Wilbo Walks the City Streets of Streator, Alone but For Wild Birds and Noble House Guarding Dogs.

March 26th, 2020 at 9:43 AM

Reading Township, Illinois

We marked our third case of Covid-19 in LaSalle County. Livingston County has counted one. Reading the Township falls in Livingston the County, but I feel closer to LaSalle the County. Last night, a fire truck from Reading Township drove along Main Street in Streator, and I realized I had spelled the Township wrong. It's Reading not Redding.

LaSalle County has a published paper that actually uses paper, the Times. Each city of note has a local. The Streator Times, the local paper with a modest office by the Eagles Club, seems to downplay the seriousness of these cases. All three patients have gone home to recuperate. 

One husband snapped a picture of his recuperating wife in the marital bed, waving, and allowed the paper to print it. He's sleeping in a family camper and the two communicate with a Nest camera. Now if that ain't love, what is?

Wednesday afternoon, I stepped outside the front door and I joked, "I have stepped outside the vapor lock". It's lovely outside the capsule where I have taken refuge. I bet a neighbor has lit a trash fire but to me it has the scent of burning oak. Or is it mesquite? Do I see fog rising up from the Vermilion River or do I see smoke from a burning barrel fire? The town has a Vermillion Street, with two letters L. The river uses only one.

I saw a cardinal flitting through the scrub grown up around a ruin. I have no idea what burned down, but it has standing charred poles. Maybe it was a pole barn? I heard the cooing of morning doves and the rat a tat tat of a woodpecker. It might as well have been the Lord God Bird of Arkansas to me. The woods of the Vermilion River greenbelt, a wild riparian cooridor, has made a habitat for a variety of birds. And May has yet to arrive, the month when the bird migration hits its peak.

I have waved as I passed people on the porches of Streator. The parlor house on Bloomington I have grown fond of after passing it twice daily for a week. The well kept exterior tells me that a lovely parlor awaits inside. I have always loved the parlor towns of the American prairie, like Bluffton Indiana. Streator has all the touches of Bluffton, including brick paved alleys leading the way to coach houses. At the parlor house, the inhabitants waved back. The two offered me a ride but I was almost home.

I have gotten to know the dogs of the city. First, a dog will growl at me. Then, the dog will follow me. Now in the time of Covid-19, I haven't offered the back of my right hand to sniff. A dog trainer taught me that trick. Let a dog sniff the back of your hand before petting their furry heads. I have thought it wise to refrain from petting for now. Maybe once we flatten the curve. Three dogs followed me on River Road and whimpered because I would not pet their furry baby heads.

I have taken many different routes through the city. It might take a month before I repeat a walk. Even if I repeat a walk, I'm certain the walk outside will be different each time, with unknown birds and different dogs or young runners doing roadwork. 

Two days ago, I saw a young man running north on Bloomington Street with better running form than Doug Kurtis, the great Marathon Runner of Northville, Michigan. I was proud to see this young man climb the hill near St Mary's Hospital. He kicked it up hill, kicking it like Kurtis. I know an Olympian when I see one. I have no inclination to give up my foot work any time soon.