Roll with the changes

Ok, the transition to my new blog is actually happening! I transferred many but not all of my old posts. I'm mostly keeping posts with first-hand original content, especially about local topics that are hard to find elsewhere.

It looks like the pics hosted on my old blog server aren't showing up. I may or may not fix that soon. Otherwise, I'll see how things go while I keep tinkering with the new blog toy. I just realized that people reading my feed probably won't be getting it anymore. I'm not sure what to do about that except to hope that they come to the page and subscribe again. You'll also see ads since part of the change is to see if I can make a little money while I blog.

On an unrelated note, Rich Miller was cool enough to link my post about Rodney Davis taking a favor from George Ryan that got a lot of attention. Unfortunately, he writes that the Alton Telegraph article I found was incorrect about it being a paid (rather than unpaid) leave of absence. I flied a FOIA request to double check for myself so I'll post again when I get a response. That's the sort of confirmation I would have gotten first if I were writing this blog for an actual living. Paid or unpaid, a leave of absence to run for office is a benefit most people don't get in a normal job. So, it's still accurate to say Davis took at least one big favor from George Ryan, but I want to make sure I get the details right.

Finally, to celebrate my new blog I'm posting legendary central Illinois band REO Speedwagon's hit Roll with the Changes! Because when you're from central Illinois you have to take pride in whatever cultural accomplishments you've got.

John Y. Simon

There were two professors at Southern Illinois University whose classes I took every chance I got. One was Senator Paul Simon. The other was John Y. Simon, who died yesterday.

I already knew who John Y. Simon was when I started classes at Carbondale thanks to my mom dragging me to civil war battlefields on family vacations. What made his courses so appealing was that, besides being a nationally recognized historian, he was an amazing storyteller. He gave the most entertaining lectures of any class I took.





I adopted many of the stories from his Illinois History class as my own and still entertain or bore friends with them during road trips through the state. One of my favorites was about the nation's first serial killers, the Harp Brothers, and the sordid history of Cave-in-Rock. He made the grim story exciting and somehow funny at the same time.

The first time I took one of his courses I wore a Fort Sumter t-shirt during the second week of class. It was a vacation souvenir. He was walking around the classroom as he lectured and stopped mid sentence when he noticed my shirt and shouted, "Fort Sumter! I love Fort Sumter. That's a wonderful t-shirt!" He spent the next 10 minutes on a tangent about Fort Sumter. For the rest of the semester he referred to me as Fort Sumter, long after he knew my real name, and would randomly comment on how much he liked the historic site.





I talked with him a few times after college. I heard him speak at Fort Donelson where he remarked that Kentucky seems to have the attitude that they joined the confederacy retroactively under the leadership of Colonel Sanders. He always had a joke and a smile.

I managed to get an A in all of his classes which made me like him even more. He always made me glad I went to school at SIUC. For the last few years I thought of stopping by his office in Carbondale to pick his brain about re-evaluating Grant's unpopular Presidency from a civil rights perspective considering that it took federal action nearly 100 years later to finish the job of guaranteeing equal rights. Maybe Grant's reconstruction policies were stopped prematurely. I waited too long to ask.