Category: Joliet

Labor-Managment Conflict in Blue-Collar America: The Caterpillar Strike in Joliet

Without Caterpillar Corporation, I probably wouldn’t exist.

Once upon a time, a Kansas farm boy (my grandfather) moved to central Illinois with some of his brothers to find work. He eventually caught on at Caterpillar in Peoria, where he became a union machinist — what he always called a “tool and die man.” He worked hard, got married, and started a family. Then around 1951, he was transferred to the brand-new Joliet hydraulics plant and moved here with his wife and two kids.

One of those children was my mother, then nine years old, who years later met and married my father — and just a few years afterward, I arrived on the scene. Hence my very existence depended upon, among others things, Grandpa getting that job at Cat.

I relate this family anecdote because when it comes to grappling with the meaning and significance of the current union strike at the Caterpillar plant in Joliet, now well into its fourth excruciating month, history matters. Personal connections matter.

Cat workers on the picket line (photo: Fox Valley Labor News)

In a working class town like this, where people from all walks of life have deep and sometimes tangled histories with the Joliet’s industrial past, labor disputes resonate. They’re not just abstract stories in the news about someone else somewhere else. They’re about us: our aspirations, our values, our prejudices, our sense of community.

As an Illinois citizen, I have a vested interest in Caterpillar remaining strong and vibrant. Its very identity is built from equal parts technological innovation, engineering expertise, and good old-fashioned hard work. Cat’s products and the myriad of jobs the company provides are important to Illinois’ economic vitality.

But as the grandson of a tool and die man, I also feel solidarity with the hundreds of striking machinists out on Route 6. In their rejection of Cat management’s offers of a new long-term work contract, Local 851 union members hardly are asking for the moon. What they’re putting themselves on the line for, rather, is the preservation of good blue-collar jobs within America’s embattled middle class.

Caterpillar management’s latest offer to the workers (up for a vote today) would freeze wages, double health care expenses, and cut into pension benefits. One shouldn’t forget that Cat has had a longstanding multi-tier pay schedule in place for union machinists, with those hired after May 2nd, 2005, getting significantly lower wages than older “Tier 1” workers. So-called “supplemental” machinists get paid even less than the Tier 2 folks. See a pattern?

Meanwhile, Caterpillar achieved record sales, revenues, and profits in 2011 — and its second quarter profits in 2012 are the highest in company history. Yet with labor contract talks at fits and starts, Cat is playing hardball by advertising for and hiring replacement workers, thereby taking advantage of high local unemployment conditions in which any job seems like a good job.

The Caterpillar labor dispute is thus a microcosm of the growing cultural conflict between the exaltation of corporate greed and self-interest (the market rules best) and the long-term viability of America’s working class (the people matter most).

Most folks agree that our country needs good manufacturing jobs with decent wages and benefits, that companies should play fair, and that employees should work hard. But how do we put those common values into practice? We’ll soon find out here in Joliet.*

* On Friday, just a few hours after this article appeared in the 17 August 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News, the striking machinists’ union voted to approve Caterpillar’s most recent contract offer, as reported here in the Chicago Tribune and other sources. Details about the vote totals were not released, but apparently it was close. Early analysis indicates that the union conceded on several key issues, including the doubling of health care premiums, the elimination of pensions, and a reduction in seniority rights.

A Tribute: Remarks at My Grandmother’s Funeral

If you had met Millie Bryson for the first time in the last few months of her life, it would have been easy to underestimate her. She was 98 years old, blind, hard of hearing, and increasingly forgetful. She lived in a humble and charmingly disordered house that hasn’t changed much over the last few decades. She moved around gingerly, by feeling her way along furniture and walls, and she slept a lot. One of the surest signs to me that she was finally slowing down in her late 90s was that she stopped following every inning of every game of her beloved Chicago Cubs.

But such observations would belie my Grandma Millie’s many accomplishments and talents, as well as the humor, passion, knowledge, and wisdom she shared over the course of her long and influential life.

First and foremost, Millie Bryson was a true force of nature possessed of both tremendous energy and a winning personality. Fiercely independent and strong-willed, she had a quick wit and delightful laugh — qualities she retained even after going blind late in life. And she was smart. A sharp thinker, an avid reader, a skilled crossword puzzle-solver, she had brains to go along with her impressive command of the English language.

Speaking of English, Gram was a stupendously energetic talker. She perfectly embodied the phrase “having the gift of gab.” In her prime, which lasted from the moment she started talking to well into her 90s, Gram could pretty much dominate any conversation she happened across. Once she became partly deaf in her later years, she could turn her hearing aids down low and happily keep on going and going without ever being troubled by an audible interruption.

