Bill Linneman

March 4, 2010

On the street where you live

Whatever happened to the use of the word “street” to refer to an urban thoroughfare? Developers go to lengths to avoid using this good old-fashioned word. Daughters Viki and Kathy live on a “path” and a “terrace.” That last sounds like a soil conservation plot.

Looking at a directory for streets in Bloomington-Normal, my eye fell on the stalwart letter “M.” Its two peaks might be mountains but since M evolved from the Egyptian pictograph for water, the peaks probably symbolize waves.

M has not received proper recognition for anchoring the middle of the alphabet to hold the ends together. Aunt Doll lived on West MacArthur Street. When she bought the house in 1941 it was Moulton Street. But that was before Corregidor.

There are 100 streets in Bloomington-Normal beginning with M. Of these, only 19 are considered “streets” but 33 are “drives.” There are 10 “courts,” 9 “roads,” 8 “lanes,” and 5 “avenues.” There’s Mitsubishi Motorway and a “Marvin Gardens” that must have strayed in from a Monopoly Set.

When I grew up on Summit Street across from Miller Park between Wood Street and Miller Street, all parallel byways—Low, Mason, Oak, Lee, Koch, Madison, Center, Main, East, Wright—were “streets.” Running east and west, Buchanan, Bissell, Lincoln, Steward were all “streets.”

Roosevelt was called an “avenue,” but since it did not run straight through, it did not seem important. The southern-most block of Wright was a development called “Berenz Place,” after developer “Heinie” Berenz.

When I was young, the words “place, avenue, boulevard,” had prestigious connotations and were limited in use. Boulevard applied only to streets with a landscaped median. For a few blocks, Clinton earned that designation and so did Franklin. The name “Broadway” is self-contained. White’s Place could have received the honor but preferred the eminence of “place,” which contains, or used to, an idea of intimacy.

The western boundary of my boyhood was Morris Avenue. Why it merited the distinction of “avenue,” I could never figure out. True, it served for the border of Miller and Forest Parks, furnished two prongs of Six Points, and after Park Hill Cemetery ended, Morris marked the terminus of southwest Bloomington.

Going north it went by St. Joseph’s Hospital. At the intersection of Washington Street it bisected a thriving commercial block. But at Market St., Morris got bifurcated and switched over to the west side of the tracks. Rising toward St. Patrick’s it used to be a cobblestone street like one out of an Irish movie. A long street certainly, but Morris didn’t seem to be an “avenue.” Not like Mercer.

But more so than West MacArthur which appropriated that title along with its name change. Then with urban renewal East Moulton also became “MacArthur Avenue,” which was certainly an upgrade from when it was the red light district.

The tendency to use words other than “street” arose after World War II. In outlying purlieus, streets no longer run straight or are called “street.” Fairway Knolls, developed in the 1950s, has not one “street.” Nor does nearby Fleetwood.

Perhaps developers choose “drive, road, lane” with their rural connotations to avoid the expense of laying sidewalks. To my recollection, there are no sidewalks in Fairway Knolls.

One notices this new nomenclature more easily when examining plats of small towns. Danvers, I believe, uses “street” universally in the established village. But the new development to the southeast, perhaps spurred by the location of Mitsubishi, uses “circle, court, drive.”

Hudson has also forsaken “street” in its move southward toward Normal and uses “court, lane, drive.” The tendency is less noticeable in Chenoa because the town had historically used “avenue” as well as “street.”

Lexington for Timber Ridge uses “road, drive, lane, court.” The development south of town is all “drive.” Towanda, however, has shown an admirable tendency to retain “street.” And Heyworth does not seem adverse to mixing in “street” with “drive.” But Leroy and Shamrock by Downs seem to have been thoroughly influenced by modernity.

“Street” developed from Latin “strata” and was borrowed by the English when they still lived in Germany. German “strass” is a cognate. “Road” is the native English word, and once “street” was borrowed “road” became used for rural areas.

It’s hard to imagine any substitution for “Main Street.” Main Street is as American as corn-on-the-cob. (You can’t say “apple pie” because apples are not indigenous to the New World.)

In “Little Town of Bethlehem,” what if Phillips Brooks had written “in they dark drives shineth.” That would have been as incongruous as Roy Rogers singing “Happy Streets” instead of “Trails.” I suppose “circle” could be used for Wall Street because that’s where money gets recycled.

