We’ve been to Ned Brown Forest Preserve more recently than February 2012, but I can’t remember when, so it’s been a while. With temps above freezing and the sun shining as brightly as it can in February, we decided to take a walk there on Sunday.
Good thing we weren’t in the mood for a picnic.
Plenty of people had been there before us.
But no bicycles. That’s the best thing about these trails in winter. In warmer weather, especially on a weekend, you play dodge ’em with the two wheelers if you’re a mere pedestrian.
Ice fishing is at your own risk on Busse Lake. Does it look like a good day for it?
Apparently it was, at least on a small sliver of the surface. Of course, we’ve had some deep cold recently, so I guess that’s what kept these people from dropping into the icy drink.
Fun for some. For our part, we walked around to the dam that forms Busse Lake by blocking Salt Creek. This is the view from the dam toward the lake.
Last Thursday temps were around freezing during the day, which is pretty good in Illinois for that oddity of an occasion, Groundhog Day.
The day shares more than one might think with Christmas, though of course it isn’t an all-consuming religious and cultural event in much of the world, just a relatively minor one. Still, it has pagan taproots connected to astronomical lore in northern Europe, an association with a Christian holiday (Candlemass), folklore imported from German-speaking lands, Victorians putting it in its modern form, a universal appearance on North American calendars (Canadians take note of the day too), and famed representations in mass media in the 20th century (e.g., Groundhog Day).
The closest show-marmot event to where we live seems to be the one involving Woodstock Willie, whose effigy I saw in the warmer month of July. We weren’t inclined to trudge all the way to exurban Woodstock on Thursday for the event, however.
Rather, we loaded ourselves and the dog in the car for the less than 10-minute drive to Schaumburg Town Square for a walkabout, after certain other errands. We knew that Friday was to be bitterly cold, so wanted to get out in the tolerable temps (still around freezing) before that happened.
No festivities going on there. In fact, no one else was there at all. Still plenty of ice on the pond and snow on the ground.
A Polar Trac stands ready to deal with more snow.
No venturing out onto the ice. Of course. I didn’t need a red flag to tell me that.
Hard to believe, but this patch of ground, a garden —
— is going to have an entirely different character –
Before leaving Bloomington on Sunday, I took a quick look at a couple of churches. Holy Trinity is an imposing brick edifice at Main and Chestnut not far from downtown. Walkable distance, in fact, except on a cold day, so I drove from near the former courthouse and parked across the street for my look.
It’s a 1930s art deco replacement for a 19th-century structure that burned down early on the morning of March 8, 1932. I found a digitized book, History of Holy Trinity Parish by the Rt. Rev. Msgr. S.N. Moore (1952), that describes the event.
“It would be hard to say how the fire started, but there were suspicious circumstances,” he wrote, then mentioning other fires in town all within a few days of the burning of the church, including ones at a dance pavilion and another at a grade school.
“At this time, because of the depression, the Communists were very active in Bloomington. The fires in Bloomington did follow a certain pattern – the church, the school, both of which of necessity be soon replaced.”
Reds, huh? Well, maybe. Insurance paid for the current building, designed by A.F. Moratz, a busy local architect, according to the always informative Pantagraph.
Less than a mile to the west is Historic Saint Patrick’s, dating from the late 19th century and not the site of a fire that I know of, communist-set or otherwise. I assume the church was originally built for the area’s Irish population.
I went inside. A mass was in progress, so I didn’t take pictures. A fellow named Kevin did, and it’s a nice collection.
One more thing caught my attention near the former McLean County Courthouse on Sunday: a plaque set in bricks.
Center Street
Site
First brick pavement in the United States
Innovation to modern highways
Installed 1877 by Napoleon B. Heafer
This plaque set in original paving brick and
presented to the city of Bloomington May 11, 1968
By Bloomington Junior High School students
Their participation in Illinois
sesquicentennial observance.
A small thing of note, if true. A small amount of investigation reveals, however, that it isn’t true, at least according to Bill Kemp of the McLean County Museum of History, and I’m inclined to believe him rather than a class of junior high kids from 50+ years ago (and I’ve cited Kemp before).