I’ll never forget one summer when she was in her 80s and my wife and I drove her up north to Michigan for one of her final visits to the Bryson summer home. For about nine straight hours, she talked non-stop, including through the two meals we took along the way. I don’t think Laura and I spoke more than ten words the entire trip. After we arrived and the evening wore on, she began a violent and loudly percussive series of coughs and throat clearings that went on well into the middle of the night. “I don’t understand why my throat is so sore,” she said, much to our amusement. “I must have caught a little bug or something.”

Gram’s passion for conversation bespeaks her role as the oral historian of the family. She was the repository of family lore, and with her amazing memory could recite dialogue from a 1930s afternoon gathering word-by-word at the drop of a hat. Besides her vast knowledge of Bryson and Hicks genealogy, she possessed a seemingly limitless supply of fascinating family stories, as well as an arsenal of memorable sayings that usually surfaced spontaneously within the appropriate social context. A few chestnuts from these aphorisms include:

“First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game.”

“Wish in one hand and spit in the other, and see which one gets filled up faster.”

“Why? You want to know why? Because the boat leaves Friday, that’s why.”

“What for, you ask? For cat’s fur, to make you kitten britches.”

Millie also was a terrific musician who was born into a musical family — her father, Leslie Hicks, played banjo and guitar in Charlie Formento’s Dance Band during the Depression years here in Joliet. Gram became an accomplished pianist who could sight-read expertly. She had a lovely alto voice and was equally at home singing in the church choir or directing it. She instilled a profound and lasting love of music within her family, and was a nifty dancer to boot.

Faith and church involvement were foundational to Gram’s life. Long a member of First Baptist Church on Joliet’s East Side, she was a founder and charter member of Judson Memorial Baptist Church on the West Side in 1955. For decades she was a respected leader in church affairs at Judson, particularly music, education, governance, and mission outreach. Millie played organ and piano, directed the choir, served as deaconess, taught Sunday School, raised money for mission work, led women’s Bible studies, and performed countless other services for the church community. She lived her faith through deeds more than words, and many of us benefitted from her example.

Gram was an amazing cook who was generous with her skills, knowledge, and recipes for those eager to learn (including my mother). Family dinners at her home on Oneida Street were legendary. She routinely prepared elaborate meals singlehandedly in her miniscule kitchen, and she was a skilled confectioner of pies, cakes, rolls, donuts, cookies, and a special chocolate sauce.

Besides her cooking, she was an expert seamstress. For many years she made her kids’ outfits as well as most of her own clothes. I have it on good authority that her embroidery work was nothing short of exquisite.

More significant than these many talents is that she stepped up when she was needed. As the Bryson matriarch and a beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Millie was utterly devoted to her family. For over two decades she took care of elderly relatives in her small home even as she raised her own children. Most people would find this difficult to do for 24 days, if not 24 hours — she did it for 24 years.

As that previous example shows, Millie often sacrificed her own comforts and conveniences for the sake of others. She could see the bigger picture and act accordingly. Consider that tiny kitchen I mentioned before. Back in 1960, she and my Grandpa Abe decided to use the money they had long saved for a kitchen expansion/remodel to instead purchase a small rustic cabin in the north woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. No-one could deny that a talented and hard-working cook like Millie surely deserved a bigger and better theater for her daily labors. But to my knowledge, she never regretted that decision for a second.

Ever since, the Bryson cabin at Crooked Lake has been a treasured vacation site for four generations of the Bryson and Laury families. And though she was city bred and couldn’t swim a stroke, Gram came to enjoy camping out, and learned how to handle a canoe in rough water and pitch a tent in the rain.

Speaking of dealing with adversity, Gram knew the meaning of devotion, heartbreak, and deferred gratification. By this I mean she was a Cub fan. I’m talking Hack-Wilson-is-your-favorite-Cub-of-all-time type of Cub fan. Gram dated her devotion to baseball to the summer of 1929, when she began hanging out with the menfolk at picnics listening to ballgames on the radio. It wasn’t very lady-like behavior according to some tongue-waggers, but Millie didn’t truck with convention if it didn’t suit her. She followed her beloved Chicago Cubs on the radio “through thin and thin,” as she often noted wryly — year after disappointing year, decade after excruciating decade, century after spirit-crushing century.

