March 16th, 2020 @ 1:02 PM
Carnegie Library
Streator, Illinois
The library keeps long hours for a small town,
from Nine in the morning until Eight in the evening the first four weekdays.
Closing at Six PM on Friday and Saturday, the library only closes on a Sunday.
The Covid-19 emergency has affected this, leading to the library closing until
further notice this Tuesday, tomorrow.
I will regret Wednesday that I won’t have this
handsome oak table for my work desk on Wednesday and a view of one of the main
streets through town. The destination made a pleasant walk of one mile from home,
north past the funeral home and the Catholic Church. A small community hospital
awaited patients, taking up a city block.
Because of the closure of restaurants, I wonder
if McDonald's will be open to serve coffee and let a senior citizen check his
eBay sales. I’m glad the grocery stores have kept open their doors. Maybe a few
bottles of wine to uncork might make the waiting bearable. We’ll go back to
normal because Wuhan has started to return to normal. The ceo of Starbucks,
small letters intended, wrote to say most of their Chinese stores had reopened
for business.
I noticed that the local hospital had a waiting
room, likely to have coffee, a plug for electricity and wireless. How could a
hospital close during a pandemic? While working in Houghton - Hancock during
the winter of 2016, I often paused in the cafeteria of the local hospital
because it had coffee and electric plugs and so few places stayed open late
during the brutal winters.
I wasn’t the only one. The old-timer Finns who
heated their houses with firewood often dropped by to play cards, drink coffee
and socialize, men and women in their eighties. Those old timer Finns grow to
be ancient in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I met men who reminded me of my
grandfather, Edward Jacob and my father, Edward William, several times.
I took a walk around Streator’s downtown,
anchored by a hardware store, a big box pharmacy and a cluster of churches
which may or may not be open for Sunday services. For twenty-five years, the
Walldogs of Chicago have coached local artists how to paint murals upon the
brick walls of this proud manufacturing town where the train whistles still
hardly cease moaning. I love the Walldogs because three murals in downtown
Muskegon were completed by the team and locals when I moved in 2017.
The Barley Motor Car Company manufactured the
Roamer, a fast car that won a string of races in Daytona. Glass bottles came
off the production line in world class volumes, thanks to Michael Owens, an
inventor who made Toledo grow into Glass City. Glass bottles still emerge from
a factory close to downtown.
The man who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh,
has his achievement celebrated by a mural I can see from the library steps.
Edward Plumb moved from Streator to Hollywood and wrote the score for Bambi and
Fantasia. I’ve only seen a third of the fourteen murals, so I’m wondering what
other greatness awaits my discovery.
I noticed prosperous businesses while on my walk
around downtown. The hardware store sprawls through three storefronts. I popped
into thrift shops, one called God’s Will. I asked the agent at the counter, “Are
you affiliated with any church?” “We go to church, yes, but God put it on my
mother’s heart to open a thrift shop five years ago”. She gave me a free Bible. "You might have plenty of time to memorize the Gospel in the days to come".
Continuing my walk, I noticed several offices
selling insurance, more than I usually see in a small town. I looked at many
storefronts with “For Lease” signs in the window. What could one establish in a
sturdy brick building with great window that once served the carriage trade?
#Streator
#Owens-Illinois
#O-I
#Covid-19
#Coronavirus
#Walldogs
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