“This stubborn, well-worn myth has been around for nearly a century, if not longer, though as often is the case with local legends and lore, there is some truth to the story,” the Pentagraph reported in 2012 in an article by Kemp. “The plaque correctly states that Napoleon B. Heafer ‘installed’ a stretch of brick pavement in 1877, and it’s mostly correct in that this represented an ‘innovation to modern highways’ (though ‘streets’ would be a more appropriate word choice than ‘highways’).
“The first U.S. patent for brick paving dates to 1868, and some claim Charleston, W. Va., laid the nation’s first brick street in 1873.”
Just another example of origination folklore, looks like. In the same category as the first hamburger or the invention of baseball. I’d say the story of Napoleon B. Heafer himself is much more interesting than the assertion that he did the first brick paving of a street (he’s pictured to the right, image borrowed from the museum).
A failed prospector out west, Heafer’s one of those 19th-century businessmen that came out of nowhere and by dint of imagination and his own hard work – or luck and the toil of his employees, take your pick – made a fortune supplying something urgently needed right then by the growing nation.
“In 1861, Heafer and James McGregor established a brick yard at the corner of Hannah Street and Croxton Avenue [in Bloomington],” the museum explains. “Over the next 23 years, N.B. Heafer and Co. expanded to include seven acres of ground and multiple brick yards as well as a large pond that was often used for swimming parties. By 1883 Heafer claimed that it was the largest clay tile factory in the United States.
“In the late 1880s, the brick and tile industry peaked due to an incredibly high demand from farmers needing a way to drain their swampy fields… after much experimentation, Heafer made his first brick tile pipe in 1879. It was a round tile with a diameter of about 3 inches. Later he made them as large as 24-30 inches in diameter, which was more effective. Eventually nearly every farm in the county was drained to some extent, employing clay tiles.”
Now we’re in the pit of winter. Temps last night and into the morning dipped below zero Fahrenheit for some hours and didn’t rise much higher than positive single digits afterward. As of posting time, it’s 3 degrees F. hereabouts. But at least the roads aren’t iced over, as they are in parts of the South.
As far as I’m concerned, zero Fahrenheit is the gold standard for cold, as 100 F. is for heat. Thus demonstrating the genius of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit when it came to thermometry, though I don’t disparage those other men of science, Anders Celsius or William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin or even William Rankine.
Temps (F) weren’t quite as cold when I took Ann back to Normal on Sunday, and there was no snow, so the traveling along I-55 was easy enough. Once I’d dropped her off, I took note of the fact that it was still light. So I headed to downtown Bloomington, where I’ve spent some wintertime moments, and took a look at the former McLean County Courthouse, now home to the McLean County Museum of History.
Impressive. Design credit is given to a Peoria firm, Reeves and Baillie, who were busy in their time, it seems.
This is the third – or fourth – building on the site, depending on whether you count the restoration following a major fire 1900 (the small image is post-fire). Whatever the count, the building took its current form in the first years of the 20th century, and remained an actual courthouse until 1976.
For the last 30 years or so, the museum has occupied all four floors of the place. Ann told me she and some friends went there one day earlier this semester and found it worth the visit. I would have gone in, but it’s closed on Sundays. So I had to content myself with the sights to be seen circumambulating the building.
Such as war memorials.
It took considerably longer to get around to this one.
In Illinois, Lincoln Was Here plaques are plentiful.
Looks like Lincoln is still in Bloomington. Bronze Lincoln anyway, and those are plentiful in the Land of Lincoln too. Of course they are.
By local artist Rick Harney and dedicated in 2000. That’s the bearded, presidential Lincoln, so one that never actually would have made an appearance in Bloomington, but never mind. Lincoln is Lincoln.
Heavy snow on Saturday, but not a blizzard. Not so much that we couldn’t visit the Korean barbecue restaurant Koreana at Ann’s request, just as we did last year.
We had barbecue, of course, cooked on the grill that the waiter is lighting above, but we also ordered a dish we didn’t have last time, ddukbokki. Glad I made note of that name.
“These days, ddukbokki most often refers to spicy stir-fried rice cakes: pleasantly chewy logs smothered in a fiery red, gochujang-based sauce, often accompanied by sliced fishcakes or crunchy vegetables, dotted with scallions and sesame seeds, and topped with an egg,” the Food Network explains.