She borrowed this memorable phrase “though thin and thin” many years ago from her soon-to-be son in law of 50+ years — Everett Laury of Danville, Illinois — who uttered it upon meeting Millie at her house for the first time. From that point on, once she knew Ev was a fellow Cub fan, he was A-OK in her book. Another special moment in her baseball life was when Cubs radio announcers Pat Hughes and Ron Santo paid a lengthy tribute to her on the air during her 90th birthday. I’ll never forget the look on her face as she listened to their humorous patter, and then said, “Gee, that was dandy!”

Many times over the past few years, when I would bring my two daughters over to her house for a visit, Gram would say to me, “Oh, I don’t know why I keep hanging around so long. I’m just a burden to people. What do I have to live for at this point? Why am I still here?”

For me, the answers to her rhetorical questions came easy. To hear the Cubs play another game, and maybe, just maybe, win the pennant at long last. To share love. To teach us. To bring joy. To appreciate an earthly life well lived, and anticipate the eternal life to come.

Speech delivered at the memorial service for Millie Bryson (1914-2012) held at Judson Memorial Baptist Church, Joliet, IL. (pdf version)

A Remembrance: Millie Bryson, 1914 — 2012

My grandmother Millie was one of the most important and influential people in my life, and it was a distinct honor to write her obituary this week. Here is the full text, which is reprinted in today’s edition of the Joliet Herald-News, along with a few vintage photographs.

Millie Bryson in 1999

Mildred Edith Hicks Bryson, 98, of Joliet died peacefully on July 11, 2012, of natural causes. She was at home with her family by her side.

Mildred “Millie” Hicks was born at home May 17, 1914, on the East Side of Joliet, IL, the daughter of Leslie Timothy and Margaret Edith (Nicholson) Hicks. She married Abel Hurst Bryson on June 17, 1935, in Joliet. He died on November 4, 1987.

Millie was a lifelong resident of Joliet — first on the East Side, where she lived with her family near Hickory Creek; and later on the West Side, where her parents built a home in 1925 on Reed Street, then the city’s far western boundary. She graduated from Farragut School and Joliet Township High School (class of 1931); completed teacher’s training at Joliet Junior College in 1933; and subsequently taught in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Will County near Manhattan, IL.

Abel H. Bryson married Mildred E. Hicks on 17 June 1935.

After her marriage in 1935, she left teaching (as was customary in those days) and worked diligently thereafter as a homemaker, mother, elder caretaker, and church volunteer. Once her children were grown, she was in high demand as an accompanist in the Joliet area, particularly for short-notice funeral services. She also cashiered for several years at Plainfield Road Pharmacy. No matter the job, Millie was a hard worker who valued getting things done the right way, preferably “in a jiffy.”

Born into a musical family — her father Leslie Hicks played banjo and guitar in Charlie Formento’s Dance Band during the Depression years — Millie was an accomplished pianist who could sight-read expertly, and she was a nifty dancer to boot. She possessed a lovely alto voice and instilled a profound and lasting love of music within her family.

Faith and church involvement were foundational to Millie’s life. Long a member of First Baptist Church on Joliet’s East Side, she was a founder and charter member of Judson Memorial Baptist Church on the West Side in 1955. For decades she was a respected leader in church affairs at Judson, particularly music, education, governance, and mission outreach. Millie played organ and piano, directed the choir, served as deaconess, taught Sunday School, raised money for mission work, led women’s Bible studies, and performed countless other services for the church community. She also was a longstanding member of The King’s Daughters and Sons international Christian service organization.

A family portrait from 1941: Abe and Millie with Ralph (front left) and Margaret (aka “Molly” and later “Peggy”)

As the Bryson matriarch, Millie was utterly devoted to her family and for 24 years took care of elderly relatives in her small home even as she raised her own children. She was a beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, as well as an expert seamstress and cook (though by her own admission an indifferent housekeeper). For many years she made her kids’ outfits as well as most of her own clothes, and her embroidery work was unparalleled.

Family dinners at her home on Oneida Street were legendary. She routinely prepared elaborate meals singlehandedly in a miniscule kitchen, and she was a skilled confectioner of pies, cakes, rolls, donuts, cookies, and a special chocolate sauce.

That kitchen gained a special place in family lore when she and her husband Abe decided in 1960 to use the money they had long saved for a kitchen expansion/remodel to instead purchase a small rustic cabin in the north woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Ever since, the Bryson cabin at Crooked Lake has been a treasured vacation site for four generations of the Bryson and Laury families. And though she was city bred and couldn’t swim a stroke, Millie came to enjoy camping out and learned how to handle a canoe in rough water and pitch a tent in the rain.