We lived 40 years on Coolidge Street in Normal. Before that we lived fpir years on Henderson Circle in Lakeland, Florida, and 5 years on Fairway Drive. We were happiest in Normal. Presently we live on Bloomington’s Lutz Road, but that’s OK because it’s out in the country.

The Spectator by Jim Bennett

March 4, 2010

 jwbnnt@aol.com

Women's basketball? We've got that

WHY WAIT? The calendar still said February, but it was a March-flavored weekend for women’s basketball here in town, with visions of dances past and those coming soon.

The Central Catholic girls’ basketball team got the Madness started early by winning the state 2A championship February 27 at Redbird Arena. The Saints earned a 64-58 title game win over Quincy Notre Dame to finish the season with 32 wins (most in school history) and but a single loss.

On the same day, the Illinois Wesleyan women’s team beat Elmhurst, 82-72 at the Shirk Center to win the College Conference of Illinois (CCIW) tournament championship. It was but a day later that the Illinois State women clipped Northern Iowa at Redbird Arena, 69-66, to run their current winning streak to 15. The Redbirds, who have already clinched the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) regular-season title, are currently 15-1 in league play, 22-5 overall.

They have regular-season conference games remaining this week at Creighton (March 4) and at Drake (March 6). They will have a score to settle at Creighton, the only team to have beaten them in league play. That loss came on January 2. 

Next weekend (March 11-14) they head for the conference tournament in St. Charles, Missouri. Coach Robin Pingeton’s veteran, balanced team will be favorites down there.

But no matter how these games play out, the Redbirds would seem to have a postseason NCAA berth held in escrow. Or as they say on ESPN, the ‘Birds are a lock.

ALL THIS WINNING releases my inner numbers cruncher. In a too-much-time-on-my-hands adventure, I used the calculator to find that the combined winning percentage of these three teams this season is at .918, based on 78 wins against seven losses.

Are we spoiled here in town? When it comes to women’s basketball we are, you bet. There are no anomalies in these winning ways; in fact, they are what we have come to expect.

The Central Catholic girls have flirted with this level of success for years, posting exceptional won-lost records but missing state titles by the slimmest of margins.

Illinois State’s conference title is its third straight. And the Redbirds clinched this time with nearly two weeks left in the regular season.

Ditto for Wesleyan’s Titans, who have won regular-season and conference tournament crowns three years running. Over that period, Wesleyan’s combined CCIW record stands at 48-2 for a winning percentage of .960.

Counting all games (including postseason) Coach Mia Smith’s charges have won 82 games over the three-year span against only five losses. That’s a winning percentage of .942 and not a misprint.

Last season, the Titans came within an eyelash of the nation’s Division III Final Four, losing an NCAA sectional final game which stopped a 30-game win streak. This year the Final Four will be held at Shirk Center March 19-20, so the Titans will have even keener motivation to advance that far.

There is some home cooking closer at hand. 26-1 Wesleyan will host NCAA first-round tournament play Friday (March 5) when they square off against Franklin in an 8 p.m. game at the Shirk Center. The earlier game (6 p.m.) is between Simpson and University of Chicago.

The two winners play the following night at 7 p.m. for the right to advance to the sectional round the following weekend. 

It took me a long time to truly appreciate women’s basketball, but our local teams have brought me on board. I suspect I’m not alone.

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MIKE SWEENEY: Not all the news was good. My recent return from a Florida trip brought the notice of Mike’s death, which came as a surprise. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but the contact I had with Mike in recent years was pretty much limited to chatting at sports events.

Many McLean County residents were aware of Mike’s career of local public service and his prowess as a golfer. I played golf with him a time or two back in the day (I shouldn’t have, as he could never help embarrassing me), and visited with many folks who worked with him on the County Board. I have never held a political position, but people who knew him in that capacity always spoke of him with respect and affection, as a singular model of doing the right thing for the right reason.

I first met Mike back in the late ‘50s, when he was a student at Trinity and I at BHS. He was a sometimes player for the “Fell Avenue Regulars” back then, a group of wiffle ball aficionados who played spontaneous games at Fell Avenue Park near the Illinois Wesleyan campus.

Some of Mike’s Trinity classmates, including Denny Matthews and the Wochner Twins, as well as several BHS and IWU students, were game for this. It was spirited stuff, and exuberant play-by-play could usually be heard blocks away.

Later, in the early ‘60s, Mike and I were classmates at IWU. We often shared a cup of coffee and argued about sports in the student center. One year, when we were both taking summer school classes, we had more time for that activity and studied for tests together now and again.