Despite the national egg shortage – I like to think the chickens are on strike, but actually a lot of them are simply dead — the restaurant didn’t short us on the egg.
“It’s commonly found at street food stalls or bunsik shops peppered all throughout Korea’s neighborhoods, granting hungry citizens easy access at any time of day,” FN continues. “Stateside, it’s been popping up at Korean food courts, pubs and even at local corner shops.”
Good to know. It’s a fine food for winter, spicy but not too spicy, chewy but not too chewy.
On the way to Koreana, we stopped at a favorite grocery store source for pie (and the birthday candles for the pie). While passing the liquor section, I noticed this.
That’s a thing? Apparently so. More than one brand. I didn’t know that, but I’m not a whiskey-drinkin’ man. In any case, I’m not planning to buy any.
Ann came home for the weekend, riding Amtrak from Normal to Summit on Friday night. I drove her back today. We’d be glad to see her any time, but there was an occasion: the weekend closest to her 20th birthday.
Her birthday pie.
The cliché is that children grow up fast, but it’s just a cliché. Twenty years is a fair chunk of time for anyone.
“Maybe you can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain, but there are a lot more interesting places to go in later decades, metaphorically and literally,” I wrote about Lilly five-plus years ago. The same goes for Ann.
Since I gave generative AI a whirl in creating text last week, it seemed only reasonable that I give one of the image-oriented generative AI sites a try too. First I consulted its FAQ page about copyright. The verbiage is weaselly indeed, but since this is such a new frontier in copyright, I suppose that can’t be helped. It said:
AI-generated images may not be subject to copyright protection in some jurisdictions.
You will have the rights to sell the images and use them privately or commercially (provided that they do not include any third-party content that is protected by copyrights or trademarks), but you might not have the exclusive right to use them and to exclude others from doing so. For more information about your specific rights, we advise you to contact a local counsel.
What local counsel would know? Anyway, with that in mind, my prompt was a bit of nonsense that I dreamed up in college, not anything borrowed from anyone else. How did I come up with it? After 40+ years, that eludes me. No matter.
Playing shot glass checkers at a bowling alley while watching [an old horror movie] on big-screen TV.
The original phrasing actually included the title of a well-known mid-century B&W movie, but to be absolutely sure I’m not stepping on any copyright, I’m omitting it here. Considering the images the AI made, it would be impossible to guess the title, unless there’s something I’m missing.
Anyway, the AI brain spit out three images, which are posted here unretouched.
Underwhelming, I’d say, but give the brain time. The faces are especially bizarre. Still inhabitants of uncanny valley, looks like.
Then I pulled another bit of nonsense from my past – a little after college, I think – but I don’t remember the context. The phrase stuck with me, though.
Death is like stepping off the orange.
So I fed that into the AI. With a little adjustment, the first one could be an album cover.
Again, give it time. What we really need, though, is an AI 3D printer that will make anything and everything. A replicator. Talk about disruption.
Arthur C. Clarke posited such a machine in his book Profiles of the Future, as I recall. Once you made the first one, you could have a limitless supply of them, as they replicated themselves. As he says in this 1964 clip, such a machine would sink the world into “gluttonous barbarism,” though he also notes that human beings are “almost infinitely adaptable.”
Interesting that he used the term replicator. Just another thing that Star Trek borrowed, unless it was a coincidental naming.
Sure enough, overnight as forecast, the first sizable snow fell since the fun we had around Christmastime. I packed a camera when I was out shoveling this morning.
Been documenting snow on plants for quite a while now. Nothing quite compares to the towering honey locust in the back yard.
Not much wind. That makes it tolerable. Winter winds are sharp, but not quite as much as certain other things, as we’re reminded in As You LikeIt.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly…
Flickering out in the night in my back yard, near the deck, is a solar lantern. I’m a little surprised it glows in the winter, but apparently it gets the juice it needs from the limited amount of sunlight that the day provides.
Back in the summer of 2021, we acquired a set of lanterns, one a tabletop light, the other designed to top out a pole of about three feet. Same box, same manufacturer. They both glowed by night for a few weeks, but then the tabletop unit failed. Being a cheap Middle Kingdom-made item, we didn’t bother with a return.
The stick stands with a lean that has proven hard to straighten, so I let it lean.
The light itself has soldiered on this year and a half.
