The Don Smith Band, a State Fair tradition
Here’s a fairly interesting fair fact. During every Illinois State Fair for the last 31 years, some version of a Don Smith group played somewhere on the fairgrounds. The really cool thing is this: the 71-year-old, Lincoln native has played the fair for more than half his 57-year career as a trumpet player and bandleader.…
Historical fiction
Theatre in the Park Executive Director Kari Catton won a national award in the Jackie White Children’s Playwriting Contest for her original play, Healin’ Home. This Theatre in the Park production runs five nights under the direction of Springfield’s Deborah Whitson. The play involves three orphaned siblings in 1910 desperate to stay together. They run…
Cornell chicken
I first encountered Cornell Chicken in Steven Raichlen’s BBQ America cookbook. Intrigued with the recipe and its history, I made it. But my family’s consensus was that while it was good, it certainly wasn’t anything special. Recently, however, after watching an episode about Cornell Chicken on PBS’s “Cook’s Country,” I gave it another try. This…
Majestic metal
The Sangamon Brass Quintet has an upcoming performance on Aug. 24 from 7:30-8:30 p.m. at the Washington Park gazebo. Bring your chairs and enjoy classical and contemporary music in a casual outdoor setting. Members are Byrd Davis on trumpet, Aaron Duncan on trumpet, Jan Dungey on French horn, Matt Traeger on trombone, and Stuart Farris…
The most famous State Fair food you’ve probably never heard of
Certain foods have become intrinsically linked with state fairs throughout most of the nation. Salt water taffy. Snow cones. Cotton candy. Lemonade shakeups. Recently there’s been an influx of increasingly bizarre items that are deep-fried or on a stick – or both. Many are outrageously over-the-top, the heights of their caloric content only equaled by…
The downgrading of America
As Lily Tomlin noted, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s almost impossible to keep up.” Many of us view the deficit ceiling brouhaha between the Obama White House and the laissez-fairy extremists in the Republican House as some combination of farce and fiasco. So much political playacting around a made-up deficit “crisis” in order…
Ossie’s incredible journey
He’s lived in Springfield for nearly 70 years – most of it with his wife, Midge, and their 13 children in a rambling white clapboard house at the corner of Whittier and Laurel Ave. But at age 85, Ossie Langfelder says he still longs to go home. “Home was Vienna, Austria,” he says. “My relatives,…
lincolnpoem # 8
american friends living in germany these past thirty years visited last week we did the lincoln circuit john was contemplating the statued group in themuseum’s reception rotunda a welcomer said to him do you know who they are? of course said john it’s george washington and his family I’m not stupid you know to her…
A HAUNTED HAUNTED HOUSE
Every October since 1992, Vicky Tyler has turned either the local Forest City parks, her home or now a series of old properties into the ultimate haunting experience that visitors travel hours to see. Forest City, a town of about 300 residents, is about an hour north of Springfield, in Mason County. “We’re bloody. We’re…
Plummer leaving Springfield Chamber
Gary Plummer is leaving his post as president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce to become head of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce in Kansas. Plummer’s last day will be Sept. 12. Erich Bloxdorf, now executive vice president, will become interim president of the Springfield chamber. Plummer, 53, came to Springfield…
30 Minutes goes nowhere fast
If there’s one thing Jesse Eisenberg needs to do right now, it’s fire his agent. The actor’s followup to widely praised The Social Network, ends up being a comedy with few laughs sporting a plot that sputters like an engine in need of a tuneup. 30 Minutes or Less probably looked like a good idea…
The Graduate
After six years as an up and coming band on the national music scene, The Graduate is done. The 20-something band, featuring Corey Warning (vocals), Matt Kennedy (guitar, keyboard, vocals), Max Sauer (guitar, vocals), Jared Wuestenberg (bass) and Tim Moore (drums, vibraphone, keyboard, vocals) “accomplished more than we ever could have dreamed” during their tenure…
With classrooms scarce, teachers get carts
Students aren’t the only ones who need to worry about getting to class on time this year. Traveling teachers, known as “teachers on a cart,” will also be shuffling through the crowded hallways when school begins. Last year at Springfield High School there were approximately 14 teachers on a cart. Without their own designated classroom,…
Instant composing