Millie and Abe Bryson out on a “night on the town” in Chicago, sometime in the 1940s.

Anyone who came to know Millie Bryson would attest that she was a force of nature possessed of both tremendous energy and a winning personality. Fiercely independent and strong-willed, she had a wonderful sense of humor, quick wit, and delightful laugh — qualities she retained even after going blind late in life. She was an avid reader and skilled crossword puzzle-solver. A devoted baseball fan since 1929, she followed her beloved Chicago Cubs on the radio “through thin and thin,” as she often noted wryly.

Surviving are her son, Ralph A. Bryson, of Joliet; her daughter, Margaret “Peggy” D. Laury (Everett), of Danville, IL; six grandchildren, Michael A. Bryson (Laura) of Joliet, David P. Bryson of Chicago, Laura E. Bryson of Crest Hill, Ann E. Luciani (Paul) of St. Louis, MO, Susan K. Laury of Atlanta, GA, and Catherine D. Wiese (Donald) of Danville; and four great-grandchildren, Lily and Esmé Bryson of Joliet, and Libby and Jacob Luciani of St. Louis, MO.

Millie Hicks (age 20) and her younger sister Doris (18) in their backyard in Joliet, wearing matching dresses made by my Great-Grandmother Edith Hicks Bryson (1934). These were later worn by the bridesmaids in Millie’s wedding.

She was preceded in death by her husband; her parents; her siblings, Leslie C. Hicks, Doris E. Holman (Harold), Roy A. Hicks, and Barbara L. Hicks; and her daughter-in-law, Patricia K. Bryson.

A celebration of Millie’s life will be held on Tuesday, July 17, 2012, at Judson Memorial Baptist Church, 2800 Black Road, Joliet, IL 60435. Visitation with the family will be at 3pm; services will start at 4pm. A church dinner will immediately follow the services.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Judson Memorial Baptist Church or to Joliet Area Community Hospice, 250 Water Stone Circle, Joliet, IL 60431. Arrangements are being handled by Carlson Holmquist-Sayles Funeral Home of Joliet.

Readers who wish to post a memory of Millie or a note to the family may do so here on the Carlson Funeral Home website. Also see this essay I wrote about Gram last week for my monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News.

Walking to Grandma Millie’s

Not long ago I walked with my kids from our home in Joliet to my Grandmother Millie’s house to pay her a friendly visit. The distance is nine-tenths of a mile: long enough for me to get a little exercise, but not so far that my young kids can’t handle it.

Every time I make that walk, I reflect on how lucky we are to live in such close proximity to Gram; and how fortunate it was for me growing up here in Joliet, where I could walk or bike to both of my grandparents’ homes. I often zipped over to Grandma Millie’s in the summer to help Grandpa in his garden, then eat cookies and quaff Dr. Pepper while listening to the Cubs game with Gram.

Grandma Millie with my two girls, Lily and Esmé (June 2012)

These days, urban planners rightly extol the virtues of walkable neighborhoods, where people can stroll from their homes to the post office, train station, school, grocery store, barbershop, and park.

Yet in most American communities, walking is an endangered pastime. Consider the contemporary perversity of driving half a mile to the health club to run five miles on a computerized treadmill. Alternatively (and far more cheaply), I just look for any practical excuse to go walking — like my grandparents did in their day.

Gram was a champion walker most of her life, though it wasn’t always so. As a teenager living on Joliet’s West Side during the Roaring Twenties, she was dropped off at Joliet Township High School downtown by her doting father on his way to work. She wore high-heeled shoes to school and was pleased as punch about it.

A collage of “Gigi” (Great-Grandmother) Millie through the years, created by my wife Laura and daughter Lily for one of Lily’s school assignments in 2010

But then she met Abe Bryson, the son of a laborer whose family was always two steps ahead of poverty. Since his family couldn’t afford a car, Abe walked everywhere — including when he took his stylish new girlfriend Millie out on a date, or gallantly carried her across a muddy cornfield to keep her shoes and stockings clean.

When she once groused after hiking downtown to a Joliet ice cream parlor, he looked down at her feet disapprovingly and said, “Well, maybe you should get yourself a decent pair of shoes, Mil.” Sufficiently smitten with his charms, Gram wasn’t about to let Abe walk out of her life on account of, well, having to walk. So she got some good sensible shoes, and their relationship blossomed.

