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. 

Back to Keeping it Real Domestically

After quite an adventure, I am back in the ol' US of A. I was unfortunately not able to access a computer very often during my stay, so I will have to do my best to recollect everything that I experienced in the correct order. Anyway...

It seems that I left off on day three. Oh what a day the third one was. My lovely guide and I toured the Casa de Moneda, which I like to pretend means the house of money. Situated in downtown Bogota, the museum houses a collection of coins which illustrates the progression of coin making technology in the country. I'm a big coin nerd, so it suited me very nicely. A substantial art collection is housed in an adjacent building. Much of the art present were works by the artist Fernando Botero. His specialty is fat people and fat animals(sometimes fat fruits), in both paint and sculpture. My favorite was a quite over weight version of the Mona Lisa that he painted.

The Casa de Awesome temporarily standing next to the Casa de Moneda.

A nice scene on the way to the big square.

From the museum we took a short stroll to what seemed be sort of the national square of Colombia. I saw the National Capitol Building, which houses both parts of the Colombian congress. At the other end of the large square is the presidential compound. Both, in the spirit of freedom, were closed to visitors.

The National Capitol Building

Here is a church on the square with all of the important national buildings. Rather than try to recall its name, I will tell you that Colombia is a very catholic country, and that there are really churches everywhere... even in salt mines.

Here's me and Angelica guarding this presidential soldier guy to make sure he doesn't try to smile or anything.

As it began to lightly rain, we took shelter in a military museum, which might not have been entirely smart, being as the museum was half open-air. Anyhow, I got a quick run down of all the major conflicts of the country, from before the war of independence, to Colombia's involvement in the United Nations operations during the Korean Conflict. While we were avoiding the rain, we were also stalling until 7pm. One or maybe more times a week, depending on the numbers in one's license plate, a vehicle is prohibited from being on the road during rush hour. Pretty interesting way to cut down on congestion. Well, more on Colombia tomorrow.

A quick peak at some of the armaments showcased in the open courtyard of the museum.

The Circle is Complete

The very first entry that I wrote in this blog was about my experience assisting a small group of Japanese reporters on a tour of Springfield. That was the 7th of December. You can find it if you click on December in the archives on the left and then scroll to the bottom of the page. Now, in May, I return from Colombia to find a letter from the State Department. It turned out to be a thank you card for my assistance with their program. "Dear John, we uber love you" was pretty much the gist of it. I was pleased to get it, but I am pretty amused with how long it took to arrive.

Fan mail from the US State Department.

I was shocked on my ride home today to hear that my high-school, Ursuline Academy, is closing. A press release on the website sites financial difficulties as the reasoning behind its decision to make its 150th year its last. I am a third generation graduate of the Academy, and I was saddened to hear that I will have been the last of my family to attend. Now the dreaded SHG is the only Catholic high-school in Springfield. BOOO!!! Hehe.

Oh and PS. DO check out the Andres Carne de Res Website. Reload it once or twice. Click on the little boat. This is one of the best webpages that I have ever seen. Its interesting despite the fact that I have no idea what they are babbling about. Check-check it out. Later.