Teach Us Something Please: Hillsboro, Illinois

VITAL STATS:

Hillsboro, Illinois

Population: 4,359

Area: 5.3 Square Miles

County: Montgomery County (County Seat, bitches)

Cast Members: Your Intrepid Blogger

Here's what I found most interesting about Hillsboro- there really wasn't anything uniquely interesting about it. That sounds like a back-handed compliment, and since I'm a dick, I meant it too. But it's not really that Hillsboro WASN'T interesting- it's just that it was interesting in how much I recognized there from other small towns, or my home town, or Springfield, or even Chicago.

Of course, part of this was because I went there on the night of a rather national event. See, I was there on Thursday, July 14, 2011.

AWWWW YEAH. HARRY POTTER AND THE 7 DEADLY HALLOWS.

Now, take a look at the little set up Hillsboro had going on for the movie.

(Yes, they tried to mock up Platform 7 3/4. Fucking MVP.)

I think it looks pretty fun, but yeah, not anything you can't see anywhere else. And that's kind of my point: this was a shared experience, kids in Hillsboro were doing the same thing thing as kids in Chicago, or Houston, or New York City. I mean, the people in this line, they didn't even want to talk about Hillsboro, they wanted to talk about Harry Potter (and call the cops on the guy just taking innocent pictures. Of children dressed as wizards.) And I like that. It's weird for the blog, 'cause I thought this was going to be all about finding out what makes these towns unique and special and a place people choose to live over any other town, but I like it. I dunno, I just take some comfort knowing that folks are the same all over.

The human mind naturally tries to find patterns, and things very rarely fit easily into such patterns. But, after I took in the Harry Potter stuff, everywhere I looked I saw...well, stuff I recognized. What was nice, though,was that a lot of it existed side-by-side with stuff that I knew was unique to Hillsboro. For example, turn just 180 degrees from the McDonalds...

...and you see this:

(That reads: Cozy Cafe. It served burgers, just like Mickey D's. Somehow, they made peace.)

On one street, there's an old pharmacy that CVS clearly raped and pillaged:

But on the next street, there's a kind of classic old pharmacy.

(I had no idea the pharmacy delivery was EVER a thing, but this one keeps the torch burning.)

And even some of the unique stuff fit into familiar patterns. For instance, Hillsboro had the requisite ethnic food: Italian, Chinese, and Mexican.

(That says "Mexican Restaurant". In English. Don't blame immigrant, blame your Intrepid Blogger.)

And hell, even THIS guy was around!

So, in terms of figuring out why people lived in Hillsboro as opposed to anywhere else, well, I failed. But I did manage to put this whole project in perspective, and see that all of these places are only going to be so unique, there's more we have in common than in dispute, and a whole lot of other rah-rah-Barack-Obama-no-red-states-and-blue-states-bullshit.

But that Thursday night, I believed it.

Some other notes about Hillsboro:

1) Dude, as far as names go? NAILED IT.

This is the sight right as you pull into town. I kinda love it.

2) I really wanted to eat at this place called Church Street, 'cause it was a pub in an old church. Plus, look at the sign: it made some lofty promises.

EVERY time? I LIKE THOSE ODDS!

But, it was not to be:

I won't forget that you lied to me, Church Street.

(Instead, I got McDonald's. At least I'm consistent with my theme.)

3) Behold, ye mere mortals, the seedy underbelly of Hillsboro.

FEEL THE URBAN DECAY.

4) I think I've found my true career calling:

5) Hillsboro doesn't really appreciate your nosy questions, Mr. Population Counter.

6) New Blog Feature: The local newspaper, mostly for Friend of the Blog Jeremy Pelzer. LOOK, IT'S THE HILLSBORO WHATEVER.

7) What the hell could this building POSSIBLY be?

Next up on the blog: Chestnut, Illinois, the geographic center of the state. It's just like the 4 Corners out west, only with more antiquing.

DOTTING THE LANDSCAPE PREVIEW: COLLINSVILLE, IL

Well, we know what we WON'T see when we get to Collinsville.

I Swear to God, We Didn't Even Get Out of the Car: Cornland, Illinois

VITAL STATS

Cornland, Illinois

Population: 93 (!!!)

Area: .095 square miles

County: Logan

Cast Members: Your Intrepid Blogger, Dr. Doctorman

Cornland literally doesn't even get to call itself a town. According to Wikipedia, it's just an "Unincorporated census-designated place". This sounds awesomely Orwellian, like one day Governor Jim Thompson just went nuts and wiped a whole town off the map and this is the only hint that there was ever something there.

