After several years absence, we have finally returned to Rockford, Illinois, Rick’s hometown, for a very brief visit
It is funny how you can breeze past things and years later, when you spot them, there is finally meaning in what you see. A sign caught my eye as we drove passed a park on the SE part of town. It was a sign on a ticket booth for the Rockford Peaches, a girls professional baseball team that competed here from 1943 to 1954. The were depicted in the movie “A League of Their Own”. (Click on Photo to enlarge sign.)
We moved to Rockford in 1953 when I was 7 years old. We never made it to any of the games.
Zipping through town we headed over to my childhood neighborhood. On a corner of the block upon which we lived I spotted this plaque indicating that my old house, was built upon part of the site of Camp Fuller, an encampment for Union soldiers during the Civil War. Looks like they should have used brass bolts to keep the rust down.
This is the 1st house that I owned. I had it built in 1968. Note the huge oak tree in the back yard. I planted it as a sapling when my first son Marc was born, in 1970.
The last house that I owned in Rockford was one that was built back in 1850. I may have put the still decorated Christmas tree away in the attic at the end of one holiday season, but not even I would leave a Christmas wreath on the house at the end of July.
(That should drive our friend Karen, head of the X-MAS decoration police, to go have a drink.)
We had a wonderful dinner with an old friend at the famous Maria’s Italian Cafe. There were several old friends that happened by the restaurant that evening. Most of them were contemporaries of my late brother Bob. They remembered him fondly.
Just a final note regarding the condition of the Rockford Streets. They are horribly maintained. A little blacktop would do wonders.