My grandparents’ walking habits during their courtship and young marriage in the Great Depression would stagger a typically slothful American these days. They thought nothing of walking from Reed Street on the West Side all the way to Pilcher Park on the East Side (over five miles) and then hiking the park’s trails before taking a streetcar home. On Saturday mornings, they’d hoof across the river to deliver my Great-Grandmother Bryson’s home-made donuts to her regular East Side customers.

The announcement of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary in the Joliet Herald-News

98 years old and blind, Gram’s just about done with walking. Hobbled with a recent hip injury and in the twilight of her life, she’s mostly confined to her bed. But up until recently, she had gingerly moved through her little house, feeling her way along, getting her exercise the best way she knew: walking.

Now that her high-stepping days are finally done, I sense she’s preparing for that last long walk home — the place we all walk to someday.

This essay is an edited version of my monthly op-ed column which appeared as “‘Grandma Millie’ Sets Pace for the Family” in the 12 July 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. My current residence in Joliet is walking distance from my childhood home, which is the very house where my Grandma Millie grew up after my great-grandparents built it in 1925.

To learn more about my Grandma Millie, I highly recommend this interview conducted by my then-eight-year-old daughter, Lily, one day in May of 2010 in Gram’s kitchen (pdf).

Bulldozing the Rights of the People: That’s the Illiana Way

Remember the Prairie Parkway? Just a few years ago, it was the Big New Road Project of choice in northeastern Illinois. A monumentally dumb idea for a whole host of reasons, the Prairie Parkway fortunately fizzled after the recession of 2008 (though old road projects are rather like zombies that can’t be killed once and for all).

The new road of the day is the much ballyhooed Illiana Expressway, which will link the booming metropolises of Lowell, IN, and Wilmington, IL, and in the process pave over a lot of high-quality Midwestern farmland. But the Illiana isn’t a gentle zombie that plods along with a vacant stare. No, this road monster is pure evil, and it’s coming after us with ferocious speed.

Map of proposed routes for the Illiana Expressway (source: IDOT)

Local politicians and IDOT officials claim we need the Illiana to divert truck traffic from I-80 and US-30; support the burgeoning warehouse/distribution center district in central Will County; provide east-west highway access to the yet-to-be-built (or even approved) Peotone Airport; and create jobs.

I’m all for more jobs, especially if they’re permanent ones that pay a living wage with benefits and occur in an environment that does not tolerate sexual harassment of workers. (This, Joliet-area readers know, is not always the case with the warehouse/distribution industry here in Will County.) But the traffic relief  argument smells fishy to me, since this always ends up being, well, a red herring. Remember how I-355 was supposed to relieve traffic on I-55 and 294? Last time I drove those interstates, they were still among the most traffic-choked in the region.

The Peotone Airport reference is the really big red flag, though. Right now, legal but unethical eminent domain proceedings are being wielded by IDOT against Will County landowners unwilling to give up their land for this Great Imaginary Airport that no airline supports.

Now the Illinois legislature has approved “quick-take” powers for IDOT to seize more private property for the Illiana Expressway, an action that should outrage you, fellow citizens. Why?

Start with the gross injustice here. Quick-take allows the state to simply declare it wants a piece of property, then take it. The process is nice and quick — hence the name — and conveniently circumvents the normal eminent domain process (itself hardly benign) by which citizens may take the state to court to fight the condemnation or haggle over a selling price once their property is condemned.

Secondly, the road has no funding. The only money that’s been allocated thus far for the Illiana is $9 million for several years’ worth of environmental impact and planning studies. Projected unfunded construction costs include over $3 billion for the Illinois section alone.

Will County farmland just south of Joliet, June 2006 (M. Bryson)

Finally, and mostly absurdly, IDOT hasn’t decided where the road will go. Right now two different routes for the Illiana are being evaluated (along with, ironically, a “no-build” option to appease malcontents like me). How in the world can IDOT condemn property under quick-take if an official route hasn’t yet been chosen and approved? Does this strike anyone else besides me as completely illogical?

Perhaps this is root of the problem. When it comes to phantom roads and imaginary airports, there are no ethics or logic operating in Springfield.

The road monsters are coming, people. It’s quick-take season now. Better get out of the way, or you’ll get run over.

This essay is a revised version of my op-ed column that appeared in today’s Joliet Herald-News as “Illiana Bulldozing Rights of Citizens in Its Path.” Though I’m not a transportation / planning expert, I tend to think we have plenty of roads in Illinois already. I also appreciate the fact that my Joliet residential street was repaved last week; notably, no new roads were created in that stimulation of the local economy.

