Stay Positive: Woodpeckers

The Nasty family has been walking the trails around Lake Charleston created by the Parks and Rec department. 

Because I had gotten my work done today, I traveled there alone for a walk in the woods. 

As some readers might know, I'm a lover of birds. I'm particularly fond of woodpeckers. I enjoy hearing them tap the heck out of trees. 

Here are the two species of woodpeckers I saw this afternoon. 

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

And a species I haven't seen in a while: the Red-headed Woodpecker. 

Random Notes from a Crank

In my neck of the woods here in east-central Illinois, a status symbol or sign of mid-life crisis appears to be buying a Jeep.

To drive back from Mattoon to Charleston with take-out from Thai Noodle is a mild form of torture. 

I read some good news in the paper today. There's a healthy population of river otters in Illinois now. 

If you've had to endure nitwits citing the cold weather happening on their little speck of the planet as proof that climate change is not real, "Scientists: Americans are Becoming 'Weather Wimps.'" might provide some solace through science and statistical analysis. So when you hear or read someone complain about the cold weather, which, you know, happens in this crazy season called winter, you can simply say nothing and think of that person as a wimp. 

Random Notes from a Crank

At a meeting yesterday, I learned that the profile I had when I entered college -- a first-generation college student and an Undeclared major -- would make the higher ups, the muckity mucks, consider me an "at-risk student." I found being undeclared making one "at-risk" a little odd, but local and national statistics provide evidence that those folks don't stick around for their sophomore years as often as the others. I find that metric kind of sad because the whole point of college, for me at least, was exploring different subjects and trying to figure out what I liked and wanted to do.  Because I was interested in psychology, history, sociology/anthropology, philosophy, English, classics, and education, it would have been silly for me to declare a major. Now that I think about it some more, some people -- like Admissions counselors and high school teachers -- sometimes would act a little funny when I would tell them I was an undecided major. While I understand many people see higher education as an avenue toward a job and, sure, they deserve a return on their investment, it's also important to explore other subjects other than just what's in one's major, especially since people are likely to change jobs more than ever nowadays. Or maybe that's just my liberal arts mindset talking...

As I've probably written before, I love small college towns in the summer. When a substantial portion of the nine-month population heads back to their original territories, the town I live in becomes quiet. Sure, we have summer classes, but the character of the town is different. The weather is helping too. It's been gorgeous here in east central Illinois.

Mrs. Nasty was surprised yesterday when I told I'd watch The Hunger Games movie with her. I haven't read the novel, but she loved it. I'm no avid moviegoer, but it sounds like interesting dystopian fiction, which I don't mind. But as for dystopian reality, I don't like that. Now we just need to figure out a date night and arrange a kid sitter.

Speaking of Mrs. Nasty, she has an idea for our back patio area that once had cheap lattice adorning it. I had to tear it down because of wind damage. Since we took off the old shutters and replaced them with new black ones (see Stay Positive below), she wants to try using the old shutters where the lattice used to be. She's going to paint four of the old shutters, and then she wants to rig them up to hang in that area using a eye and hook system and cabling. I don't know if it will work (I think it will), so we'll see what happens. We already have a bottle tree in the front flower bed that I'm sure some people find weird, so a decorative shutter system will be a nice compliment in the back yard. Because of this nascent project, on Monday I got to do some demolition work on the framing that held up the lattice. Tearing up stuff is fun.

As much as I dislike it when people put down Southern states based on Yankee attitudes, I think the article in Mother Jones -- "'It's Just Not Right': The Failure of Alabama's Self-Deportation Experiment" -- is a case study of, as some Southerners say, "the dog catching the car." Be careful about what laws and policies your legislators pass. Hear that, nitwits in Springfield?

With my dog not freely running around and patrolling the backyard because she's rehabbing from surgery to repair a cranial cruciate ligament, the squirrels and birds are no longer vigilant because she would chase after anything that was in the yard. When she's back on her game, she's going to be beating some squirrel ass back there. Or more likely, the neighbors will return to hearing her bark a lot.

Copperheads

I went to a very interesting lecture tonight. Jennifer L. Weber, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kansas, presented a lecture titled, "The Civil War at Home: Abraham Lincoln and the Copperheads."

This Lincoln Bicentenniel Lecture was sponsored by the History department, and her talk was based on her book, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North. 

Copperheads were anti-war Democrats in the 1860s. They also were called Butternuts. And they were typically seen as Southern sympathizers who feared large centralized government--republicanism with the lower case r.

Dr. Weber's lecture presented the delicate political game that Lincoln had to play with a whole wing of the Democratic party, a wing that called themselves "Peace Democrats." They thought the Civil War was a horrible idea, and they certainly hated the whole idea of freeing slaves. 

Like a number of historians, Weber stated that if Gen. Sherman hadn't taken Atlanta in September of 1864, Lincoln probably would have lost the election. And the fate of this nation would have vastly different with McClellan as President. 

And there's local history here in Charleston with the Copperheads. The "Charleston Riot" took place on March 28, 1864. If you're interested, Wikipedia actually has a decent entry on it (click HERE) along with  the local paper's story about it (click HERE) and a longer version of what went on if you're really interested (click HERE). 

Having Southern sympathizers in this area of Illinois isn't surprising since white settlers from the South moved into the southern half of the state in the early 1800s. This area of the state was settled by folks from Kentucky, so the references to "corn whiskey" in the linked documents is understandable. People can move out of Kentucky, but you can't take the Kentucky out of the people.

In fact, Charleston was known as a Democrat and Southern town in the county. And Mattoon, Charleston's natural rival still in many ways, was Republican and Yankee by blood. Those party leanings of the towns still kind of hold to this day, but the two parties have changed drastically since 1864.

Changes in Attitude

We've lived in Charleston for a year now, and we've adapted to life in a small town again.

Charleston, Illinois is no Oxford, Mississippi or Tuscaloosa, Alabama (great college towns), but it'll work.

Anyway, Diana and I were talking about this the other day, and my attitude about driving places has drastically changed. During the school year, after I drop the kids off at day care, I walk to work. But the days I somewhat dread are the days when I have to take Hannah to dance or gymnastics over in Mattoon. I don't like driving that far.

Mattoon is approximately ten miles away.

So my dreaded driving to Mattoon in our sun-bleached '95 Escort equals my daily commute that I had in St. Louis when I lived in Southwest City and drove out to Kirkwood every day.

I usually think to myself, "Oh, man, I have to drive all the way over to Mattoon yet again." 

Attitudes and perceptions have changed, my friends.