DEPART: 6:02 AM
ARRIVE: 9:28 AM 9.23 MILES IN 3 HOURS AND 26 MINUTES (GROSS)
AVG SPEED: 2.70 M. P. H.
Check out of Comfort Suites (Nice Place. Thanks Sue Vos) and hit the road to Maple Park.
6:02a Leave the Kane County Bank parking lot and head West on Ill 38. Light traffic and wide, firm shoulder allow me to do one mile in 21 minutes.
7:35a I breeze into Cortland 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Doesn't look like anyone is waiting there to march along so I keep on truckin'
8:00a About Webster Road a car pulls off on the shoulder on the opposite side of the road and out pops a young man. He comes up to me and introduces himself as Fidel Palouki, a Kishwaukee College Student who is doing some research on the Lincoln Highway. He takes my picture and I take his. He will be going to the presentation I am to give Monday Night (Sept 10) at Independence Hall in Rochelle. I tell him I'll give him a copy of my paper on the role of the LH in the development of the modern American highway system.
8:45a I hit Fourth Street in DeKalb and decide to roll right through to Annie Glidden Road and then doble back to meet "March Alongers" back at Fourth Street for walk through Downtown DeKalb.
9:28a I hit Annie Glidden Road.
9:30a I catch an NIU bus which head back downtown and drops me off when it reaches the main campus area. I throw out my thumb to hitch-hike back to Fourth Street. It is the luck of the Irish, as I am immediately picked up by a fellow Irish-American, Terry Patrick, in a red convertible. He takes me right up to Third Street. He knows about the Lincoln Highway.
9:45a - 10:30a At Fourth Street I am met by: Ray Keller, Chairman of the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition and DeKalb City Planner; Scott Ellenberger, ILHC Board Member, of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce; DeKalb County Historian Phyliss Kelley; Carol Zar of the DeKalb Main Street Program; and Jim Hovis, who owns business in the old Elks Club / former Elwood daughter's (?) house on the NW Corner of First Street and Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. As we talk and take pictures at Fourth Street, a very fast Union Pacific freight train roars through the intersection / rail crossing. As we walk along, Scott Ellenberger stops to give us a tour of the old First National Bank Building at Second Street. The big granite bank building was closed in 1967 and used by the bank president as a personal office until his death just a few years ago. The bank lobby has been restored to its original 1952 décor and houses both the Chamber of Commerce and the Main Street program's offices. Jim Hovis and party go to his building where a "Welcome Lincoln Highway Association" banner is hung under the Main Window. We break up and Jim gives me a tour of this office where a large mail order hearing aid and battery firm operates. Jim gives mea tour around of my old neighborhood where I lived as a student at NIU. The old building where I rented a basement apartment is gone and has been replaced by an apartment complex. Jim tells me that he believes the building I lived in was moved, not torn down and it is just around the corner on another lot. We go there. It sure looks like the old house, but I can't be sure. It was 25 years ago and I've lost a lot of brain cells over that time. But it might be it. Jim is going to check it out.
11:00am Jim drops me of at the Bank in Maple Park and I head home.
I will leave about 7:00p for Rochelle.
FOR THOSE WHO WERE THERE, PLEASE E-MAIL ME CORRECTIONS OF NAMES AND FILL IN THE BLANKS ON ANYTHING I LEFT OUT.
ALSO, PLEASE KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR NEWSPAPER ARTICLES THAT MAY HAVE OR MIGHT APPEAR. NEITHER I NOR THE ILLINOIS LINCOLN HIGHWAY COALITION HAVE FUNDS FOR A "CLIPPING SERVICE" AND WE NEED TO HAVE COPIES ANY ARTICLES TO DOCUMENT THE IMPACT OF THE MARCH ON BYWAY AWARENESS.
PLEASE CLIP AND SEND ANY ARTICLES OR TAPE ANY RADIO OR TV INTERVIEWS YOU CATCH AND SEND TO ME AT HOME ADDRESS.
THANKS TO EVERYONE ALL ALONG THE WAY FOR THEIR COURTESY AND INTEREST.
Upcoming schedule.
Tom McAvoy (Mad Mac)
Home: 9130 West 89th Street Tele: 708-599-2815
Hickory Hills, IL 60457-1208 e-mail: madmc51@aol.com
Work: IDOT, District One, Programming Bureau Tele: 847-705-4386
201 West Center Court Fax: 847-705-4666
Schaumburg, IL 60196-1096 e-mail: McAvoyTJ@nt.dot.state.il.us
On March: SEPT 1-14 ONLY: Cellular Phone: Tele: 708-204-3608
You can still participate, with Tom, on his walk across Illinois.
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