I always liked him. Most people did. He was one of the authentic nice guys who made substantial and lasting contributions to this community. He will surely be missed around these parts.

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Master Gardener Tips by Helen J. Leake

March 4, 2010

Spring really is on the way

It is good to see the snow is melting and we can see the grass again.  It is time to cut some branches of pussy willow to bring in and place them in a container of room temperature water. They will soon open up.  After it warms up a little more, you can cut some forsythia, quince, crab apple, etc. The daffodils, tulips, and sedum are coming up, so spring really is on it’s way.

If you haven’t had the lawn mowers blades sharpened, do it now. A sharp blade makes a neater cut than a dull one. If you mulched the leaves last fall with the mower, that dulls the blades.  Also get the motor turned up before they get real busy at the shop.

If you had peach leaf curl last year, spray with a fungicide to prevent it this year. Fruit trees are best pruned by early March.

Capitol Facts by Rich Miller

March 4, 2010

State going to the dogs

Jerry Clarke is not easily ruffled. Not only has he seen it all in his years running campaigns in Illinois, but he’s served several tours of duty in Iraq as a combat helicopter pilot.

But I thought Jerry might actually faint last week when I called him with an update on his candidate’s latest piece of legislation. Clarke is running state Sen. Bill Brady’s gubernatorial campaign.

Sen. Brady’s bill would undo a compromise worked out over two years to stop the practice of mass euthanasia of dogs and cats. The animals were often put into auto exhaust gas chambers and killed en masse, sometimes allegedly by so-called “puppy mills” when the animals weren’t sold. The gas chambers were deemed cruel because it could take as long as 30 minutes for the animals to die, and some even survived the ordeal.

One of the state’s animal gas chambers is in Brady’s Senate district, and Brady has said he sponsored the bill on a local veterinarian’s behalf. Brady’s new legislation would delete the law’s requirement that “companion animals” be euthanized one at a time.

The Humane Society of Illinois blasted Brady’s legislation. “This bill would allow numerous animals to be gassed at the same time, in the same chamber, which will cause fear and panic, at the same time these dogs will be gasping for their final breath.”

That’s not exactly the image you want associated with your gubernatorial candidate, to say the least.

The point here is that Bill Brady is obviously not yet thinking like a statewide candidate. For crying out loud, you can’t introduce a bill to help out your local puppy gas chamber when you’re trying to be governor. I mean, seriously, what kind of thought process concocts an idea like that?

Clarke called me back to say that Brady would introduce an amendment to delete the bill’s content. The next day, Brady handed off sponsorship to someone else. At least his campaign is finally learning that they’ll have to keep this guy on a short and tight leash.

Jerry has no time to spare, either. As I write this, the Senate Democrats are drafting a state budget based on Sen. Bill Brady’s proposals from his Republican primary race.

During the primary race, Brady told the Chicago Tribune: “I believe Illinois needs to prioritize its programs and cut state spending by approximately 10 percent, saving $5.5 billion on the $55 billion base budget.”

Brady’s answer was dismissed by most budget experts because about half that $55 billion figure can’t really be altered much. You can’t, for instance, just tell Wall Street that you’re cutting your bond payments by ten percent. So a ten percent across the board cut to the operating budget would only provide about half of Brady’s projected savings.

And now the Senate Democrats have decided to show the world just what, exactly, Brady’s proposed ten percent cut and billion dollar tax cut would mean to Illinois - agency by agency.

The Senate Democrats have already passed a legislative scholarship “reform” that was specifically designed to call attention to Brady’s granting of a tuition waiver to the child of a campaign contributor. The ploy didn’t work, though, because Brady uses an independent committee to award the scholarships. Also last week, the Democrats forced a hearing on Brady’s campaign finance reform bill. The legislation was so poorly drafted that Brady was forced to agree to make numerous fixes, but the hearing got absolutely no media coverage.

The “Brady budget” proposal may finally break the media logjam, so this budget hearing could be a major test of Brady’s campaign, and its early reaction was fairly strong.

“When are they going to hold hearings on Quinn’s budget?” Clarke thundered last week when told of the planned budget hearings. Brady’s campaign manager accused the Democrats of using a Senate committee and state agency higher-ups for pure political gamesmanship while their own party - which has a huge majority in the chamber - hasn’t yet come up with solutions of their own. Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address will not be unveiled until a full week after the scheduled “Brady budget” hearing.

If Jerry can just get a hold on his guy, he may have a real shot here.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.