Hometown Postcards Post

 In case you ever want to visit my old hangouts… well… things haven't changed dramatically, around here, at least as far as these images are concerned. 

Okay, I'm lying. Yes they have. 

Almost all of these postcards are from about the time my parents were born, and I'm no spring chicken, myself. 

click any image to embiggen, and please share if you like what you see here

"Monmouth Public Square and Court House, Monmouth, Ill."
When you're alone and life is making you lonely, 
you can always go…

Back of above card,
postmark Monmouth, August 1929

samey-samey, all in caps 8 years later

I like this one's message side

MONMOUTH PARK, MONMOUTH, ILL.
An easy walk from home, if you're fit.
An easier ride. 

VIEW OF MONMOUTH PARK, MONMOUTH ILL.

MONMOUTH COLLEGE CAMPUS, MONMOUTH, ILL.
My alma mater & favorite childhood hangout
The building on the right used to be for science labs & classes. 
Pop's office had been in the basement.
And then, in 1971, they moved Nerdery to
The Second Architectural Abomination.

Message side, also addressed well

[The Second Architectural Abomination;
a.k.a. Haldeman-Thiessen Science Center]

McMICHAEL HOME, GIRLS DORMITORY,
MONMOUTH COLLEGE, MONMOUTH, ILL
One year I had a single, closet-sized room,
in the far corner of the basement.
My neighbor played the bagpipes.
Fortunately, she didn't play them in the dorm.

GYMNASIUM, MONMOUTH COLLEGE, MONMOUTH, ILL.
It used to have a swimming pool in the basement. 
FTR, there were occasions when, after dark,
friends & I went skinny-dipping there. 
But don't tell Pop we were swimming without a lifeguard.

This building no longer exists.

When we first moved to town, I was in grade school, and we rented a dandy old house which had several urinals in the upstairs bathroom, a fire escape from the attic, and a gazillion fruit trees to climb in the side and back yards, all less than a block from that old gymnasium. There was a modern men's dormitory between us and it: the First Architectural Abomination, Gibson Hall. It strongly resembled a modern motel (prompting several students to cross state lines, to steal a semi-portable Holiday Inn sign to put on display during the formal dedication ceremony), and, while it stuck out like a sore thumb next to our mostly neoclassical structures, it also served as an excellent playground for pre-teen me and my pre-teen pals. We raced and climbed all over its concrete & I-beam balconies and slid down the muddy hill beside it. During a later summer, I earned a paycheck or two applying fresh paint to its walls, ceilings, doors, and beams.

Ah! for those halcyon days!