World-famous folk songwriter and songster Arlo Guthrie performs March 16 in Springfield on his Journey On Tour with special guests The Burns Sisters. Listen to well-known classics such as his 1967 hit, “Alice’s Restaurant,” and the ’72 rendition of “City of New Orleans.” An accomplished musician who plays piano, six and twelve-string guitar, harmonica and […]
springfield
Posted inOpinion
Living too high off the hog
Springfield has become to sick people what Decatur is to soybeans, a major regional processing center in which raw materials are processed by the latest in high-tech machinery into novel products such as tennis-playing octogenarians and bankers with a 60-year-old’s bank account and a 30-year-old’s heart. According to published reports, this year the local medico-insurance […]
Posted inOpinion
‘A neat and appropriate address’
When I lived on the east side in the 1980s, I often walked past the building now called the Lincoln Depot on my way to and from downtown. Many’s the time I found myself having to wait while a freight train ambled down the track, and to kill time in that pre-Kindle age I read […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hard rock
Rock band Hinder comes to the Prairie Capital Convention Center on Monday, Feb. 21. You probably heard these guys on the radio with their hit single, “Lips of an Angel.” The band proclaims their new album, “All American Nightmare,” is harder rock and comes from a more personal place. Members of the band include: Austin […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Girl talk
An off-Broadway and international hit sensation, Menopause the Musical makes its way onto the stage of Sangamon Auditorium, UIS, for two shows, Feb. 22-23. Funnier than funny, the musical takes place at a lingerie sale in New York City’s Bloomingdale’s. Four strangers come together over a black lace bra and some mature girl talk. You’ll […]
Posted inNews
Will the next mayor please step forward?
Every candidate has ideas for what they will do when they are elected mayor. Spend more wisely, they say. Encourage business growth, develop the medical district and bring in more tourists. Get rid of unneeded political hires and look for inefficiencies in city government. These are positive ideas, but they are hardly visionary, and every […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Moving drama
Matthew T. Dearing (Mitch Albom) and Barry Weiss (Morrie Schwartz) play the leads in the moving drama Tuesdays with Morrie. Tuesdays with Morrie centers on Mitch, an accomplished journalist driven solely by his career, and Morrie, his former college professor. Sixteen years after graduation, Mitch catches Morrie’s appearance on a television news program and learns […]
Posted inNews
Big Brothers and Sisters wanted
Yvonne Wapniarski says it takes her an average of two years to match a child with an adult mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Illinois Capital Region in Springfield. “Two years unless they match right up,” she says. “If I don’t match them in two years, I’m supposed to take them off the […]
Posted inNews
Parking war
Parking in Springfield is cheap. Visitors from Chicago sometimes joke that it’s cheaper to get a parking ticket here than to simply pay the meter in their city. But that could change with a proposed ordinance under consideration by the city council. On Jan. 25, the council considered a measure to double Springfield’s fine for […]
Posted inOpinion
Cheap house on the prairie
Each year for nearly 20 years now, the National Association of Home Builders and the Wells Fargo Bank have boiled down national real estate data into an easy-to-digest housing affordability index. Local housing markets are judged “affordable” according to how many families earning the national median income of $64,400 can buy an average-priced house. By […]
Posted inNews
‘Lawbbyists’
From shady money transfers by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the return of a missing baseball signed by Babe Ruth, attorney Herman Bodewes has seen it all throughout more than 40 years with a Springfield law firm. Giffin, Winning, Cohen & Bodewes, located on Fifth Street in the Myer’s building, celebrated their centennial year serving […]
Posted inOpinion
Discount-price cultural life
Back in March of 2009, Barnes & Noble signed a new five-year lease on its store in the strip mall at Wabash and Veterans where it has been doing business since it opened in 1993. The decision was a modest surprise, since word was out that the store might move to the long-vacant and larger […]
