Long foul balls from this new Wisconsin stadium could land in Illinois.
BELOIT, WIS.—Minor league baseball is about coming and going.
No one wants to stay put.
But after the ABC Supply Stadium opens on Aug. 3 with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers taking on the Beloit Snappers in downtown Beloit, the ballpark will be there for years to come. Fans will walk through the centerfield gates along the bed of the timeless Rock River. Located on the Illinois-Wisconsin border, long foul balls hit over the first base facade could land in the Illinois zip code. Hopefully, they won’t get super [...]
John Prine collection (Image courtesy of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, items on loan from the John Prine family.)
Singer-songwriter John Prine traveled around the world.
But he performed with the comforts of home.
A collection of heartfelt treasures were always on a black-draped table at the center of the stage behind Prine. The materials provided comfort and emotional support for Prine as he faced large audiences.
The items celebrated his roots in Maywood, Ill. as well as his family and friends in Nashville, Tn. They included:
* A plastic motorcycle man from [...]
When you are young, the seasons turn like a pinwheel.
Seasons slow over time and become a paddlewheel in muddy water. As you grow old you try to hang onto something. The last flower from a garden. A John Prine song about summer’s end.
Or a place you may never see again.
On the steamy Fourth of July weekend, 2012, I visited the Tommy Bartlett Show in the Wisconsin Dells with my award-winning videographer Jon Sall. The homespun big top on water was celebrating its 60th anniversary and there was a reunion with a dozen Bartlett skiers from the 1950s and 60s.
Jon shares my eye for the simple beauties of Americana and this was something [...]
ELDON, Mo.—During the 1960s and 70s, tiny Eldon, Mo. was known as “Gateway to the Lake of the Ozarks.” Old U.S. 54 curved through town like a rainbow. The Randles Court and Coffee Shop greeted tourists at the north end of a bend in the road. Clear sailing ahead, ten minutes to the lake.
Loyd A. Boots built what was originally called the Boots Cottage Court in the early 1930s in Eldon. He was from Bagnell, Mo. In 1931 the 2,500-foot long Bagnell Dam was constructed, which created the lake. Boots had a foot up on tourism. There were no motels at the Lake of the Ozarks. (In 1939 his brother Arthur opened his Boots Motel on old Route 66 in Carthage, [...]
