July 16th, 2016. Roscoe, Illinois.
I spend almost the next 2 weeks working from Illinois. On
Saturday I meet up with a former employee and my good friend Kimmie. I suggested we met
in Galena Illinois, as she was coming from Iowa. We did a quick tour of US
Grants former home and then went down town to grab a bite to eat in downtown Galena.
On the way back home I take a detour to Freeport, Ill and I decide to pay my
respects to past relatives. I have a hard time finding the cemetery where they all are. I
finally find the cemetery but could not find the relatives graves. This is scary considering I
used to take my grandma here all the time.
Accepting defeat, and acknowledging that I need to figure out
where they are all buried, I drive back home through downtown Freeport. Turning
a corner I ran smack into “Union Dairy”.
I used to take grandma here when we came to Freeport to visit the relatives. When grandma was
younger, she use to come her here all the time. Unfortunately the ice cream was just too rich
for her on the last trip and she got sick. The dairy was celebrating their 100th anniversary. That means that grandma
would have been 23 when they first opened. Grandma was born in 1893.
On Sunday I decide to go to Lake Geneva, WI for the mail boat
ride, which I just love to take when ever I can. Unfortunately, nobody else in my
family has the same feeling for the boat ride. I get to lake Geneva and find
that the gale force winds are just too much for me. The mail boat is running
but I was not going to be on it. I wave goodby to the boat as it boards passengers.
I love Lake Geneva. I have been coming her since I was born.
You can see pictures of me standing in the lake in my underwear eating an ice
cream cone. One time as a teenager I was standing on the main street corner
with Grandma and she points to a building a few feet away and says “That used
to be a speak easy, and I used to go in by sliding down a coal chute".
I just had to share the grandma story with someone, so I walked up to
a man leaning against the building banging on his iPhone and tell him the
story. He loved it and smiled. Satisfied, I just walk away.
The relatives used to come up to the pier for dances, back
in the day. Not sure if dances are still going on at the pier. Love to go some time.
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