Upon return from an investigation of bizarre occurrences in Twin Peaks, Wash., FBI special agent Dale Cooper paid a visit to Rockdale, in southwestern Joliet Township. The following, obtained by the Tribune`s Allan Johnson, are tape-recorded excerpts of his stay, which Cooper dictated to his secretary:
Diane, as you know, I wanted to take a break from my investigation in Twin Peaks. Incidentally, thank you for the card you sent me. It was a nice gesture. And the gunshot injuries I sustained are healing quite well, thank you.
Using a variation of a technique I learned from my studies of Tibet, I put up a map of the United States on the wall and threw a dart to pick a location to visit. After hitting Illinois, I then got a map of that state and repeated the ritual. It landed on a small town located about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. A place called Rockdale.
Small towns. I seem to be drawn to them like moths to a flame, Diane.
I made some calls, and located one Mary Lynn Behringer, who is the president of the Rockdale School Board. She also works as public information officer for Will County Emergency Services. A very helpful person. She gave me some preliminary information on the village, and I also arranged to meet with her.
The village itself is located within Joliet Township. Joliet itself borders Rockdale on three sides. The village was founded in the 1800s by a group of Slovenians and Lithuanians, and incorporated in 1900.
Today, Rockdale has about 2,000 people, according to Ms. Behringer. I heard that the smaller the town, the more everybody is in sync with everybody. At least, that`s what I heard. It`s something that can`t be proved or disproved. Maybe that will be something I can look into during my visit.
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I just finished my first visit with Mary Lynn Behringer, Diane. She perfers to be called Lynn. I met her in Joliet, where she works.
Unfortunately, I couldn`t reveal that I was a special agent with the FBI. I didn`t want her to think I was investigating either her or the town. You very well remember the incident in Mill Valley, Mont. I told her I was a reporter from one of the area newspapers.
”It`s pretty much a blue-collar town,” Ms. Behringer told me. ”It`s very ethnic-oriented and it remains composed of the same families.” Indeed, Diane, as we were driving into the village, she pointed out places where her various family members lived. And they were all not too far away from her home, which she also indicated to me.
That was the first distinction of Rockdale. The sense of family that this village has. Ms. Behringer, for instance, said her grandfather settled in Rockdale, and his home is still occupied by Behringer`s father. Her father and brother-in-law were mayors of the town. Ms. Behringer has family running a small steel fabrication plant. Her cousin`s father started the plant on what was once his homestead. Now, that home was moved about a block up the road, and his son lives there with his wife.
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”I`m a single parent. I can walk down the street at 8, 9, 10 o`clock at night and I can cover the mile-and-a-half in town, and I`m not afraid, because you know everybody,” Ms. Behringer told me. Everybody knows everybody. The second distinction of Rockdale. And when someone moves into town, everybody makes an effort to find out who the new person is.
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I just completed a talk with Ms. Behringer`s two cousins. Diane, these are the ones working at their father`s fabrication plant. Chuck Anzelc`s dad has been in business for 31 years. Although Chuck lives in Plainfield, he said he ”can honestly say I`ve probably spent the better part of my life in Rockdale.”
”I think this town offers a homespun togetherness-type of atmosphere,”
he told me. ”It seems like everybody knows everybody, and most of the time that`s good. Sometimes it`s not.”
Was this an indication that maybe everything wasn`t as ordinary as it seemed? I wondered to myself. I decided I`d probe further, asking Anzelc if that last comment was anything he could elaborate on. It took him a while to come up with the right words. Thinking that I was from a newspaper, he didn`t want anyone to get the wrong impression.
”It`s a close-knit town, but yet, for the lack of a better word, maybe there`s a tendency for people to become too nosy,” he said. Anzelc`s voice dropped when he said ”nosy,” as if he didn`t want anyone to really hear what he had just said. He added quickly, ”But by and large, most small towns are like that, and it`s nothing that really bothers us at all.”
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Rockdale has been called by Anzelc and Mary Lynn Behringer an industrial, blue-collar town. Indeed, one can see a smokestack jutting into the sky, an indication of how industry has played a part in this town`s history. That stack belongs to a Commonwealth Edison coal-burning plant, by the way.
Industry has supported the village, Diane, as far back as the 1930s and
`40s, when the Navy had a shipbuilding yard located along the Des Plaines River. German prisoners from World War II were kept there, according to some people I talked to. Factories moved into the yard after the war, and later it was used for warehousing. It was hit by a fire in 1988 and is no longer in use.
Today, Rockdale has some light industry, including a window-making plant, a company involved in wallpaper, a trucking outfit and an electrical supply firm. Diane, Chuck Anzelc described Rockdale as having ”enough industry and residential mixed together where it makes a nice harmony. And yet, it`s not a totally industrialized town or village.”
That`s probably because Rockdale has kept its humanity intact, while letting the industry have its own place. That`s evident in the fact that, according to Ms. Behringer, everything ”centers around” the Rockdale School. It`s the only school in the town, catering to grades kindergarden to eight. Fire also played a part in the history of the Rockdale School. It was destroyed in 1948, but was rebuilt soon after. The school is always open. It caters to scout meetings, firemen`s breakfasts, a village meeting hall.
The big event in Rockdale, Diane, is the school centennial and reunion. The town had a big celebration for the school, which opened in 1890. About 560 of the school`s alumni – some graduates from as far back as 1912 – attended a weekend bash last month, some coming from as far as Canada, Florida and the East Coast. There also was a teacher from as far back as 1938.
Why anyone would want to see their old teachers is beyond me, Diane. But that`s my own opinion.
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A third distinction of Rockdale is its history of taverns. I learned about this initially from Ms. Behringer, but I got an up-close and personal taste of it from one Michael Orlovich. A Rockdale resident for all of 78 years, he has run his bar with his brother George for 46 years. It seems that some time back, Rockdale had a reputation of being the place to go when the bars in the surrounding area would close.
