Monday, July 6, 2009

Home



I grew up in very rural Illinois near a town on Old Route 66 called Pontiac. Pontiac is a sleepy little town centered by an ornate old courthouse, scene of a Jamie Lee Curtis movie a few years back. This year, a group of sign-painters who call themselves the Walldogs, met there and in a brief period of time painted 17 beautiful wall murals in the center city. The photo above is of one of the murals. (Click on the URL above and "The Murals" to see all 17). The city fathers intend the murals will attract more of the tourists who still travel the Old Route 66 on nostalgic vacations across the country.

With my son and his wife, I returned there for a family gathering on the 4th of July. Large wind farms have sprung up midway between my home in Indiana and Pontiac. It is strange to see these tall, silver sentinels on the landscape, their three arms slowly turning, marching in rows across the fields as if they were giant whirligigs planted by some unseen hand. I had read there was often controversy about them because they were noisy, so we diverted from the highway just a bit and drove nearly to the base of one. We turned off the car engine and sat listening, but heard only a distant, soft whooshing, which seemed almost soothing. With the exception of their presence, all appeared as it has for the years of my memory. Middle Illinois is a vast prairie of rich farm land, so flat it seems the orderly rows of corn and soybeans reach to the horizon, broken only by tidy squares of well-manicured lawns of farm homes and outbuildings. A brief detour around bridge construction on the highway took us down one-lane roads along the fields, where the sounds and smells of the city fall away. The world seemed silent and at peace, and the occasional bird or small hawk lifted away from the fencerows to let us know we’d disturbed them by our passage. It is home.

9 comments:

  1. Oh, Bev! What a beautiful, articulate post! The mural is outstanding. What a fabulous idea. It's so interesting . . . the West Coast has so many outdoor murals, but when you get to the Mid-West or the East Coast, you don't often see legit outdoor art.

    Your description of your trip made me nostalgic for the area that I grew up in. Tho things change, as Dorothy said, "There's no place like home"!

    Thank you SO much for sharing! Hugs, Terri xoxo

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  2. Oh, Bev, what a powerful and interesting account of your trip down both Route 66 and memory lane. I am so pleased you thought to share it.

    Bravo my friend.

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  3. Lovely post, Bev. My dh was born in Indiana but the family moved away from there when he was a boy. A few years ago we traveled through 21 states, revisiting some and visiting some for the first time, and completing 50 states for each of us. Indiana and Illinois were two that we revisited. Wish those murals had been there when we went through.

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  4. Wow! The mural is superb. I would love to see the others. Bev, thanks so much for sharing your journey with us. You have the ability to place the reader smack dab in the places you have visited, so much so that we can smell the country air. Fantastic.

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  5. Bev this was such an interesting and evocative post. So interesting as I didn't even realise there was a town called Pontiac, let alone murals.

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  6. I enjoyed your account of your most interesting trip so much. We all like looking at pictures on the blogs but it is seldom we can share other people's experiences and you share yours so beautifully. I love the mural.

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  7. There's no place like home! This was such a nostalgic glimpse into yours! ~Lori

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  8. wabash35Wow! How proud you must be to call Pontiac your birth home place after seeing all those beautiful murals. These brought back memories of when I was a child and we used to take a Sunday drive thought the country. We would always stop to view the barn that were painted. Thanks for taking me back a 'few' years!

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  9. Love your beautiful and articulate glimpse of rural Illinois, Aunt B.J.! You say it so well for all of us who grew up there! In times of stress, my mind always wanders back to the simple beauty (always green, always gentle) of our rural roots and the people who were and are a most precious part of our conciousness.

    I feel extremely fortunate to have grown up "by the side of the road" which was route 66. Ignorant of how famous and memory invoking it would become, we used it well and often to map the paths of our young everyday lives.

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