Sprouting signs (Updated)

This morning I noticed signs sprouting for the upcoming city elections. I knew that Mayor Arihood was seeking re-election.

Now I know that Steve Reames is trying to unseat him. I thought there was a third candidate in the race. If so, I have not seen his or her signs yet.

I also noticed a "sold" sign in a downtown building. It is good to see at least one of the many buildings for sale downtown has found a buyer. I should have stopped in and found out what was happening, but did not. Maybe someone will fill in the blanks with a comment.

It might be fun to attend the free lunch program that recently started, but I am not the target audience (even though it says "all welcome". It has been a bit slow, according to what I hear, getting started, with more volunteer workers than customers.

Walmart has sprouting plants for sale. I was surprised to see fairly large tomatoes among the plants. We are not past the danger of frost and will not be for a few weeks, so it is a bit early to plant tomatoes.

Walls have sprouted on the house under construction at the corner of Susan and Weston,

There are a lot of things happening in the next couple of weeks. The play at SJC finishes this weekend--I will not see it in time to give you a review. Also this weekend, a rummage sale, a chance to get rid of obsolete electronic products, some dinners (Boys Scouts/Rotary for one), and probably a bunch of other events. It is quite a contrast to the lack of events that we had in January and February.

Update: This afternoon (Saturday) I found a sign for the third mayoral candidate, Rick Williams:

Park fun

About an hour ago I saw five KV busses drive down to Brookside Park and disgorge scores of school children.

They quickly assembled in two of the shelters and started eating their lunches.

School kids in the park--another sign of spring. (It does seem a bit early for the kids-in-the-park days. How many weeks are left in the school year?)

(I recall that several years ago school children from Lafayette would ride Amtrak to Rensselaer, then have their busses deliver them to Brookside Park. The busses would then take them back to Lafayette after they had spent part of the day in the park. Maybe they will come back now that we have a platform that can handle hundreds of passengers at a time.)

Update: They did not stay long, only about an hour and a half. Maybe they were on a trip to some other destination and used the park for their lunch break.

Update 2: The final touches on the Amtrak platform seem to have been put into place today. I think all that is left to do is remove the dumpster and the port-a-potty.

(See comments for why they were in the park.)

Green eggs and more

I was wrong about when the Lions would have the Easter egg hunt at Brookside Park. A comment left on that post corrects me:

The Easter Egg Scramble (sorry aboout the pun) Will be Sat. April 23rd at 1pm at Brookside Park.
The 16th was taken--there will be Earth Day festival at brookside that saturday.
signed, Anonymous Lion

The Earth Day festival is a bit earlier this year than last. Today I finally saw mention of it, on Facebook. It will take place from 9:00 until 1:00.

Brook and Goodland also have Easter egg hunts on the 23rd.

A couple of other Facebook notes. There is now an Morocco Old Photo Page, undoubtedly inspired by the Lake Village Old Photo Page. The Morocco Times visited the White House on Park Ave and shared pictures. Little Indiana is trying to catalog Farmer's Markets, which means it is time to get out and start planting. (I noticed that I have volunteer lettuce sprouting, which means I should have planted some of the early veggies a couple of weeks ago.)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I was not expecting to do much today, but the day turned out to be busier than I expected. I wanted to get a hot dog at the grand opening of the Charlie Roberts Auto Center, but on the way there I remembered that today was the last day that the Civil War Exhibit was at the Jasper County Historical Society, so I detoured to look at the exhibit and chat with an old friend. I would have been there two weeks ago and posted something about the exhibit if I had been in town, Their next exhibit will be a quilt exhibit, ready at the end of the month, and I will try to post something about that. The historical society will be open on the 16th and even without a new exhibit they have a lot to look at. I peeked at the new issue of Vintage Views and saw an informative article on the history of the old gas station that is now Rick's Pizza. I do not remember it in enough detail to write about it, but if you are interested, find the issue and look for the mayor's column.

The grand opening at Charlie Roberts Auto Center was to mark the new focus of the business, as a service center and a seller of pre-owned vehicles. It certainly is odd that Rensselaer no longer has a new car dealership, but we are living in interesting times. I had a nice chat with several people, some of whom read this blog.

Leaving there, I encountered a former colleague who is active in Lions, and asked him if the Lions were going to be sponsoring an Easter egg hunt in Brookside Park this year. He assured me that they were, but that he did not know the exact date. My guess is that it will be the 16th. Walmart will have an Easter egg hunt on that date at 10:00 for kids 1-10, as will Fair Oaks Farms. The Fair Oaks Farms hunt has an admission charge--read about it here.

In the afternoon I went out to SJC to hear a student music recital by a student who was in my Freshman Seminar group five years ago. It was very well attended and received. Noise on the way there reminded me that there was a track meet at SJC today, the last of the season, and being a track fan as a result of two running sons, I went over after the recital to see how the meet was going. On the way I encountered construction, and I always stop for construction. The baseball guys are building was seems to be a right-field bleacher section. Those baseball guys are always up to something, and they love their sport. I will have to check it out when the weather is warm enough to watch a baseball game in comfort.

The weather was actually pretty decent for the track meet and it had five teams participating. Below you can see the start of the woman's 5000 meter run. With the long races you can usually pretty well predict the outcome after about three laps--and sometimes after two.

Doesn't that picture make you think of summer? (Ignore that cold-looking person on the side.)

In my mail, two notes: (a) Ryan Musch has a logo naming contest and (b) on April 5 there will be an Evening of Poetry in commemoration of National Poetry Month at the City Office and Pub Dining Room at 7:00. For more info, contact the Prairie Arts Council at  prairie at rhsi.tv.

Ribbon cuttings

This morning there was a ribbon cutting ceremony at Charlie Roberts. I am not sure exactly what change they have made, but changes were needed after they were cut from the GM dealership network. Their open house continues tomorrow.

I missed the ribbon cutting earlier this week for the new K-2 school on Melville Street. There are two big earth moving machines that look ready to start digging. You can expect periodic updates on this blog this summer.

The final work is being done on the Amtrak platform as workers were installing the final bits of railing today. I wonder if there will be some kind of ribbon cutting to celebrate the completion of this project.

Some changes are of non-ribbon-cutting sort. Texas Mercantile, which opened in October, has closed. The sign on the door says that it will reopen on April 1 in a house west of Trail Tree Inn.

A little change that excites me is that there is now a full contingent of garbage cans in Brookside Park. It is one of those indicators of spring, and I am ready for spring.