Marine, Man, and Child

The streets of Byron, Illinois are lined with flags. Hundreds of full sized, beautiful, new flags.  I don't know how they got there or who put them there, but I do know why they have come to line the streets of our little town.  Today another flag will come to town, draped across the casket of Marine Lance Corporal Alec Catherwood.  Alec graduated from Byron High School in 2009, the same class as my youngest child. Yeah.  He was a young man, a brave young man who's goal was to become a marine yet, he was a baby.

This is not our town's first loss.  We lost Marine Lance Corporal Andrew Patton in a roadside bomb in Iraq a few years ago.  Another brave young man.  Another baby.  Byron is a small town, a really small town and when a tragedy like this occurs, we are ALL affected.  Right now, I am experiencing this as a parent.  I know many people in town whose children have joined the service and gone to war and shared in their worry when their kids are shipped out and the joy when they return home.

It is not my inention to get political here, but, as a parent, I simply cannot accept this loss without  commenting on all of our soldiers.  I recently saw a photo of several flag draped caskets lined up in the hangar after being returned to the states.  The cutline read: Can you tell which one of them is gay?  It could have asked if we could tell which one was democrat, republican, male, female, black, jewish, or ADHD.  The point is, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter.  They are all brave, they put themselves out there to protect our freedom and they are young men and women who belong to someone.  They are husbands, wives, fiances and, they are our babies.

 There is a pall of melancholy covering not only our town, but our surrounding towns as we prepare for Alec's return.  We are not only bringing home a marine today, we are bringing home; a friend, a fiance, a  son.  God bless the Catherwood's.  You are in our collective heart.  That's just the way small towns are.

City Living

After spending 18 years living in the woods, we made a 2 mile move back into town. Our little house sits on the corner of your typical neighborhood street and what is known here as "The Highway."

The highway is Route 2, a meandering road that hug's the Rock River and when followed, guides one through a scenic and peaceful section of Northern Illinois from the state line to the Rock Falls. Long sections of the highway follow the river providing breathtaking scenery; bluffs, trees and wildlife before delivering you into the next small midwestern town along the way.

Byron, my town, is actually and legally a city. It has been called the smallest city in Illinois. It was once known as, "The City with a Smile," and is now called, "The Gateway to the Rock River Valley." The city designation cracks me up. Before the new library was built, the tallest building in the city was 2 stories with the exception of the fire station's practice tower which might be 3 or 4 stories.

Our business district is 1 block. We have 2 grocery stores, 1 pharmacy, 11 restaurants ( and only 1 fast food chain where the service is always a crap shoot - casting doubt on the fast part) and 8 bars.

There are now ( and this is HUGE) 3 stoplights in the city. They are all lined up along the highway in 1 block increments to control the massive flow of traffic the occurs at 7:40 a.m. when everyone is dropping their children off at school and heading to work and then again at 4-5ish when the nuclear power plant's day shift is heading home. Thank Heavens for the lights! You don't know road rage until you try to turn left out of the Clean and Shine Car Wash and end up doing the old around the block move. . .here, 3 rights do equal a left and can get you to the light where you can finally REALLY turn left. Makes me wonder what we did before the added lights!

And so I live on the corner of a quiet tree-lined street and the highway that is the life vein into this nutshell of a town. Because, what happens here does not stay here. . . it is discussed, whispered and gossiped about ad nauseum in any one of those above described establishments at any time. The good part is, you at least know that someone else will move the spotlight in a small amount of time. It is inevitable. And it travels down the highway at breakneck speeds.

Sometimes I miss the woods!