Why I Oughta...

We took a drive one afternoon through the backroads to downtown Woodstock (or as Nat calls it ' Stars Hallow ') and on Route 47 there were a series of signs that said "historical marker X Miles ahead" until we finally saw a sign that pointed to a turn-off where about 20 yards away, in the snow was this sign you see above.  You can see the little path that has been worn out to the sign and even footprints in the fresh snow, so I wasn't the first person to get out of their car to check out this sign/historical marker on this day.  While Nat and the kids stayed in the car, I got out and walked closer. Until I came to this: The Historical Marker Database or HMDB (which is a pretty incredible site!), you can find all the details .  It was put up in 1982 but the sign calls out the fact that Nathaniel Pope fought for Illinois to have its northern border moved further north - which gave Illinois the City of Chicago and the 14 most northern counties (includi...

I made a trip down to Dallas earlier this month for a work thing and one evening, after dinner had ended, I asked the door guy at our hotel how far the 'grassy knoll' was and he pointed down the street and told me it was about six blocks away.  So...off I went walking.  It was a nice evening and sure enough, after walking for a bit, I came across this seven story building.  That has a very famous sixth floor .  I had been to Dallas with my Mom and Dad back when I was in High School and we took the tour of the museum (and even went out for the night to BillyBob's in Ft. Worth ), so I have experience down there.  This time, I arrived after the museum was closed, but it was still a nice experience.  I didn't go down to the Grassy Knoll, but did stand at the corner and visualized that film that we've all seen thousands of time. Every time one of these cars raced under the bridge, I could picture the vintage, grainy footage of the limo racing off....

Back at the beginning of the month, I posted a photo of a relic from a long-gone Burny Brothers Bakery on York Street in Elmhurst that had recently been unearthed by the construction crew and owners of the soon-to-open Beerheads bar right in the heart of the Elmhurst City Centre.  You can see all the posts about the Beerhead Bar & Eatery construction here .    In that post, I expressed my hope that between the owners of the building, the contractor and the folks behind Beerheads , there would emerge a sense of history and conclude that retaining this cool relic would only add to the flavor of their new place. Well...guess what?  They're all over it!  Seriously.  I heard heard from the owner of Global Builders, Carmen Gratace, who said that they've confirmed with the owners that the 'welcome mat' from Burney Brothers is indeed staying.  Kudos to Global Builders.   You can find their site here .  We should applaud both Carmen and his en...

If you walk by the construction site of the new Beerheads Bar on the Northeast corner of First and York in the Elmhurst City Centre, you'll see a bit of progress on the building.   I last posted about the status of the project here on the blog in February .  You can go down the whole rabbit hole of posts related to the site here on the blog . But, in addition to seeing the exterior construction progress, if you look inside one of the new doorways, you'll also see this - the photo above. It is a relic from the past. And was a stonework 'welcome mat' for Burny Brothers.  I had never heard of Burny Brothers, but 'teh Googles' quickly educated me. From this Burny Brothers archive site : Burny Brothers Bakery was founded in 1910 in Chicago, Illinois by a working-class immigrant family, and grew to become a successful, uniquely American enterprise. The founding family sold its interest in 1963 to Beatrice Foods Co., which in turn sold the wholesale divisi...

That right there is Fozzie Bear, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggie and Gonzo the Great (along with his chickens) in the windows above Liberty Square in Walt Disney World preforming what they call "Great Moments in History....but only the American ones!".  What you don't see is Sam Eagle, who sits in his own window (hole) in an adjacent building. We stopped and watched the show a few times and we heard two different stories:  the Declaration of Independence and Paul Revere's ride.  They were really cute and the Muppets are a PERFECT addition to Liberty Square.  We've always just used Liberty Square as a kind of 'pass through' area of the Magic Kingdom.  Sure, we'd eat up their waffles and stop at the Christmas shop, but it was mostly a way to get to the Haunted Mansion or to the Hub.  Now, there's a reason to hang there. I've stopped taking any sort of videos from Disney World because there are pros out there that get *much* better video than ...

Learned something from the new restaurant up in Coloma last week.  (More on the restaurant in a different post). From the back of the beer menu (plus a few commas): Dickerville was the name for Coloma from approximately 1836 to 1850.  Coloma was called Shingle Diggins prior to Dickerville.  It was home to lumber mills that hand split more than one million shingles.  After the lumber was all gone, the industry died and most people moved on.  Money was no good there due to the lack of industry so one had to dicker (barter) for goods and services.  This is when  the town took on the identity of Dickerville.  In 1850, the town was to be added to a national registry and receive a post office.  Not wanting to be known nationally as Dickerville, they decided on Coloma after Coloma California.