Fletcher Farrar

A green carpet of moss at the campground welcomed the two of us to the trailhead. We crossed a dry creek bed and followed the sign for the White Pine Trail. Past a green swamp, then up easy slopes, a cool September breeze followed us into the Shawnee National Forest. A mile later, our trail […]

The weekend was full of neighborhood moments. Friday evening we walked from our house a couple of blocks, past children skipping rope on the sidewalk, for walleye sandwiches at Suzie-Q’s. We ran into several neighbors and friends, as we always do there. On Saturday I played uncle to a 3-year-old at the park across the […]

Two St. Louis men were arrested last month after being seen operating video cameras in the vicinity of City Water, Light and Power’s coal-fired generating station. Turns out they were filming ducks on Lake Springfield, but hey, you can’t be too careful these days, right? You can be too careful about some things and not […]

If talk picked up trash, Mayor Tim Davlin would have the town clean by now. All year he has been talking to neighborhood associations about his big plans to reform Springfield’s municipal waste system. This summer he convened a series of meetings with landlords and neighborhood activists. I attended as a representative of The Springfield […]

Conventional wisdom in Illinois says that politicians who take politically difficult positions are doomed to defeat, but the late Paul Simon always challenged that. “It is not true,” he boomed back to me not so long ago, after I had voiced the cynical view. He said if you’re honest with voters and make a case […]

When the federal district court issued its Springfield consent decree in 1974, it aimed at the achievement gap but missed. Because racially segregated schools were unequal, integration was proposed as a remedy. Busing was the blunt instrument employed to equal things up, and it helped. School buildings were integrated and resources were improved, but the […]