Park Forest will celebrate Labor Day on Sept. 5 with a parade that circles Central Park, followed by a concert on Village Green and ending with a large fireworks display.
That’s good news.
The flip side of the coin reminds us that all these events were to coincide with this country’s celebration of its 250th anniversary on July 4. Alas, heavy rainstorms over that weekend washed out all plans.
Thanks to a fallen tree limb, and because of the holiday, our shack on Shabbona was without power for four days, or until a replacement riser pole which connects us to the grid was replaced the following Tuesday.
And that was just the start.
The recent two-month onslaught of drenching rains and destructive tornados that ravaged both the south suburbs and northwest Indiana was bad enough. These storms, coupled with the loss by many of both property and patience will always be the worm in this summer’s apple.
Homes were destroyed or severely damaged, streets were blocked by fallen trees, underpasses were turned into lakes and lives were lost. In the midst of personal disasters, we heard of people who knocked on the doors of neighbors, offering helping hands.
Then there was the domino effect. Store shelves were quickly emptied of gas generators. These machines need gallons of gas to operate and nearby gas stations in two states ran dry.
In most battles between thinking man and uncaring nature, we often get the short end of the stick, so we rely on each other for help. We needed to connect two long outdoor extension cords from our neighbor’s garage that kept our sump pump working before using large towels and a dry vac to soak up water inside our back room.
Domino theory again. Those damp, dirty towels needed to be washed and dried before they were used again. That may be the reason our monthly water bill is more than $30 higher this summer.
For weeks, the weather forecasts on the 10 p.m. news broadcasts determined how much sleep we could get overnight. Large red splotches on a weather map during the at 10 p.m. news meant red eyes at 4 the next morning.
On 175th street in Homewood, there is a two-story tall pile of roots, limbs and branches of trees that fell in the village’s battle with tornadoes, one of which doubled back into town.
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Everyone seemed to have a dire personal tale to tell. It was all about the wind and the rain. It was all the same. it was all different,
The recent spate of warm, dry weather calmed our fears. We needed a break, but while we waited for an eventual cleanup of trees and branches from our parkways and streets, thousands of people in the Indiana counties of Lake and Porter protested that Northern Indiana Public Service Company done them wrong, or even worse, done them nothing.
That brings up memories.
In early spring of 1964, we jammed our 3-year-old son, our 2-month-old daughter and a small dog into a Chevy Corvair (yes, the “unsafe at any speed” car) and traveled 1,000 miles from Albuquerque to Park Forest and to a newspaper job with the old Hammond Times.
At first, I could not figure out why I felt at home in the community, but after growing up on Chicago’s gritty West Side, those symbolic shoes I wore in Indiana seemed to fit my feet.
The promise by NIPSCO is that all the outages will be over by Tuesday of this week. So, by the time you get to this paragraph, dear reader, with any luck everyone in “the region” will be reconnected.
We can only hope.
Jerry Shany is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.