Rainey Blogs on Some Days

Truth is, I have struggled with self-esteem issues all of my life. High self-esteem. I know, I know. Sounds counterintuitive but it is the truth. I first remember being in sixth grade in about 1976 and had gone to a Mount Vernon Rams high school basketball game with Becky, who was in high school. She was my, well, I‘m not sure if she was actually related to me or not. She was my grandpa’s (who was technically my great uncle) cousin‘s daughter. We went to the games together that year. It was at one of those games that I knew I was different. I had left to go to the bathroom all by myself and then to get popcorn and a soda. Looking back, it was a little scary for a sixth grader to go to the bathroom all by himself. I had gone during the third quarter to avoid a big crowd, but there were still plenty of people in the men’s room. Somehow I did it, even though there were old white men with slicked back oily hair going to the bathroom and smoking at the same time. There were also young ...

I was back in my hometown last summer visiting with my old high school friend Elton Skelton at the annual 4-H barbecue. We were both eating a thick barbecue sandwich, corn on the cob, and homemade potato salad when I started telling him about New Jersey. He thought it was the strangest place in the world. He kept saying, "Well, Chrissy boy ( He always calls me "Chrissy boy" ), I don't know how you live out there in a place like that!" I then asked him if he were to try to explain to someone from New Jersey what Mount Vernon is like, what would he say? Well, he had plenty to say and I've tried to summarize his rather lengthy response below. “What’s it like in Mt. Vernon, Chrissy boy?  Well, first, I'd tell 'em: Let’s get this straight—it is nowhere close to Chicago! Okay! Try 280 miles SOUTH of Chicago! Chicago gets most of our tax money and wastes it on bribes and other such corruption. You think it is an accident that Blagojevich and Obama a...

The day I realized the chin up bars had been removed from the Mount Vernon City Park was one that broke my heart. You might not think removing a couple of old, weathered chin-up bars was a big deal, but those bars and I had a long-term relationship. Each year we went home to Mount Vernon for a visit over the last twenty-five years, I would trudge off into the park to do my chin ups. The bars were directly across from my grandparents house on 24th Street, so I often managed to do chin ups and visit them at the same time. Sometimes I visited the chin-up bars more than I visited them. The bars were on two rectangular wooden structures. One was about 6 ½ feet high. I could reach up and grab it from a standing position, but when I was doing chin ups I would have to fold my legs under me on the downward motion. The other bar was about 8 feet high, but it required me to jump up, grab on, and then maneuver my hands into the right position. When I was in my twenties, I could do sets ...

On a recent trip to my hometown in Mount Vernon, Illinois , I saw this sign and remembered one of the nice things about living in the country was the acceptance of guns and the availability of ad hoc target practice locations. Why go to the trouble of driving all the way to a shooting range somewhere (like the one I drive by on the way to work every morning) and paying money when, as you can see, it is not uncommon to pull over beside the road, whip out the old six-shooter, and take target practice against a random, roadside sign when you get the urge? As far as I know, no one has been injured doing this, and the holes actually make the sign less likely to blow away in a windstorm or tornado. 

This is a picture of the sign in front of the Walgreens in my hometown in Mount Vernon, Illinois . What strikes me is that they are selling bacon at a pharmacy. However, this is consistent with the Midwestern view that bacon is underrated and is actually good for you. Besides, eating bacon also benefits the local economy and the hog farmers appreciate it.  So get yourself a pound of bacon, fry it up in a pan, and experience the healing properties of bacon!

The door on room 310 in Good Samaritan Hospital has a faded, metal nameplate that says, “Illinois Knitting Company” that seems out of place on the freshly painted, clean door. Illinois Knitting must have donated money to the hospital back in the 1960s. I doubt if the company exists anymore. Pretty soon, this hospital will not be here either, slated for demolition when the new version of Good Sam is built on Veteran’s Memorial Drive on the west side of town. The town is sprawling that way in the name of progress (and toward Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, the new center of town) as the old downtown and surrounding neighborhoods slowly empty out. I have come to see my grandfather, but he is not in the room. The Information Desk had him still occupying this room, but it appears that he is gone. Since he is 90, I am not certain what this means, whether he is gone to be with the Lord or just gone to the nursing home. The other day when Marcia and the girls and I visited him, we finished the visit ...