In fact, given that I've got nothing else to go on, I'm deciding right now that that IS the history of Cornland.

The thing is, we didn't find anyone to talk to in Cornland. I'm pretty sure that's because there just weren't any kind of common gathering places- no town squares, no shops, nothin'. The closest we had was this awesome abandoned school-

And it's not like there'd be anyone to talk to in there, either. Except maybe Pyramid Head. But no one wants to talk to him.

I mean, there really just wasn't much to it. But I did take all of these pictures, so fuck it, you, gentle reader, have to look-see.

I was intrigued by the fact that Mt. Pulaski is responsible for Cornland's fire protection, though. Can any readers- or perhaps, the husband of a reader, who may or may not have a role in emergency dispatch- tell me how that works? Is that kind of resource sharing common?

And yet...Cornland has 93 people, about 5 blocks...and two churches.

It's crazy to me that in a town of 93 people, there's enough members of TWO DIFFERENT religions to warrant two churches. I like to imagine that they rumble on Sunday afternoons.

So all in all, this was a quick one, but, at least by implication, an interesting one. Because really, Cornland is kind of the ultmate expression of a trend we've already seen a bunch of times- the "leave and go somewhere else phenomenon". It's just that in Cornland, you really have to do it for EVERYTHING. There's no school, no hospital, no police. No where to buy a loaf of bread, even (of course, you can't live on bread alone, but that's the one thing Cornland DOES have covered). I'm sure the people of Cornland are used to that (though Springfield's the only real city anywhere close, and that drive has got to get obnoxious). But it's strange to me that you'd choose to live so far away from everything you need. I guess I sorta did growing up, but I was honestly only five minutes from Springfield. So it seems really weird to voluntarily be so isolated.

Then again, I remember what one of my old bosses told me: "If you can't go out your own backdoor and take a piss because someone might see yer johnson, you need to move."

YOU BE THE BLOG: Drinking in Small Towns

Goddammit, I'm tired. YOU write the blog for a little bit. Share your best small town bars/drinking stories. Drinking in corn fields is fair game. The best stories get their own post, which is surely just a prelude to fame, fortune, riches, and women beyond your wildest dreams.

"That Soil's Too Rocky By Far!": Mt. Pulaski, Illinois

VITAL STATS

Mt. Pulaski, Illinois

Population: 1,701

Area: 1.1 square miles

County: Logan County

Cast Members: Your Intrepid Blogger, Dr. Doctorman

In a way, we arrived at Mt. Pulaski* at the perfect time. It was July 4th weekend, and the town's 175th anniversary, so they were absolutely lousy with events and shennanigans and goings-on. But you might not know that in talking to some of the locals.

*- officially, it's "Mount Pulaski". But fuck that, I'm a busy guy, you'll get abbreviated and like it.

Here you can see some of the tents and stuff they had set up in the town square. You can also see Dr. Doctorman loping through the area, like a gentle mountain sasquatch, or perhaps the feared Wendigo.

We wanted to know what's going on. Fortunately, we saw this sign-

You probably can't read that, owing to our woeful public school system. But it's advertising a collection of needlepoint recreations of "all 43" Presidential homes on display in the Mt. Pulaski Historical Society.* Upon seeing this sign, Dr. Doctorman and I thought, "Yes, we are just hot enough to want to go into an air conditioned building to look at those."

*- 43? Yeah, I caught that, too. I figured maybe they were just properly counting Grover Cleveland, who was but one man, yet is counted as two Presidents. But no, they left out Obama. I tell myself it's just because he's only been in office two years. But it's probably because fuck that Kenyan anti-colonial marxist socialist muslim terrorist.

Here, here's a picture of the needlepoint houses.

LOOK UPON THESE WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR.

But here's the nuts thing: we asked some of the people in the Historical Society what was going on in the square. They said, "Well, nothing, really."

Here, look again at the square:

And the fine folks at the Mt. Pulaski called this "Nothing, really." Dr. Doctorman thought they were just batty (they were old enough that "batty" is the proper term). I, for a brief moment, held out hope that Mt. Pulaski was just a magical town that had so many festivals every weekend, this one couldn't hardly rate. I imagined parades every afternoon, history reenactments every night, funnel cakes for every meal.

But it was not to be. Today was a special event, as we'd soon learn.

