When the Vietnam War came to a small town in Illinois

When the Vietnam War Came to a small town in Illinois.
 
This is one of my more moving essays about growing up in the Illinois Valley back in the 1960s/1970s.

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100,000 Page Visits and Counting

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.
When I visited my blog this afternoon, I was in for a pleasant surprise: I reached the 100,000 page visits milestone.
It’s nice to know that my blog has received as much attention as it has since I started keeping one a few [...]

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The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster

One of America’s deadliest mining disasters occurred in the small town of Cherry, Illinois one hundred years ago on November 13, 1909 when 259 miners lost their lives.
Located in Bureau County Illinois—approximately 90 miles southwest of Chicago—Cherry was a newly erected town built near the mine named after James Cherry who was superintendent of the [...]

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Starved Rock State Park – Named after a Native American legend

One of Illinois’ “Seven Wonders” and more popular state parks—famous for its fascinating canyons and sandstone formations—is also best known for the legend that the park and one of those formations is named after.
Located outside of Utica, Illinois—approximately 75 miles southwest of Chicago—along the banks of the Illinois River, the park is best known for [...]

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MTV in Goose’s Basement — A work in progress

There was a time when MTV was cool. I mean really cool, like a long, long, long time ago in another galaxy far, far, away cool. Back when the only thing you saw and listened to on MTV were videos. And if the videos programmed for any particular hour or block of time came up [...]

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Cherry’s Merry Pranksters

If you asked Eddie Parker what happened on Halloween 50 years ago, he would swear on his father’s grave that he wasn’t afraid that Old Man Brown was waiting for them with a rock salt loaded shotgun on that fateful night.
“I swear he knew we was coming and was loaded for bear,” said Eddie taking [...]

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The pig with false teeth

Today is my grandfather Erwin “Shorty” Miller’s birthday. I have written a few essays about him and in remembrance of his birthday today (he passed away in 1997) I would like to share this essay.
My paternal grandfather loved to tell a good story. Although he was by no means a skilled raconteur, he just loved [...]

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Go ahead and jump!

“Go ahead and jump.”
It was our first full-week of summer vacation back in 1975 and my friend David W. and I were rehearsing a scene for one of those movies. It was the summer between junior and senior year of high school and I still had this dream of heading off to film school when [...]

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The unexamined life is not worth living: Personal favorites and popular posts #2

Since I started blogging a little over five years ago I’ve blogged about all kinds of topics and subjects from the birth of Jeremy Aaron and my life in Asia to waxing nostalgic about growing up in the 1960s/1970s and serving in the United States Air Force.
With over 1200 posts, I have some personal favorites, [...]

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Corn Detasseling: A summer rite of passage

For many teenagers growing up in America’s Midwest their first summer job is often not working at some fast food restaurant or other service-related employment, but instead detasseling corn.
The neat thing about corn detasseling was that you didn’t have to be 16 to work, but instead only 13.
Back in the summer of 1971, my friend [...]

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