”We`d close at 3 o`clock in the morning, and Joliet would close at 2, and some people would come down,” Orlovich said to me. ”But that didn`t bother me, `cause the doors would be closed,” he smiled. A lively man, Orlovich was. A Chicago White Sox fan.
Orlovich said he`d only let in those he considered regulars. ”Anybody else could not come in.” He considered those to be members of ”a poor-man`s Key Club.” I wonder if it`s like the Bookhouse Boys back in Twin Peaks? But since then, Diane, the village adopted an ordinance closing all bars at 2 a.m. I also had a chance to talk to Ms. Behringer`s father about the tavern problems. John Darguzis was mayor from 1965 to `69. He, and others, told me that Rockdale had anywhere between 30 and 50 bars at one point.
”There was quite a bit of trouble,” Darguzis said. ”A few people were killed. They`d flock down here from 2 to 3, and there was nothing but trouble. They`d had enough to drink already. But you know how it is: one for the road.”
Darguzis helped to introduce the earlier bar closing time in 1966.
Diane, being a lawman, that led me to wonder about the crime rate in the village. I`m going to have to make a stop at the sheriff`s office. I could do with a cup of coffee as well.
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No coffee. No coffee. I can`t believe it. Diane, I`ve just come from what surely has to be considered hell for all rational-thinking law enforcement officers. Robert Zivaly, the chief of police for Rockdale – he had no coffee. Zivaly has been chief for 14 years. As I suspected, there is no major crime to speak of.
”Nothing that big . . . we don`t have that much of a crime rate,” he told me. He did admit that there were some busy weekends.
Something interesting, Diane. Zivaly said there were 13 drinking permits in Rockdale. From 30 to 50, to 13. Again, it`s the people that keep things orderly, so to speak, according to Zivaly.
”It keeps us busy, but we`ve got a lot of good people who live here who don`t give us any problems. And I`ve got some very good officers.” Four full- timers, two part-timers.
But no coffee. I figured it would be pointless to ask about doughnuts.
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”Yeah, it probably is” bad coffee, Robert Stahl said. ”I can attest to it. It is,” added Lynn Behringer. We just came from the office of Stahl, superintendent of the school district. That district comprises one school: the Rockdale School, with about 238 kids.
And attendance hasn`t changed that much from the 1940s, according to Stahl. He said that, for instance, from 1946 to 1948, attendance ran from 269 to 299. It only dropped when a Catholic school was opened. When it closed in 1970, the rate rose again.
”I think the people who live in Rockdale like Rockdale,” Stahl said.
”I think their children may inherit their homes or some property in Rockdale and stay here.” Those homes, many of which are brick and wood structures that date from the early 1900s, average about $70,000, according to Ms. Behringer.
”Rockdale has the best tax rate in the county,” said Stahl. Some checking revealed that the tax rate for the school district is the second-lowest in Will County, 1.5 percent in 1989. A lot of people I talked to told me the low tax is a major reason they like living in Rockdale, Diane. The taxes are low because the village is small, but it has its industrial base.
Interesting note, Diane. Rockdale`s population is heavily Hispanic. The Rockdale School has the highest percentage rate of Hispanic kids in Will County, at 25.9 percent.
I talked to Jim Enez, who moved to the village with his wife in 1961, and currently has a commercial electrical business. He also owns the reception hall where the Rockdale School reunion was held.
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The industry is the reason that Hispanics were drawn to Rockdale, according to Enez. He also said there is no difference between Hispanic and other residents.
”Oh, yeah, we all work together,” Enez said. ”There`s no hard feelings between any of us. We`re all hard-working people down here.”
Rockdale has what is called the Hill, on the north side of the village, and the Lower Hill on the south side. Both groups live on both sides of the twin hills.
Sorry, Diane. I couldn`t resist.
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In the big cities, the main concerns are crime and urban decay, Diane. In Rockdale?
”Trying to get the zoning laws updated,” said Rockdale Mayor Henry Berry. Trying to keep taxes as low as possible. Trying to generate ”good, clean” industrial interests. Some vacant lots have been freed up on the Hill, Berry said, that could be used for residential purposes. Jim Enez told me there weren`t that many places to grow in the village anymore, ”because all the land is gone and our boundaries are limited.”
”I think being the mayor of a small town is something everybody should do at least once,” said Berry. He said there were always little problems to attend to. People complaining about the smoke from burning leaves. Dogs barking. Kids shooting off firecrackers. I once had a dream about kids and firecrackers.
Although the job is a part-time occupation, Berry said ”it consumes a lot of my time.” The next election is in 1993. I asked if Berry would run again. ”That`s too far down the road.”
Do you think I would make a good mayor, Diane?
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”We all seem to come back. Whatever Rockdale has, its mystique, it gets the younger generation to come back and resettle,” Ms. Behringer told me.
Mystique. What an interesting word to use. Diane, people who were born in the big cities probably would use a word like ”boring” to describe small towns. But when you think about it, the mystique of a small town might be, not boredom, but maybe that nothing really goes on. There`s just a settled, day-by-day existence.
If you`ve lived in a big city all of your life, you probably could never conceive of living in a place where the biggest event is a school reunion. If you`re used to traffic jams, bumping into strangers and worrying about the crime rate, then residing in a town where you can drive for blocks without encountering another car, or know everyone you see on the street, or leave your doors unlocked at night, might be unthinkable.
But most small towns have that. That`s their mystique.
Something reminded me that it was time for me to return to Twin Peaks, Diane. Behringer dropped me off at my car, and I was driving out of the parking lot. It was the man who waved me out that caused me to sit up and take notice.
He had one arm.