The Community Word

By Amanda Knowles

During the summer months, the Peoria Historical Society (PHS) sponsors trolley tours throughout the area. The PHS has been offering historic trolley tours for over ten years, and they run from June 5 to November 1.

Volunteers who have been certified by the PHS act as guides during the tours. According to Amy Kelly, Executive Director of PHS, volunteers do not become certified guides until completion of a rigorous training period and approval from another certified guide. This ensures all trolley tours are filled with a wealth of factual and accurate information.

There are four tours to choose from: River City, Old Peoria and the Judge, All-America City, and Springdale Cemetery/Grandview Drive tours. Each trolley car holds 19 passengers, 17 if a passenger is in a wheelchair. All trolley tours last approximately 1.5 hours and are given Thursday-Saturday at 10:30 a.m. with an additional tour at 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays. Check with the PHS to see which tours are offered which days. Read the rest of this entry »

Moments are flashes of time not precisely measured. Quick, often lasting just an instant, they can be incredibly valuable and important. Kim Keenan and Denise Urycki are passionate about them. They see “every moment and every person as an opportunity to learn or to teach. Each moment is purposeful. We strive to see these moments for their true blessings.”

They’ve coined a word “gitm,” gifts in the moment. They believe firmly in those moments and gifts and are eager to share their well-considered beliefs with others.

The purpose of gitm is “to teach the importance of using God’s gifts in our everyday lives. A gitm moment is an experience that stops you with enough force to ask yourself ‘What does God want me to do?’” Read the rest of this entry »

While the news media is heavily invested in telling everyone how terrible the economy is supposed to be, Peoria and central Illinois, for the most part, continues to roll merrily along. Caterpillar just announced a huge contract with the government, home sales are up, lines at many restaurants are common, and the medical community totals nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in new construction. Methodist Medical Center is the largest investor in new construction. The hospital will spend an estimated $425 million for what will be virtually a new medical center at the edge of downtown Peoria.

But wait. Les Kenyon, an architect who lives in East Peoria, is apparently seeking to thwart hospital plans. You see Kenyon is part of the Central Illinois Landmarks Foundation. This is a small group that comes out of the ground now and then to wave its historic flag to halt or alter any plans for building that Kenyon or someone opposes. Kenyon opposes any changes Methodist would like to make to Hamilton Boulevard. After all, it’s the oldest street in the city. And golly gee whiz it was named after Alexander Hamilton by his son, Billy the Kid Hamilton. Now that’s heavy history. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chamber of Commerce presents itself as a civic group promoting business, but in aggressive campaigning against Democrats, lobbying against equal pay for women and consumer protection, and pushing for restrictions on victims’ right to a day in court, the Chamber shows another side.

Of course, there often are conflicts between individuals and bureaucratic organizations that purport to represent them: churches and positions on civil unions for gays, for instance, or the Farm Bureau and its seeming preference for Big Ag at the expense of family farmers, or political parties who say they’re Green but favor nuclear energy, or talk fiscal conservatism and increase the national debt from $6 trillion to $9 trillion in eight years. Whether you’re a member of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) annoyed that they backed the Medicare Part D drug plan or a member of the Painters union that endorsed Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton even though you preferred Ron Paul and John Edwards, it happens. Read the rest of this entry »

There it was, the Maharajah of Muck, the Sultan of swamp. This was not just any old turtle. A very special skeleton, this was a remarkable relic; an ambassador from antiquity.

Sommer Park staff had discovered the remains of a very large and very ancient snapping turtle at the shore of a pond. Amazingly it was pretty much in one piece. It appeared almost mythical; part reptile, part dinosaur, perhaps even part dragon.

The normally rough and ridged shell was worn so smooth that it was obviously an old timer (many decades old) when it died. The tail had huge raised saw-tooth points along its length like those often depicted on dragons. The large head with sharp massive beak and hollow eye sockets had a fierce and violent visage even in death. Long claws still looked ready for action. An old injury, a healed hole from an undetermined sized bullet, near the rear of the shell reflected a resilience in this rugged reptile when confronted with us human critters. Read the rest of this entry »

I loathe payday loan joints.

The people who own them are the scum of the Earth. They prey on those in need. And I am sick of looking at them.

I am sick of seeing them pop up, like malignant warts, all over Peoria, especially in the older sections of town, populated often where the most financially vulnerable live.

And now, the Peoria City Council has considered a 180-day moratorium on any new establishments of this sort. The details, from the Peoria City Hall: Read the rest of this entry »

by Dolores Klein, Peoria, IL

The bitter reaction to the 5/4 decision by the Supreme Court concerning rights of anyone held by our country, to be made aware in our courts of the charges against them, has made the point unassailable now that who makes further appointments to the highest court is of urgent interest to all of us.

On March 12, a Washington D.C. businessman, David Rubenstein, permanently loaned a 710 year old copy of the Magna Carta to the National Archives and Records Administration. It’s the only copy in the United States. It’s on display in the West Rotunda, down the hall from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

The next best thing to going there is to buy, beg or borrow a copy of the Spring/Summer American Heritage magazine. The Founding Fathers derived their belief in the Law of the Land from that document. Though it dealt originally with feudal relationships limiting the extent to which the King could continue pushing claims of power too far, it foreshadows modern constitutional guarantees.

Reading this article and re-reading the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights is worth it, as we confront the ramifications of our current controversy. With the good luck of being born in this country comes the responsibility of being informed and thoughtful.

This coming of age, a.k.a. turning 60, is complicated and requires considerable introspection.

Looking inward is not difficult for me. My dear husband, who doesn’t share my need to multi-examine priorities, values, and life in general, once told me, “you can analyze the life right out of a situation.” Seemed harsh as he said it, but he knows me well.

I’ve taken to heart Socrates’ proclamation that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” At some point though, living trumps examining. Time spent looking inward should eventually result in a greater quality of life. And quality is defined differently by each individual.

Turning 60 was huge. Maybe because it didn’t seem to me as if enough years had gone by for me to be 60. Calendars say otherwise, offering more accurate proof than my feelings. Read the rest of this entry »

Less than two weeks before the somber moment pictured below was captured on film, my husband and I sat with his father in a Peoria Illinois restaurant. All was normal. He was well. We chatted, he asked us questions about our welfare, and we answered each one while he ate a huge plate of food - more than we had ever seen him eat in the two years he had been with us following the death of his dear wife of 53 years.

Less than a week later he was gone. We laid him to rest next to his wife in Glendale, Arizona the following week.

When we pulled into the cemetery on that sweltering Monday morning in May, 2007, my mind snapped a picture of the honor guard preparing to perform honorary ceremonies a short distance from the casket. They were standing near their vehicle perfecting their uniforms and reviewing their formations. Read the rest of this entry »