Watery graves

On Friday Rensselaer received over an inch of rain. Late in the day the rain clouds finally passed to the east and the sun, and people, came out. The new addition to Weston Cemetery had a pond near Bunkum Road.

Going into the cemetery, one could see that there were actually a series of little ponds, and that water was running from the north west to the south east.

There was a substantial flow through the western fence that separates the cemetery from what was once a trailer park.

On the other side of the fence were more little ponds that seemed to stretch up to the Countryside subdivision.

After heavy rains water probably flowed this way long before Rensselaer was settled. It has to go somewhere, and it takes a lot of effort to divert it from established drainage patterns.

The drainage in the new cemetery addition is very good, and by Saturday morning the ponds were gone.

(What happened to the church posts? See the note here.)

Shopping at the Willow Switch

Last fall Willow Switch opened downtown on Washington Street next to Steffen's Jewelry. I finally got around to stopping in to take some pictures and see how things were going.

Willow Switch is hard to define. It features a lot of home decorating ideas, but it could also be considered something of a gift shop. The front window promises home decor, gifts, and books, Plus it has a coffee bar.

Patrons can, if the wish, sit up in the balcony and watch over the store.

This location was once Grants Fashion. When Grants sold it, it became The Fashion. It was briefly a bridal shop, and for several years it was Stephanie's Interiors. Most recently it was an art gallery and home to the Chamber of Commerce. It still seems to be concerned with fashion, art, and interior design.

Willow Switch has a Facebook page. I asked Mrs. Fleming why she set it up as she did (it is set up as a regular page rather than as a fan or business page), and she admitted that she was a Facebook novice. I can relate to that. She currently has almost 260 friends on Facebook and seems to be using it well as a promotional device.

I would have enjoyed a nice cup of coffee except that I never learned to like coffee. I did enjoy talking about Rensselaer, though. Mrs Fleming wishes the downtown were more vibrant and had more little shops. Her little shop certainly contributes to the downtown.

It is a fun place to browse. Where else in Rensselaer do you find deer antler lamps and candlestick holders so artfully displayed?

Mrs Fleming and her husband own the building. They refinished the two apartments in the upstairs, which are occupied.

Phones

Earlier this week I visited Rensselaer Iron & Metal to recycle some cans and other bits of scrap metal. I noticed this old phone booth in the dumpster near their north door.

There are not many of the left. The cell phone has rendered them obsolete, an example of Schumpeter's "perennial gale of creative destruction", the process by which new innovations undercut and destroy old industries and ways of doing things. There is at least one pay phone left in Rensselaer, one by the Shell station on College. You can see it below with the SJC field house and Hanson Recreation Center in the background.

Where else in Rensselaer can you find pay phones?

Boys track sectionals

Congratulations to the Rensselaer Central Boys Track team, which won its sectional tonight. Results are here. Also, congratulations to the Tri-County Boys Track team, which won the Benton County sectional. Their results are here.

Hospital ground breaking

On Wednesday morning Jasper County Hospital had the ceremonial groundbreaking for its new expansion. There were a lot of people there and also a lot of shovels.

The real groundbreaking had occurred earlier, and as a result the gathering crowd had to move out of the way for a dump truck entering the construction site.

It went around the corner and was quickly filled by an excavator.

Then the speeches began. Bruce Wood, head of hospital board of trustees, was the emcee. First up was a representative from the Department of Agriculture. The United States Department of Agriculture Office of Rural Development is providing funding for the expansion in the form of a $15 million dollar low-interest loan that will be paid back over 40 years. Next a representative from Senator Bayh's office spoke briefly, followed by Kendell Culp from the Jasper County Commissioners, who wished it had been a grant rather than a loan. They were followed by a representative of the architects, who I think were Hope Associates. The last speaker was a representative of the contractor, Meyer Najem.

Then it was time to hand out shovels. They had a few extra. I wonder if sometimes an onlooker picks up one and gets into the photo.

I was disappointed that none of them actually filled a shovel. Of course it would not have done any good--the expansion will not cover the spot where they were standing.

After all the talk and posing, it was time for some cookies and punch in the recently completed office complex.

As I was listening to the speeches, I saw activity in the north. Some kind of pole was going up.

City crews were apparently putting up a replacement pole along Bomber Drive.

And there was a REMC bucket truck by the Jasper County Community Services Building giving a demonstration for the Head Start Kids.

For move information about the hospital expansion, check the hospital website. Here is part of the plan for the expansion from their pdf file. The completed 7328 square-foot office building is small compared to the 26,746 feet of building addition that will be attached to the hospital.