Rambling through central Illinois, warmed by crazy ideas that will never come to fruition and saddened by others that will.
• • •
The covered wagon trail that is Illinois Route 78 north of Shissler Road may soon get much-needed attention. Or not. Calls to engineers have not yet yielded answers, but based on the stakes, signs and paint on that stretch of road, my guess is a bridge project will soon be underway. We’ll have more details next week. … Among my favorite late-night sounds is the “hoo-hooing” of barred owls in town. So it was with amazement I read that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to kill 475,000 barred owls out west to protect the endangered spotted owl. Seems barred owls outcompete spotted owls. That explains why the only living creatures excited about the proposal are spotted owls, whose reliance on old-growth forest habitat has doomed their existence.
• • •
Some root for short guys. Not me. Gimme a happy-go-lucky girthy guy and I’ll always cheer loud for them. That’s why my favorite Stooge is Curly. And it’s part of why I’ve enjoyed seeing 6-foot-9 DJ Burns Jr. play basketball for North Carolina State in this NCAA tourney. Burns can move and make shots nobody expects. Reminds me of a Three Stooges episode when a high-society woman told Curly, “For a fat man, you dance remarkably well.” Burns has danced as well as anybody this spring. … But problems loom Saturday when the Wolfpack meets 7-foot-4 Zach Edey and his Purdue posse. Edey also moves remarkably well. Overall, this has been a throwback of a tournament in that big men have shined, as Illini fans know all too well after getting rejected by U-Conn’s 7-2 Donovan Clingan.
• • •
Driving home from a crowded church service Sunday (yep, Easter and Christmas) it was hard not to see symbolism in the road-killed bunny on Elmwood’s Main Street. Unclear what the symbolism was, we began discussing the Canadian town of Canmore, Alberta, which at one point was overrun with domestic rabbits turned feral. Footage from Canmore’s hare heyday is wild, showing colorful rabbits hip-hopping everywhere in the Canadian Rockies town of 14,000. But all those rabbits, descended from a dozen or so domestic bunnies somebody let loose, created problems. Wolves and bears started showing up too often, lured by easy meals. Even so, there were not enough predators to slow the bunny boom. So from 2012-23, the town spent $587,000 to cull rabbits. Alas, it wasn’t enough. In 2023, nasty rabbit hemorrhagic disease decimated the population. As of last check on the Internet, there were few sightings of bunnies in Canmore.
• • •
Quotable: Williamsfield resident Peg Miller had the best one-liner at Monday’s Williamsfield Village Board meeting. In lobbying for a road sign for North Park Road, she said, “You guys already tar and feather the road.” … Parting shot: I’ve never liked Elon Musk and he’s even lower on my list since the oldest boy got a stock tip from some rich folks in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Dumb me, I scraped together enough pennies to buy two shares of Tesla and have lost money ever since. That got me thinking. What if I bought a Tesla, collected the $11,500 in tax credits and then collected insurance money after the car somehow caught on fire? Then I could buy a 1970s era Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, chill in style and afford the parts needed to keep it running.
Contact Jeff Lampe at (309) 231-6040 or jeff@wklypost.com
