Some things never change. Some things always do. Forty years ago: the 1972 Elections. Fates hang in the balance: fates of candidates, the future of the country, and the fate of the Sangamon River. And highly popular incumbent Richard Nixon was poised to handily defeat the liberal George McGovern. Here in Illinois, incumbent Governor Richard Ogilvie was, shall we say, […]

 I was walking our black lab Josh the other morning along the river’s edge in our backyard, and once again I spotted Harry fishing in the river on my property down on the Crooked Creek delta. He just doesn’t get it. This is my land, I own it. And he knows he’s not supposed to be there. Most mornings, as […]

Carol and I sat on the front porch in our rockers, sipping a ‘Little Woody’ Semi Dry Red from Sleepy Creek Vineyards and watched the Harvest Moon rise. It’s unusual this year that the Harvest Moon, the first full moon after the Autumnal Equinox, happened in September. And this evening, the cloudless sky presented a stunning silent show:  the full […]

  I am the USRC. The USRC I am. Would you like to volunteer? Volunteering! Volunteering! I do not like to volunteer! Would you, could you with the USRC? I would not, could not with the USRC. I do not like to volunteer.  Would you, could you on a boat? This past year USRC members were on the river as […]

Two years ago on Labor Day weekend after an unusually heavy rain, a man from northwest Champaign County up near Foosland took a walk. He walked his usual route where he liked to fish near the spot where Lone Tree Creek joins the Sangamon River. Lone Tree Creek, a tributary to the Sangamon, originates in McLean County southwest of Foosland. […]