Fear of withdrawal

This from somebody close to me (how close, I dare not say) :

I am worried. The news is not good. We have a government which has been corrupt, incapable of true governing, and, in general, a political and social failure. Our largest city has suffered another weekend of violence and death, and another city, on our border, shows signs of uncontained violence which might spill over again into our own regions, and which has already claimed the lives of some of our own.

I am afraid the US will withdraw its support, and we innocents in the otherwise peaceful Forgottonia will suffer the fallout from the troubles.

My toes disqualify me

I don't think I can work at this place on North Main Street in Monmouth, IL.



I have irregular toes.

Wells bin 'splodin

One of our local landmarks suffered another indignity, yesterday, and I missed it because I was coughing up a lung...

The Wells Elevator, a grain elevator a few blocks outside the center of Monmouth, IL, had, for a decade or two, been celebrated by having the college student arts publication named after it. Some years back, somebody managed to put a star and a flag atop it, so it became (in spirit, if not in actual fact) the highest spot in town. It's been a cultural fixture, as well as an architectural... lump.

And, yesterday afternoon, the grain dust got to it, it seems. It's likely that the company will have to take down the old bin, since it's top has been rather dramatically cracked, and its structural integrity will have been compromised.

Bummer.

A funny thing happened

On my way through impersonal corporate rejection, I was actually recognized by face and name, by an insurance agent I see maybe twice a year... and what's more, he was able to help me.

It all started out with a windstorm... the pictures of the pickup truck with the tree resting oh-so-gently upon it are from directly in front of my house. But that wasn't the only tree branch damage. In my back yard, I had a rather substantial shade tree, as well. I'm told it was a slippery elm, but I don't know trees except deciduous and evergreen. This one was deciduous (other trees drop leaves in the fall -- mine drop large branches), and about 45-50 feet tall, with a crotch about 7 feet off the ground starting to split (I've heard of split-crotch panties, but probably not in this size), and with a smaller tree trying to take root in the divide. At any rate, while this large tree in the back had not, as yet, split asunder and landed upon my garage, the neighbors' garages, and the neighbor's house, it was only a matter of time.

As a matter of fact, it decided, during this summer's storm, to drop a 16-inch diameter major branch onto my garage roof -- my pretty corrugated fiberglass garage roof, which Pop just finished three summers ago! I called the insurance office (State Farm) and asked if there were any point to filing a claim -- would somebody like to come look at it and give me a reasonable assessment, or was that a stupid thing to do? Mostly, I was trying to keep Pop from doing himself grievous bodily harm in the few days before his 50th-anniversary-gift trip with Mom to Alaska. If left to his own devices, he'd have climbed up ladders, tossed a couple of ropes about, and wrenched his back trying to remove the giant tree limb from the garage roof. Then where would his trip have gone? No train, no ferry, no Alaska -- just to bed and Grumbleburg!

At any rate, the insurance company sent an adjuster out, filed a claim for me to the tune of $33 above my deductible. Apparently, just phoning them constitutes filing a claim (I did not know this -- I thought one could ask without committing to an actual claim. Isn't that what some company's ads say you can do?) A few weeks later, I got a check in the mail for $33. Whoopee.

Next thing I know, though, I'm getting a letter informing me that, because I've had three claims in six years, they're canceling my policy, as of the first of the year. Over a $33 check! (exclamation point!!!!)

So right before Thanksgiving (a few days after having received the notice), Mom and I (Mom and Pop are part-owners of my house) went down to the agent's office, and asked if we could get a little help. The assistants said the boss, Jon Ferguson, was out sick, then took our names & number, said she'd have him call us when he got back to work.

Well, a month went by. We didn't see Ferguson's name in the obits, so we went by his office again last week, assuming that our note simply got lost in the stacks of messages (it's been a busy year around here). He was in... and mostly recovered. We told him of my plight, he called the main office in Bloomington, IL, and managed to get a reversal of the decision to cancel -- and he even had my payments reduced, with a little restructuring. He said to the person on the phone, after all, our family had been steady customers of his since we returned to this community, and had been with State Farm since... I dunno, since time immemorial, I guess, and it seemed sorta problematic to lose a customer over a $33 check, anyway (that should have never been submitted as a claim, said he, and should be considered an "office error"), especially since the offending trees have now been removed at chainsaw-point, so there's no further risk of tree damage to the house or garage (unless one of the neighbor's trees gets picked up and blown over one of their houses and into mine). He drove over by my house, took a photo or two to e-mail to the main office, as evidence of tree absence.

I received a "disregard previous letter" letter yesterday, in my mailbox.

I genuinely appreciate doing business with Jon Ferguson -- he's what an insurance agent ought to be: friendly, professional, swift and helpful. He treated Mom and me as human beings, and kept me from getting lost in the big, bad system.

And I love living in a small town, where people know each other and actually care!

(BTW -- a friend of mine has been doing the basic emergency repairs. The down side to living here is, we have so few reliable contractors available to do "small jobs." Many of us have had to learn to do our own simple tasks, like roofing, plumbing, wiring, and such, or depend upon the kindness of neighbors.)