Nature and Culture Explorations in Chicago and Joliet

This weekend I’m schlepping my two children around the Chicago region from one interesting bit of landscape to another. I’m testing their patience, as Lily and Esmé are only ten and five years old, respectively; but the beautiful weather and the fascinating people we’ve met along the way have made it a rewarding experience.

Ferdinand G. Rebechini’s statue of Marquette and Joliet at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site (M. Bryson)

Yesterday I organized a two-part field trip for my PLS 392 humanities seminar at Roosevelt University, the theme of which is “Representing the Urban Landscape.” This was our urban field trip opportunity, and we convened first at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in Lyons, IL (on Harlem Ave just north of the Stevenson/I-55 expressway) for a guided tour run by the Friends of the Chicago Portage volunteer organization. After an extremely pleasant picnic lunch at the foot of the remarkable Marquette and Joliet sculpture at this Cook County Forest Preserve site (one of only two Nat’l Historic Sites in IL), we were treated to an in-depth tour of Growing Power’s Iron Street Farm, one of the biggest among the many urban farms operating within Chicago’s city limits.

Lily Bryson walks through one of the hoop houses at Iron Street Farm (M. Bryson)

After the kids and I said goodbye to my students, we ventured through the South Side to the Hyde Park neighborhood with my brother, David (the Cool Uncle), and explored two of my favorite Chicago bookstores: the bastion of all-things-scholarly (and beyond) Seminary Co-op and the kid-friendly 57th Street Books. After loading up some books (and saving 20% during the annual Member’s Sale), we strolled through the 57th Street Art Fair and then had a fine dinner at Medici on their upstairs patio. Uncle Davey went his separate way into the lovely evening, while the kids and I strolled through the charming quadrangle of the University of Chicago, then drove out to Promontory Point — one of Hyde Park’s gems and a fine spot along the lakefront to gaze out over Lake Michigan and to admire the distinctive Chicago skyline.

Today we venture out in the opposite direction from our home in Joliet, heading south to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie where I’m meeting with a group of faculty from Joliet Junior College on a weekend retreat about sustainability education. As I’ve been polishing my presentation slideshow for the morning’s session, I came across this excellent blog post about the Midewin landscape from 2010 by Adrian Ayers Fisher on his site, Ecological Gardening; as well as this beautifully-design blog, A Midewin Almanac, by Arthur Melville Pearson.

It’ll be good to see Midewin again. Despite living in Joliet, only about 25 minutes from the site, I don’t get there nearly enough. We’ll see if I can cajole my tired children into a prairie hike after our morning session!

Celebrating Sustainability at GR2012 in Joliet

This past Saturday, I attended GR2012, the 3rd annual Celebrating Sustainability festival in my hometown of Joliet, IL. The past couple of years I had attended with my family purely in the role of visitors to the festival’s original location at the Joliet Public Library / Rock Run Forest Preserve. We checked out the many green products and services among the many exhibits, played games, petted a menagerie of animals, and listened to live music.

RU students (Stephanie and Sean) hobnob with JJC students and alumni (Tiffany, Tori, and Antonio)

But the festival outgrew its site in only two years, so this year’s organizers moved it to more spacious grounds: the West Side campus of Joliet Junior College, which has a beautiful new student center as well as a picnic area near the site of a significant prairie restoration underway at the nation’s oldest community college. And this time, I came as a participant: along with SUST majors Sean Hattan and Stephanie Eisner, I ran an informational table among the dozens of exhibitors at GR2012 to meet and greet visitors and prospective students. And I gave a slideshow presentation entitled Sustainability in the Suburbs – GR2012 19 May 2012 (pdf) during the day’s program of public lectures.

For more on the day’s proceedings, check out this post on the Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future blog.

The Airport Nobody Wants or Needs

The Saturday before Earth Day, Jesse Jackson, Jr. and a contingent of political supporters rode down to the farmlands of eastern Will County to spade up a little dirt in a pious promotion of the ill-fated Great Imaginary (aka Peotone) Airport.

Given that the project has neither FAA approval nor the support of a single major airline, Jackson’s well-publicized pontifications were presumptuous — but not pointless, for they re-energized the hitherto dispirited airport opposition movement around Peotone, Beecher, and Monee, the small towns most affected by this ongoing fiasco.

I drove out northeast of Peotone that Saturday in hopes of attending Jackson’s media stunt and the planned counter-demonstration by the longstanding grassroots organization Shut This Airport Nightmare Down (STAND). Turned out I was too late and missed them both.

