild stuff here in the 21st century, but 1930s censors felt differently.

Broadway World reported in 2016: “The new restoration of Animal Crackers includes footage unseen here for over 85 years. In its year-long restoration, Universal utilized a 35mm composite nitrate dupe negative from the British Film Institute. The negative not only contained the best resolution of any other known element, but also contained long-unseen footage excised from U.S. prints in the 1930s due to censorship cuts, including a ribald line in Groucho’s signature ‘Hooray for Captain Spaulding’ number and his song and dance upon returning from Africa, Harpo pulling perennial Marx foil Margaret Dumont’s slip out from under her dress, Groucho telling a joke about a ‘shotgun wedding,’ and more.”

The streaming version must be the 2016 one, since, besides the restoration of lines, its resolution is beautifully crisp. I will be sure to watch the rest of the movie, probably in bits, as I tend to do here at the gates to my dotage, and look for the other moments. Which must have been more skillfully cut, since I didn’t know they were missing.

The clip of the song available on YouTube is a bit fuzzy, but it is lyrically restored.

One more thing along those lines: I discovered that this photo is in the public domain. As is the movie. Yes.

***

Murals aren’t just for cities or small towns. Suburban example: Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

“Spread Your Wings” by Rose Fenske (2026)

“Frida” by Geoff Bevington (2020)

“Downtown Glen Ellyn Murals” by Tony Fitzpatrick (2021)

I’m assuming that “Downtown Glen Ellyn Murals,” generic as it is, is the title of that one.


“It’s About Time” by Alberto Aguilar (2003)

I’ve been to downtown Glen Ellyn twice since the beginning of warm weather this year. In wandering around both times, I came across the murals by chance. The organization Downtown Glen Ellyn provides a little detail.

There are more. Cool.

A shop not far off Main St., which is the main shopping nexus in town, was the last home of Young’s Appliances. Right now a real estate agent’s sign indicates that the place, which looks entirely empty, is for sale.

A storied store, dating from the earlier decades of the 20th century, as middle-class homes started buying household appliances in quantity. As far as I can tell, defunct a few years now, but for all that the sign’s in pretty good shape. Is the sign considered an i-word locally, and so maintained? (I refuse to use icon that way, though I know it’s a losing battle.)

Also not far off main street.

The store is tucked at the back of a multi-tenant retail space on the first floor of a building on Main. Crowded at the moment I took a look, mostly with kids, so I took a pass. But I would like to find out just what flavor of pop culture sometime.

Homer in Lombard

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You hear the most remarkable things sometimes, and I mean unbelievable things, marvelous in their stupidity, in passing in You Tube commercials. I let some ad run while doing something else today, some AI service that promises — pretty big promises — to be your peachy-keen personal assistant in some way. The line that caught my half-attention: “And don’t worry! [Product name] won’t be offended if you want to talk to a real human being.”

Let me italicize the part of that that needs it: “And don’t worry! [Product name] won’t be offended if you want to talk to a real human being.”

What? It’s just my opinion, of course, but taking offense means some sort of emotional capability, yes? As in, one specific to human brains. And AI systems have the emotional capability of a bag of hammers, yes?

Back when we saw Lilacia Park in Lombard, we also took a stroll down St. Charles Street, a major shopping street in that town, north of the Metra commuter rail tracks. A pleasant street with a number of local businesses.

Among other St. Charles Street businesses is Devious FX-Bob James Oddities & Curiosities, but we only spent a short time there. As the store’s web site says, “We offer goth jewelry, unique art, and unusual items you will not see anywhere else.” The skulls for sale, both human (replicas?) and animal, creeped out the other members of my party, so we went on our way.

On Park Ave., which intersects with St. Charles, Homer Simpson shills for a resale shop.

Specifically, JL Vintage Odds and Ends. It isn’t the only place I’ve seen Homer in a probably unauthorized commercial pose. Yet at this point Homer, I believe, belongs to humanity as a whole, strict ideas of intellectual property notwithstanding.

Odds and ends, all right. The oddest thing inside was, again, Homer.