Warrior days

My days as a hardwood hero

It’s that time of year again, when youth gangs dressed improbably in bloomers and armed with basketballs rumble at the gym to defend the honor of the Red and Black or the Green and White –

Monument to a dead building

Display the “lost” lintel from the old Lincoln Library

What, I wonder, is the overdue fine on a library lintel that was lost for 36 years? The carved stone lintel that stood atop the main entrance to the old library building had been salvaged when the bui

The new Know Nothings

What voters don’t know can hurt everyone else

The late Daniel Moynihan, who represented New York in the upper chamber of Congress in the days when the U.S. still had senators, once observed that while everyone is entitled to his opinion, he is no

Dim reflections

Few Illinois governors write memoirs worth reading

It is always a relief to turn off the TV set and pick up a good book, and never more than after a political campaign season such as that just finished in Illinois. Indeed, reading is essential for any

‘A little bit of a challenge’

If the MacArthur plan works, more than the street might be saved

Like people, streets suffer midlife crises. MacArthur Boulevard between South Grand and Wabash has been going through one for years. The former West Grand Avenue, one of Springfield’s four grand

Green is as green does

A while back I remarked that Mayor Tim Davlin has his work cut out for him if he wants to see Springfield ranked as the top environmental city in the U.S. (“Greener than thou,” Sept. 16) I

Wicked Springfield

New book catalogs hometown vices in the Lincoln era

“This book is not about Abraham Lincoln and his virtues,” announces Erika Holst in her introduction to Wicked Springfield: Crime, Corruption & Scandal during the Lincoln Era. “It

What good are public libraries?

A commercial ethos creeps into the stacks

A library used to be one of the first things to be established by any town that wished to call itself advanced. Of late, spending on the library is one of the first things a town cuts back. Many a may

Getting teaching right

How to develop a more professional teaching corps

Knowing what doesn’t work in the classroom may help keep a mediocre school from becoming a worse one, but only knowing what does work in the classroom can turn a mediocre school into a good one.

Still alternative after all these years

Springfield and Illinois Times after 35 years

I don’t often look at calendars – so often they remind me that there is an editor somewhere, impatiently drumming his fingers on his desk because the article draft I’d promised him i