IDOT's South Suburban Airport headquarters on Eagle Lake Road in eastern Will County, aka "The Compound" (M. Bryson)

But after heading past the Illinois Department of Transportation’s heavily-fenced airport headquarters on Eagle Lake Road west of State Route 50 — a place derisively nicknamed “The Compound” by locals for its quasi-military installation appearance — I ran into some folks who helpfully filled me in on the day’s proceedings.

Robert Ogalla, a farmer whose wife Judy is the vice-president of STAND, grows corn, soybeans, and wheat on their picturesque farm along County Road 10. Back in 2003, the Ogallas received a commendation from the Will-South Cook Soil and Water Conservation District for their exemplary efforts to reduce soil erosion and polluting runoff on their property.

The Ogalla farm as seen from the south (M. Bryson)

Mr. Ogalla described the lively scene that had transpired earlier that day at the Compound, where over 400 STAND supporters had gathered peacefully to protest Jackson’s groundbreaking event and voice their many objections to the state’s relentless land-acquisition plans.

“This is some of the best farmland in the world,” Ogalla told me, gesturing toward his well-tended fields. “Those trees you see there on the horizon were planted many years ago as part of Illinois’ Conservation Reserve Program by my 101-year-old neighbor.”

He paused to let that sink in, then continued, “All this will be gone if the airport gets built. The irony of it is that no airline even wants it.”

I talk with Virginia Hamann and Rob Ogalla on 21 April 2012 (M. Bryson)

Another STAND member, Virginia Hamann of Peotone, drives a bus for the Peotone School District and helps her husband run a dairy farm located across the road from the proposed airport. “What gets me is the terrible waste of money all this is,” she said.

How wasteful, you might ask? Many of those fertile fields I admired that day already have been purchased by the state — to be precise, 2,471 acres at the cost of 34,014,383 taxpayer dollars — all without FAA approval of the project, naturally. Now, with willing sellers scarce and land values low, IDOT has condemned some local farmers’ property (like that of Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt) to close the deal on the remaining acreage within the Great Imaginary Airport’s nine-square-mile footprint.

When I asked Ogalla and Hamann how their neighbors were feeling about the airport issue these days, they estimated that a strong majority, perhaps 70-80 percent, now backed STAND’s opposition to the project.

Virginia and Rob hold up a STAND sign at Rob's farm (M. Bryson)

So here’s your silver lining. After several years of community demoralization in the face of a seemingly-unstoppable government juggernaut, the awakening provided by Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s grandstanding gambit has re-ignited grassroots opposition to one of the most foolhardy endeavors in Illinois history. Or so I can only hope.

A version of this article was published as my monthly op-ed column in the 3 May 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For more information from IDOT’s perspective, consult the official South Suburban Airport website. For deeper news and critical analysis, see the commentary and news reports on this blog as well as by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and the Chicago Tribune for recent coverage of the political gamesmanship surrounding the Great Imaginary / Peotone / South Suburban / Abraham Lincoln National Airport.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind building an airport, too — but just a small one for balsa wood planes in my backyard in Joliet. No eminent domain proceedings by IDOT will be necessary in its construction.

Gardening for Life: Lessons from Hufford Jr. High

I’ve met Doris Hamm only once, but she’s already one of my heroes. She’s started something here in Joliet that’s going to change the world, one school and one kid at a time.

Hamm is a teacher’s assistant at Joliet’s Hufford Junior High School in Darren Raichart’s “Life Skills” class for cognitively-challenged students. She is the architect of a truly extraordinary project: a vegetable garden in Hufford’s courtyard run by her Life Skills students, who have fun getting dirty and learning hands-on gardening techniques, food preparation and cooking skills, and practical lessons in science, math, and economics.

Life Skills students in their courtyard garden at Hufford Jr. High School, Joliet IL (photo: IL District 86)

Hamm likens this sustainable experiential learning process to fishing. “It’s like the old Bible story goes,” she told me. “If you give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. If you teach them to fish, you feed them for a lifetime.”

Her students are eating it up. During my visit in the fall of 2009 to Hufford’s Life Skills classroom, the kids eagerly showed me pictures of their garden and told me about their experiences. Some struggled merely to say their names; but their enthusiasm for and knowledge about their garden was nothing short of phenomenal.

In the spring of 2009, the garden’s inaugural year, Hamm and her charges sowed $28 worth of vegetable seedlings. Their diverse array of crops included green beans, peas, tomatoes, broccoli, collard greens, cucumbers, peppers, onions, cabbage, and zucchini.

