Webber Borchers

Everyone who met Webber Borchers had a story about him, and nearly everyone in the area had at least met him; more likely, had heard a bunch of stories from him. When I worked as a stockboy at a lumber yard in Decatur IL during high school, Mr Borchers would come in once in a while, settle in a porch swing facing the sales & checkout counter and shoot the breeze with the salesmen, customers, stockboys, whoever walked by. He had a million stories to tell - he was the second Chief Illiniwek in 1930, he had a house full of looted Nazi memorabilia from his WW2 days, he was a long-serving Republican in the Illinois House; that's just off the top of my head after 25 years.

Today's trek

Lotsa driving today. When Lisa returns from her physical therapy appointment, Sarah and I will head out across the wide flat prairie to Rantoul to make some deposits and open her first savings account. Then west over the northern reaches of the Sangamon River to the county clerk's office in downtown Decatur to get a copy of my birth certificate, which will be used on the north side of town to get a replacement Social Security card. Then Sam's Club for a few cheap bulk items and Aldi's for some other cheap stuff, then home.

Meanwhile I'll leave a large Mathematica program running at home, hoping that it will finally work. Programmers are professional optimists - "Surely it'll work this time!"

Also, I set up Haloscan comments and left a couple of test comments on the Rush in Manchester post, but the comment count is still zero. Grr.

Later. That was a long day! There were a few screwups along the way, either because we left in a rush without thinking through every detail or because I'm getting old and foggy.

There were two highlights of the trip. First was a visit to our old apartment in Rantoul (1100 Falcon Drive, Apt. 6). We lived there "in the Rantoul days", as the kids say: from July 1998, two months before Sarah was born, til January 2004 when she was about 5-1/2. She was deeply moved as she recalled how she and her brothers played in the back yard and under the tree in the front, and as we left she took some mementos: a wildflower from the yard, a stick and a brown autumnal leaf from the old tree out front, and in a last-minute impulse in the front yard she bent down and picked some blades of grass. She has a good heart.

On our way out of town we passed the Papa John's pizza joint from which we ordered many a meal in the Rantoul days. I promised her we'd look for one in Decatur and there it was on Route 51 - the second highlight of the trip! After a successful visit to the county clerk and Sam's (the SS office was already closed, the slackers) we stopped at Papa John's and ordered our old usuals. Their warm aroma filling the car brought back even more happy memories from the Rantoul days.

For the word mavens: is there a word for that quiet happy/sad reflection on personal history that hits when you visit "the old homestead" or somesuch?

Note to self: Aldi's margarine is about half the price per unit of Sam's.