Monmouth's Living Windows draws good crowds

Thursday night we in Monmouth were hit with a couple of inches of snow

so conditions were pretty good by Friday evening, when Downtown Monmouth had its Living Windows Festival. I got a call from my friend, Janet, asking me if I'd like to join her in exploring events at the downtown extravaganza, so I agreed to meet her about an hour before things were to start.

I got there just a little early, so I took a few pictures of some of the bigger, better buildings in the downtown area, like the Court House

and the Colonial Bank, in full Christmas regalia

and a shot of the barber shop near the old theater.

My friend Marsha's store window was filled with fun -- Santa and his elf, Eric were getting wild and crazy

On the square, Ronald McDonald greeted cookie-buyers and cocoa-hunters

while, in the Christian book store, sweet songs wafted across the shelves, a cappella

and an electric piano accompanied three members of a barber-shop quartet (with surprisingly good results!), at the Wells Fargo bank.

But the big draw is always the Buchanan Center for the Arts/Warren County Library corner. Crowds outside were, sometimes, ten bodies thick, to see

the kids performing in the windows of the BCA.

From the inside, you could see how much magic was in the air

Ghosts of Degas

Past and present

Back out on the street again -- rides in horse-drawn carriages were available for a small fee.

Santa's helpers were following in Hermey's footsteps

To cap off our evening, Janet and I made our way to Turnbull Funeral Home, where, each year, the Monmouth College bagpipers have come to perform in the main parlor...

Following a rousing performance of Scotland the Brave, Janet and I went to the Maple City Baptist Church a block away, where members of the congregation were serving a hot supper -- coffee, cocoa, choice of chili or hot dog, and a variety of deserts. We ended our evening at the door, after having our fill. We said our farewells, I drove home and collapsed, falling almost instantly to sleep, with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head (or, maybe it was sugar-Clydesdales?).

More Music from Monmouth Civic Orchestra

I'll be leaving this up at the top of the page, as a reminder of the upcoming concert in Monmouth, IL. I hope to see more than a few of you all there, Sunday, 2 December! Our community's arts and artists deserve -- and need -- all the support they can get.

Meet me at the fair

So, Thursday evening, after I attended to all the beasties in our many houses (and got soaked to the skin in the process of returning Rizzo from his playground/yard to his home), I made my way to the fairgrounds, to meet up with my friend and classmate, Janet.
(click any photo for larger view)

For the record, the rains stopped just as I got Rizzo indoors.

For the further record, I'm not a big fan of the midway activities. When I go to the fair, I like to stop at the tents and booths, and to see whatever shows they have scheduled.

I don't generally ride the rides or play the games.

I leave that stuff for those who will genuinely enjoy them.

Instead, Janet and I managed to arrive only a few minutes after the start of the performance by Mad Chad Taylor, the chain saw juggler.

Taylor managed to entertain a modest audience, including the WCPBF Princess and her court -- he worked 2007 Princess Jane Lovdahl into his act...
and a couple of strapping young men

before he cleared the stage and brought out the chain saws.

The show was a success (for all that it had so small a crowd). Afterward, I was out of energy and inclination to stay around the fairgrounds, so I made my way back to the car (parked at the back of the midway), and gave one last glance back before coming home to the beasties.

See also: DRA coverage of "Mad Chad" Taylor's performance. The last four grafs give an idea of what we, by arriving just a tad late, stumbled into the middle of... juggling ex-jugs!?!

Soggy parade (part deux)

So, the rains came in earnest, and the folks in the parade were real troupers

Sticking it out, hoping for the next break in the rains to be the one long enough for everybody to finish the show...

Even IL State Representative Rich Myers bore with it in fairly good humor...

But I'm betting these kids wished their church had built an ark, instead of this float.

Still, my favorite part of any parade in town is

always going to be the Highlanders...

er, rather...

the Monmouth College Pipe Band (I don't know if I can adapt to all the changes since my antediluvian terms of scholarship).

At least the WCPBF Princess court had appropriate transportation:

and Jane Lovdahl handled the moisture with considerable grace

But I'm not so sure about the rest... they had bumbershoots, the cheaters! ;-)

Harding Elementary School, I think, was tossing out mardi gras beads from the back of a soaking wet truck bed...

And the IL home Extension groups were pretty soggy, as well...

As was the 4-H float.

But the crowds, and the participants, seemed to thin out as the rains became progressively heavier.

I stayed long enough to see the Monmouth College Marching Band finally stomp through... Nice to see they no longer have to march in their jammies.

Not the most flattering, but perhaps the more appropriate "majorette" uniforms...

These guys really rock, for a group still new to the college. The music department should be proud.

And with the arrival of these twirlers came the heaviest of the rains.

I was sopping wet, and I was afraid my camera -- not designed for immersion -- would give up the ghost if I let it stay out in the worst of it, so I went home. I hope I was one of a very few... but the pouring rains didn't stop until 6:00, a full hour after they started.

Some day, I will invest in a rain suit, maybe one like the Gorton's Fisherman wears. For the camera. Me, I like getting soaked to the skin. Even on parade day.