Les Flâneurs: illinois

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End of the Northern Road Trip

September 27-28.

Well we're back at our home in Grand Rapids. The drive to Huntley, Illinois was smooth and largely devoid of traffic snarls although there was the occasional slowdown between the Wisconsin Dells and Madison, Wisconsin.

Anyway, after about 6 hours on the road we got to our hotel, checked in and appreciated a quiet bed to take a short nap before dinner.

We met up with Greg and Joyce for pizza at Lou Malnati's in Lakewood. A pizza staple of the Chicagoland area for decades, Lou Malnati's has a fun and funky vibe inside and the pizza along with the services was very good indeed.

The four of us spent a couple of hours catching up; we hadn't seen each other since earlier last year when Greg was in the hospital after a fall off a ladder at home. We shared warm and lively conversation as always, littered with plenty of laughs.

After a round of hugs and good-byes we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Monday morning we were took our time over coffee and a light breakfast in our room before packing up and heading out. We wanted to give the morning commuter traffic plenty of time to thin out before hitting the road around Chicago.

It was a relatively pain free four-hour drive home. Although (as always) the traffic along I-80/90 through south Chicago and northern Indiana was heavy it moved along, and for that we were grateful. And the roads, which were in various states of reconstruction here and there, were familiar.

The trip was short but oh so very sweet. Yes, we ended up spending some 35 hours in the car covering more than 1,900 miles on roads of varying quality behind drivers of varying intelligence. But two things of note stand out: first we got to experience truly remarkable parts of our country we had never seen before, learning one or two things in the bargain while also catching some spectacular glimpses of the coming autumn colors; second, we got to spend quality time with family. You can't ask for much more than that.

Champaign High School Class of 1966

With no pattern or frequency I often recall with fondness crossing paths with so many during those innocent early years of the 1960s.

Hanging out at Uncle John’s Pancake House with Larry Skeels and occasionally Tom Majors while others dropped in and out.

Italian beef sandwiches at the Patio and plain beef sandwiches at Po’ Boys; Friday night sock hops, of course, wondering how to talk to girls, and frequent trips to the Tiger’s Den in Urbana, listening to a local band play Louie, Louie.

Mr. Baltis, a man I treated unfairly and one of my few regrets from those years.

Poring over a map with Mike Rigby planning a trip to the tip of South America.

Screwing up my date to the senior prom, skipping school on our last day as seniors, and heading out to Lake-in-the-Woods; hanging out with Steve Shelton, Bill Servis, working at Eisner’s with Denny Nicola and Anita Rohrer (I couldn't see what see saw in Carl Bergman).

Double dating with Ron Lovelette in his new Chevelle SS; Ron and I spending our last night together in Chicago before going into the military (he to the Army and me to the Marine Corps) with Candi Hamilton and her roommate (they both worked as secretaries for Playboy, as I recall).

Watching Mr. Webb point to an uncomfortable Cindy Wright as a prime example of good skeletal structure in Anatomy class; hearing about the shooting of President Kennedy over the intercom in Latin class.

Meeting up with Tim Rasmussen at the hospital in Da Nang.

So many nights spent at Steak n’ Shake (“in sight it must be right”).

Eddie Wilson, Chuck Collinson, Bob Poll, Liz Spector, Judi Vandemark, May Lou Clemons, Chris Kelley, so many memories, so many paths crossing briefly, close friends for a moment then in the blink of an eye all is dim, yet warm historical moments to be cherished.

Snippets from my personal yearbook of memories of people long gone and long gone from my present but always with me wherever I go.

I can sum up in simple terms my feelings about those uncluttered years at CHS, with apologies to Bob Hope, “Thanks for the memories. . .”

Day 1 - St. Louis

1st leg: 522 miles.

It was in the low 60s and partly sunny when we pulled out of Eagle Ridge Court and made our way south in the direction of Chicago. Our car was packed with all sorts of provisions to get us through the next 16 days and some 3,800 miles of our roadtrip. Leaving Grand Rapids we made our way down familiar highways, heading west on I-80 around the southern edge of Chicago as we joined with hundreds of thousands travelers making their own pilgrimages on the road.

Eventually we turned back south again, this time on I-55. We stopped for a picnic punch at a gas station and mini mart just off the interstate at Coal City. After lunch and refilling the gas tank we switched places and Susie drove for the next hour or so. We pulled off at Funk's Grove rest area where learned that much of I-55 tracked along the old US-66 -- a selling point for some of the small communities along the highway trying to make a buck or two to stay afloat -- but otherwise we saw little sign of the old highway.

About 40 miles short of the Mississippi River and Saint Louis we pulled left I-55 at Staunton, Illinois. Making our way through the village we found the road to Bunker Hill, an even smaller village that was once the home of the Soper clan in Illinois.

My great-great father Jedediah and his wife Isabelle left Plainfield, NJ sometime in the late 1850s and made their way to this part of the Illinois prairie where he worked as a carpenter and they raised a small brood of children. One of his sons was Jonas who would eventually have a son Jesse ("J" names ran in the family for a short while), who in turn had a son Donald, my father.

Anyway, we took a short detour from our trip to track down their graves.

While we found the cemetery with little difficulty we were unable to locate the graves of either the gr-gr-parents or several of their young children. But it was a beautiful day to wander among the old stones and pay our respects to the men from this village who served in the civil war (no Soper among them).

We soon returned to I-55 and zipped right down to I-270 and across the Big Muddy into Missouri. Traffic moved well even though it was rush hour and after one or two slow moments we were soon pulling into the driveway of the Loaney home in Ballwin (or Manchester, take your pick). After lots of hugs we spent a wonderful evening of good food and lively conversation.

Tomorrow will be not only our big day seeing the sights of St. Louis -- for the first time -- but our first truly serious day of exploring on this road trip. . . The Arch beckons!

Stay tuned!

Denny and Ronny

Denny Nicola, class of 1965, Champaign High School. Killed in Vietnam 1967. Information. A good friend I turned around one day and realized he was gone before I made my way "down south."

Ronny Lovellette. Class of 1966, Champaign High School. Killed in Vietnam 1969. Information.

We spent our last night together in Chicago before you headed off to the Army and I left for the Marines. The last time I saw you. But it was a wild night, eh Ronny?

A trip to Graceland Cemetery in Chicago with Susie, Marie and Philippe

To remind you of what summer looks like, here's my trip note from a visit to Graceland Cemetery in Chicago back in August of 2015 with our Parisan friends Marie and Philippe.

Located on the north side of Chicago between Clark Street and Irving Park Road, Graceland Cemetery is one of America's finest garden cemeteries.

Created in 1860 on 80 acres of land in what was then Lake View, Illinois, two miles outside the city of Chicago, it now encompasses 119 acres of winding streets, lush gardens and incredible monuments to some of the city's most illustrious individuals: Cyrus McCormick, Martin Ryerson, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, Alan Pinkerton, architects Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham (the latter entombed on his own island in the cemetery), William Kimball (of piano fame), and Philip Armour (meatpacker extraordinaire) are just a few of the fantastic stories that quietly bide their time waiting for you to visit.

The one entrance is right at the corner of Clark Street and Irving Park Road. Signage in the cemetery is virtually non-existent and what "street" signs do exist are confusingly laid out. I suggest stopping at the office for a guide map or downloading a copy of the handy map and brochure that at least identifies the location of the major monuments.