Here’s something you’ve never seen or heard in Springfield. For one night on Aug. 19 the Springfield Art Association welcomes the group Jazz Canvas. Jazz Canvas consists of Washington state artist Tracie Marsh and jazz musicians Terry Marsh, Josh Mason and Leigh Knowles Metteer creating together a blend of the sounds of jazz and the…
Letters to the Editor 8/18/11
DCFS FAILS KIDS While I appreciate the article on the mental health issues of adopted foster children, I do have to object to the article’s title [see “When adoptions go wrong: Giving up custody to get kids the mental health care they need,” by Patrick Yeagle, Aug. 11]. Adoptions don’t go wrong. Adoptive parents love…
Study recommends 10th Street rail
Springfield’s long-awaited railroad consolidation study calls 10th Street the best option, but the project’s fate remains murky as the federal government examines a new alternative and the availability of funding. Prepared by Hanson Professional Services of Springfield with a summary released by the City of Springfield on its website last week, the consolidation study analyzed…
September Days of Compassion
A group of local citizens named the Prairieland Compassion Network wants to increase civility and compassion in central Illinois. Guided by the Charter for Compassion, a worldwide move to action of the Golden Rule, they are partnering with area faith and secular organizations in an attempt to transform Springfield into a more compassionate community. This…
When state, not adoption, goes wrong
Regarding your Aug. 11 cover story, “When adoption goes wrong: Giving up custody to get kids the mental health care they need,” by Patrick Yeagle: A better title for this article would be “Trading custody rights for mental health care.” Our adoption did not “go wrong.” We love and unconditionally accept our adoptive children despite…
Springfield charity ends work in Haiti
Dr. H. Brent DeLand of Springfield recalls doing minor surgery while on a humanitarian trip to Haiti in 2002, as his friend and later charity co-founder Greg Richmond of Chicago held a single light bulb aloft for light inside a one-room clinic in the Cité Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. “I said, ‘Greg, can you…
The Help gets help from good acting
If nothing else, Tate Taylor’s film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller The Help is full of good intentions. The director is intent on displaying the injustice of racism in the Deep South during the 1960s as graphically as a PG-13 rating will allow. Yet his approach is undercut by his script, which far too often…
Modern minstrels
Poets, we are reliably told, once were creatures of the street and the court, not the study, and poetry was sung, or at least recited. That past lives again every year when Springfield area schoolkids take the stage during the Poetry Out Loud recitation competition, whose winners have a chance to go on, if not…
Industrial acreage to become wildlife preserve At Illiopolis plant, Monsanto partners with area scho
Illiopolis residents might soon have a new area to relax and visit geese, quail, pheasants and other native wildlife within their natural environment. The agriculture company Monsanto has 14 acres of land on its seed corn producing Illiopolis site which could become a protected place for area wildlife. The company is partnering with Sangamon Valley…
Budget cuts tie Helping Hands
Without access to a car, 49-year-old Lloyd McCullough walks more than four miles, six days a week, to get from Helping Hands shelter on the corner of 11th and Adams streets to his stocking job at Menard’s, on the northeast edge of town. Homeless since a breakup in May, McCullough hopes each night that his…
Walk to heal
Saturday, Aug. 20, the American Cancer Society wants to honor service and family dogs that provide love and companionship for cancer patients and their families, while raising money for local efforts. Some of the fun activities at this walk event include an extreme K-9 dog training demo, musical sit competition, doggy costume contest, dog and…
Ratings agencies worry about fiscal future of Illinois
As we are all too painfully aware, the past few weeks have been beyond crazy. Congress and the president took the nation to the brink of default. Standard & Poor’s lowered the federal government’s credit rating by a notch. The markets devolved into a swooning bipolar frenzy. And the political rancor emanating from Washington, D.C.,…
SUPPLIES! IT’S SCHOOL TIME!
There’s a new online school-supply company for parents of children in Springfield elementary schools that’s giving back to the community with every purchase. The company, called American Student Supply, sells name-brand materials that are grade-specific, called MyPacks, which come in a nifty nylon drawstring bag. The bag is child-safe, of course. MyPacks are not available…