Couple more notes about the Historical Society. This guy here is the inventor of Mt. Pulaski.

Blah blah blah, Old Joke.

The upstairs of the building was a legitimate museum of Mt. Pulaski history. I'm not gonna show you all of it because Blogspot's photo uploader is slow as balls, but this is cool- a little exhibit to the 1976 state champion basketball team.

If you asked me to picture a basketball team from a rural, mostly white town in the mid 70s, I'd come pretty close to this.

And then there's this. There are no words.

Dr. Doctorman and I then ventured out into the square. We passed this grandstand:

That bluegrass band announced that their next song would be "Rocky Top". Dr. Doctorman said, "Oh, hey, Rocky Top!" with so much enthusiasm, I was certain he was kidding. But then he started singing along.

So bottom line is, I guess I learned the words to "Rocky Top".

Oh hey, we saw another one of these. GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL.

But the centerpiece was the Mt. Pulaski courthouse. It was kind of the cliche of an old, unused historic courthouse, but that's fine. I thought it was still interesting.

Apparently, this is where Judge David Davis sat.

David Davis was kind of Abe Lincoln's right-hand man, politically. He managed his Presidential campaign in 1860, and sorta kept the home fires burning when Lincoln went to Washington (Lincoln, living back in the day before it was oh-so-terrible to give a friend a job, made Davis a Supreme Court Justice as a Thanks, Pal!) This, of course, was just as nerdy as Dr. Doctorman's Rocky Top moment, but I was doing it, not him, so it was fundamentally better.

So, this was nice. They had people dressed up as historic figures, they had old carriages and stuff out. They also had this:

They were painting a mural commemorating a race between a plane and a train that, I guess, passed through Mt. Pulaski? Or something? The mural doesn't really spell this out (nor does it say who won. Way to bury the lead, guys), but it's a fun little historical event, and I like that they're marking it by painting this whole mural in one weekend (well, hopefully. We didn't stick around).

So a lot of this was really fun, and I know Dr. Doctorman enjoyed himself. And yeah, the history aspect of this project is a big part of it. But I still felt like this visit was a little lacking. We didn't really learn much about what people do in Mt. Pulaski TODAY, y'know? I'm relatively certain they don't sit around talking about David Davis and the 1976 basketball team (do they sit around singing Rocky Top, though? Maybe).

We drove around the outskirts of town. We found Cross Bros., a John Deere superstore kinda place. My father has bought every single one of his lawnmowers from there, so I guess that's something.

But that can't be it. Alas, we never quite figured out what's going on RIGHT NOW in Mt. Pulaski. But we did see one clue:

Clearly, this was very relevant to our July 2 visit.

SUGGESTIONS?!

Do YOU have a favorite Illinois small town? 'Cause if so, we here at Dotting the Landscape are already feeling bored and uninspired enough to follow YOUR suggestions. So just leave a comment about what town you'd like us to cover, we'll tell you to fuck off, and everyone can go about their business. Feel free to throw out stuff in the surrounding states, too, though I'll be long dead in the cold cold ground before I recognize Missourah.

There Is No Porn In Pekin: Pekin, Illinois

Pekin, Illinois

VITAL STATS

Population: 34,094

County: Tazewell (County Seat! BITCHES BETTER RECOGNIZE!)

Area: 13.8 sq. miles

Cast in this Adventure: Your Intrepid Blogger, Dr. Doctorman

First, a story.

Growing up, I had a friend whose name was probably something like Mark. Mark's dad was a farmer, and somehow, this took him up near Pekin, Illinois, every so often. On one of those trips when Mark and I were...maybe 11 or 12 or so?...Mark tagged along. And after his dad's business was completed, Mark and his dad got it in their heads that they should find some pornography.

Now, I don't know what kind of pornography they were looking for; I suppose that as Mark was only 11 or 12, his tastes were probably still pretty vanilla, like he hadn't found his kinks yet. On the other hand, he was only 11 or 12, and trolling for porno with his father and EWWW.

I guess it didn't matter, though, because Mark and his father could find no pornography in all of Pekin. And that's what they reported back to me (because clearly, that was news I needed to be kept abreast of), and that lead to a new Running Joke, Only Funny to 12-Year-Olds Division: just the phrase "Pekin Porn", as a code word for something that doesn't exist. Like, for example, a rational Michelle Bachmann voter? Oh, that's some Pekin Porn right there.