The kids tended their garden through the summer growing season by watering, pulling weeds, and harvesting food. Later, they used their vegetables in recipes and froze their excess bounty. When Thanksgiving, they cooked a feast made from the organic produce they grew, processed, and preserved themselves.

Hufford Life Skills students at their Fall 2009 farmers market in the school hallways (photo: IL District 86)

Most amazingly, the Life Skills students ran three farmer’s markets in the hallways of Hufford in the fall of 2009. Strategically timed for payday, the markets proved a huge hit among faculty and staff, and made over $300 collectively — a stunning 980% return on their initial investment. Green venture capitalists, take note!

This success has stoked great plans for coming years. Hamm and her student-gardeners hope to significantly expand their courtyard plot, dedicate part of their harvest to local charities, expand their farmer’s market operation, consider ways to supply the school cafeteria with fresh in-season vegetables, and include many more students in this incredible hands-on learning experience.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, I know they’ll make it happen. After all, they’re not just learning to plant seeds or pull weeds. They’re gardening for life.

This essay was originally published as an op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 5 November 2009. The Hufford courtyard garden has expanded as of March 2012, and the children there are busy planning their 2012 planting and growing season.

The garden project now involves several groups of kids from this urban middle school of almost 1,100 students, including those in Hufford’s Independent Education magnet program as well as those with chronic behavior problems who are learning to work side-by-side with their peers in a peaceful and respectful manner and, in the process, forging friendships with their developmentally-disabled peers.

For more information about school gardens and improving school lunch programs, check out the Illinois Nutrition Education and Training Program.

Urban Agriculture in Joliet

The phrase “urban agriculture” might seem like an oxymoron. But this burgeoning social and economic movement is revolutionizing food production, land use, K-12 education, and community development in big cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Oakland. But smaller cities like my hometown of Joliet have an opportunity to vault to the vanguard of urban agricultural innovation, if they just seize the day.

This spring some of my Roosevelt University students and I work Wednesday afternoons at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm, a small but incredibly productive operation in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood on Chicago’s Near-North Side.

Chicago Lights Urban Farm (M. Bryson)

This half-acre oasis of green built atop an abandoned basketball court started as a community garden back in 2002. Now, the Chicago Lights staff, volunteers, and local youth interns produce over 100 kinds of vegetables each growing season from this hitherto derelict property.

The Cabrini-Green farm is thus a vital source of freshly grown, organic produce in a place where walking to the nearest supermarket can entail crossing a dangerous gang boundary. It’s also a training ground for local youth in need of practical job skills; a demonstration site for sustainable agricultural techniques; a place of peace in an area pockmarked by poverty and violence; and a means of reconnecting urban folk to the natural world.

The community garden created by Cool Joliet and the University of Saint Francis (M. Bryson)

Here in Joliet, various groups have jump-started impressive urban agriculture initiatives lately, including the Cool Joliet / USF community garden project on the near West Side, the Joliet Park District’s new organic community garden opening up on McDonough Street on the far West Side; and Pilcher Park’s community/school garden on the East Side.

One remarkable opportunity waiting to bloom sits smack dab in the city’s center: the huge vacant lot located just west of Joliet Township High School’s Central campus and east of Silver Cross Field. Formerly the site of Rendel’s auto-body repair shop, this expansive grassy parcel is now owned by the high school district and has a yet-to-be-determined destiny.

View of the vacant lot owned by JT Central, looking east from the western boundary of the lot toward the high school (M. Bryson)

The school district should think big about what this property could be. One ambitious but exciting option is to create an education-focused urban agriculture enterprise for JT Central students that could start small, but eventually scale up and diversify to achieve educational and social impacts that would be unprecedented within the greater Chicago region.

Imagine students, teachers, and staff just walking outside to the farm next door and doing meaningful physical work growing and harvesting organically produced food. Such projects could be fully integrated with the school’s science, social studies, phys ed, business and health curricula, so that students learn from the ground up the ecological, economic, and social benefits of urban agriculture. Imagine their fresh local produce being donated to local food pantries, sold by student entrepreneurs at the Joliet farmers market, and eaten by students in Central’s cafeteria.

I know — it sounds pretty far-fetched. But then again, is it any crazier than believing you can grow food on top of an old basketball court in Cabrini-Green?

This essay was published as “The Revolution of Urban Agriculture” in the 29 March 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. See more pictures of Joliet Central’s open space and the Cool Joliet / USF community garden. Read about the High School for Public Service Youth Farm in Brooklyn, NY, which began in 2010 as a partnership with the nonprofit urban ag organization, bk farmyards.