A Bit of Springfield Nostalgia

Today we headed up to Springfield for some amusement.

I picked up a bad habit while working at Anheuser-Busch that I'm not proud of: collecting beer cans. I couldn't resist these very corny Busch Lights.

My friends at Illinois College gave me a pretty good rural Illinois geography lesson. This Gillespie-Benld ambulance reminded me of simpler times. I've thanked my lucky stars throughout this pandemic that I got through childhood, college, and teaching in Japan before the pandemic struck. Young people are getting robbed of some important life events that they are never going to get back.

Anyhoo, I saw something about concerts at the Thomas Rees Memorial Carillon in Washington Park. These days it's hard to pass up an outdoor activity of any interest. Plus since it was in Springfield I could invite my parents along.

Not only did I plan on attending the concert, but I saw that they were taking requests. I asked for some Godfather and Star Wars tunes and they didn't disappoint.

It's really a great asset to Springfield that I didn't take full advantage of when I lived here. There's nothing like this in St. Louis, that's for sure.

I don't think I knew before today that the Godfather theme song has an actual name: "Speak Softly, Love".

After the show we strolled the park a bit. Lydia got to see where I went to preschool.

There was a mosquito on Lydia's head and I saved her life with a good smack.

The annual Edwards Place Fine Art Fair just happened to be taking place so we popped over for a looksee. This may be the first outdoor festival sort of thing we've done since judgement day. 

I made Lydia walk with me down memory lane at my old high school, Ursuline Academy. I think the buildings are abandoned now which is a bit too on-the-nose as far as the end of my childhood or something along those lines. It was nice to see it but I wish it didn't have to be like this.

I got a bit of that feeling where the building felt so much bigger when I was a student here.

I remember that sometimes my grandpa and I would pick a bunch of green beans or some other produce out at the farm and then bring it to the sisters that lived in the attached convent.

You could almost imagine that the building was being used for some purpose, but there were several windows with broken glass that betrayed the fact that the good times were long past. My mom and my grandma went to school here before me so it is definitely a loss to our family's history.

This was the senior porch. There was lawn furniture and so it was a place that the cool upperclassmen could hang out. Of course by the time it was my turn to be a senior I believe that the porch was in disrepair and was supposedly dangerous and so we weren't allowed on it anymore, if memory serves.