That brings us to today's adventure, which was, you guessed it, in Pekin, Illinois. I was actually surprised at how big Pekin was; I was pretty confident that I, at least, could find some porno in it (then again, do they even still sell like, porno mags? Who buys them? Have they heard of the internet? IT'S A SERIES OF TUBES!)

But, in what's sure to be a continuing theme, the locals were not at all impressed with their town. So judge for yourself, I suppose.

Our stop was Mineral Springs Park, the sort of central park and landmark of Pekin. It was balls hot, though I'm like, 60% sure we can't blame the city of Pekin for that. You can see Dr. Doctorman in the middle photo, staring at the lagoon, wondering if it was hot enough to just dive to the bottom and accept death's cool, refreshing embrace.

But here's the centerpiece, the thing I found most interesting (though, bear in mind, I'm a nerd)...

FUCK YES, EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, YOU GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF.

Turns out former Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen lived in Pekin. You're forgiven if you don't quite know who he was; he was major player in the Civil Rights movement, though he wasn't as much of an icon as MLK, or as much of an asshole as LBJ. Still, it's pretty much thanks to him that we had the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That's a pretty lofty legacy, RIGHT? So how does Pekin Remember him? Well...read the last line...

Yeah, we're gonna focus on the marigolds, thanks.

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! THE SENSOR SAYS THE MARIGOLDS ARE INSIDE THE ROOM! GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!

Okay, well, I suppose the Marigold festival is fine, so long as the Pekinnites are happy with it. And to answer that question, we stopped into CJ's for lunch...

CJ's was just off the downtown square, one of those nice historic ones with a big old courthourse (we'll get to it in a minute). And yet, inside...it was hours and hours away from an old historic courthouse.

CJ's looked like nothing so much as about 100 little bodegas and coffee shops you can find in Chicago, or New York, or wherever. And that's fine, I mean, I like those kindsa places. But it didn't feel very local, I guess.

And that feeling was magnified when we started talking to the staff. We asked the manager what something fun to do in Pekin was, and he said, I shit you not, "Leave and go some where else." (MOTHERFUCKER, I'VE BEEN MAKING THAT JOKE FOR 15 YEARS.) The cashier thought long and hard, and just barely remembered that we could check out the court house, or their new Starbucks (a town without a Starbucks is the true Pekin Porn). She said that for fun and entertainment, everyone, especially the young people, pretty much just go to Peoria (which was like, 15 minutes away. It's where Dr. Doctorman lives). Then she remembered- oh joy of joys!- that Pekin has "the world's largest...no, not largest just greatest. The world's GREATEST sun dial."

Shit. Dr. Doctorman and I HAD to check that shit out.

AND GREAT SCOTT, IT WORKS!

It was a complete sun dial, with hours and days and months and everything on it. The entire little area was like, an astronomical park. They had scale models of the solar system, old astronomy equipment and...

A SUN GUN! HA HA HA HA HAH, YOU FOOLS! YOU PUT THE INSTRUCTIONS RIGHT THERE! NOW I SHALL RULE METROPOLIS!

So, that kept us amused for a decent half hour. Because we had trouble talking to girls until well into college. But then, we returned to the town square.

And that was fine; the buildings were cool looking, and the town had clearly taken steps to preserve it's history, which you gotta love. But even this early into the project, a lot of these historic town squares are starting to run together, especially since they all have one of these...

Dr. Doctorman: "Say, here's a fun fact: Everywhere that Abe Lincoln pooped, they built a courthouse."

Also? This is Ev Dirksen's hometown, and some other dude gets a monument just for stopping through? That's cold blood.

But even putting aside Pekin's catch-as-catch-can approach to history, I can see how little of this appeals to most people, especially young people, especially factoring in the apparent lack of pornography inside city limits (I mean, we didn't see it, either...). There was this oddly green K-Mart, but I guess that didn't thrill anyone, either.

Geez, was it abandoned? It looks like part of the set to 28 Days Later.

(Dr. Doctorman says K-Mart tried a rebranding thing in the greater Peoria area, turning all of its signs there green. He says everyone hated it and they nixed it nationwide, but left the ones in Peoria as they were. Because fuck Peoria, I guess. Anyway, this is the kind of knowledge we keep Dr. Doctorman around for.)

But all was not lost for the youth of Pekin. Sure, they felt like they had to go to Peoria for any and all entertainment, including T & A, but the city fathers had a solution....

DETASSELING! AAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! WHO'S BORED NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS?! GET BACK IN THE CORNFIELD!