I was to walk uninterrupted from Lodge to Bondville, but several things changed the plan. First it rained all night. Sure, I was parked near an all-night gas station with restroom facilities, but I was so snug in that topper, with an air mattress that actually holds air, that I hated to get out into the elements, even for something important. But nature called, and I responded. It was now about 3:30 a.m., and I was awake and a bit damp. I decided to drive from where I was up to Lodge to be ready to start if the rain quit. I just couldn’t find a parking place near Lodge, so I drove up to a couple of miles before Seymour and found a utility line right of way parallel to the road. I pulled in there and spent some more high-quality time in the sack, so to speak.
As soon as I dared (as soon as there was enough light to be seen by a grain truck driver), I set out. I was back to the pickup and thinking about what to do (it seemed that it would start raining again at any moment). I put the flag away (I have no good place to dry out a wet flag except by flying it from the bike when the sun is shining). Just then it started to rain. Now I had a wet rain jacket to worry about.
I had made a chiropractic appointment in Monticello for 10:45 a.m., so I hopped (okay, I’m exaggerating: I crawled) into the pickup and headed to Champaign. At home I started washing my road-soiled clothing from all week and jumped (again I exaggerate: staggered) into the shower to wash off enough dirt to start a garden.
Fully clothed and in my right mind (and clean to boot), I drove to Monticello to my chiropractor, whose husband Paul, a good friend of mine, is in Malawe, Africa, establishing water wells. Gee, I could have been doing that instead of trekking across Illinois. Being on a well-digging team has to have certain advantages during the dry season when one is traveling in Africa.
Seymour
Well adjusted, I drove to my new starting point just west of Seymour, walked up to the town, then rode my bike up and down the streets to get a handle on the place. I stopped to talk to a veteran to thank him for his nice U.S. Flag display, and he said, “I always fly it.” He served in the National Guard, and was in and out before I joined the Army in 1966. I thanked him for his service to our country.
At another home I saw two U.S. Marine Corps decals on the back window of a car in the driveway. I stopped and talked to a nice-looking young man who, despite the recent rain, was mowing the lawn. I asked him about the Marine Corps connection, and he told me that his two brothers in serving in California in the Marine Corp. I gave him a flyer and told him to thank his brothers for their service the next time he talks to them. He said he would.
At a mobile home up the street a sticker on the storm door said, “We support our soldiers,” and a sticker on the back window of a car in the driveway said, “Proud Parent of a Soldier.” I stopped and knocked, but no one was home, so I left a flyer from my walk in the door.
After I had ridden back and brought the pickup forward, I began walking east again. Here the mileage figures on the state road map were really off, and I thought Bondville would be farther than it turned out to be. Just before I got to Illinois Route 47, I saw a man with whom I used to go to church turning into a driveway. In the second driveway was the pickup of a man who used to be the president of the company I retired from in April, but he had left to work with the gentleman I had just see turn into the other driveway.
I stopped at the house. I’ll call the two men Rich McQue and Rick Breitenfeldt, for lack of better names. Rich didn’t recognize me without my Santa beard, but Rick did, having seen me beardless on a number of occasions. They suggested that they drive back, get my pickup, and position it somewhere up the road. We settled on Staley Road at the southwest edge of Champaign, and so I was helped forward yet again by not having to ride back.
Bondville
Bondville is in Champaign County. There are buildings in the west part of the town that once belonged to an early camping trailer manufacturer, which had the distinction of being the first camper manufacturer to install toilets in their campers.
One of the more interesting houses just south of the highway is a large brick one. We once looked at that house, with the idea of buying it. That was in about 2002. I thought the house was overpriced at $105,000, but in retrospect, it would have been a bargain. Think of all the house guests we could have entertained! Mary was very disappointed when I decided we shouldn’t pursue that particular house.
The house had an interesting story. It had been moved into town from a farm several miles to the south. Given the size of the house, the fact that it was a true masonry brick building, and the tremendous weight, that’s no small feat. I couldn’t see any cracks or other signs of the house’s having been moved.
An interesting Bondville story occurred a few years ago. A friend of mine, Louise, ran a phone installation and repair service and a two-way radio service in the former Bondville schoolhouse, which she had converted into their company headquarters. One Saturday morning the place was suddenly swarming with SWAT officers, who held her at gunpoint, while she explained that the building was now her business.
It turned out that some years earlier, when the building had still been vacant, a police training facility had secured permission to use the building as a SWAT training area. No one had bothered to check whether the building was still vacant, or whether the permission to train there was still valid. From this perspective, this could be a funny story, but I can just imagine Louise being held at gunpoint, sputtering to the officers that they had no business being there.
Another interesting building is the urban rail station and power plant. It has been restored and looks to be in reasonable condition.
I haven’t calculated the day’s walk, but it has to be pretty close to 14 miles. Still, the roadside was not mowed (lots of ragweed and poison ivy). The shoulder was sloping and very rough. There was often no way to get off the roadway at all, and truck traffic was very heavy, despite a relative dearth of grain trucks (nobody combining that soon after the heavy rains of the previous night and morning).
I made Bondville, but was out of both flyers and water. Because I had planned on walking only a few miles, I hadn’t bothered to carry the usual two water bottles on the bike. I stopped at Harmon Excavation on the south side of the road near the eastern edge of Bondville. The lady running the office directed me to the company kitchen sink, where I refilled the bottle, drank a liter of water, and refilled it once more for the miles remaining.
As I limped in to the gas station where Rick and Rich had left my pickup, I saw a lady pull up to the gas pumps. Her car had News-Gazette painted on both sides. Gee. Could it be? I had been trying in vain to establish contact with that newspaper since before the walk. Just two days before I had left a voicemail for the managing editor, and I had tried every way I could contrive to send them a press release, even sending one on the Web form designed for sending in letters to the editor.
The dear lady turned out to be a photojournalist for the News-Gazette. She said she’d get me into the paper, thought she couldn’t guarantee the front page. In all the papers that have run articles about the walk, with the exception of the local weekly at Mount Sterling, I’ve made the front page.
Of course this walk isn’t about me. It’s about those who are serving, though who have served, and those who have made incredible sacrifices for our nation. But the publicity along the way helps me do my job, which is primarily to raise awareness of our men and women serving in harm’s way—our armed forces. When I have good local press and other news media coverage, the people out on the road know what I’m doing, and I get lots of waves, honks, and thumbs up. I even get the occasional salute from a fellow veteran. When I don’t get good news coverage, mine is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and I get lots less attention.
I practically sneaked through Beardstown and Havana. I have no idea of whether the local papers covered my walk or not. Of the dozens of press releases I sent out, I got confirmation of only 2 being received. Nevertheless, most of the time when I arrive in an area, someone says there has been an article about the walk in the local paper a few weeks previously.
My advice to you on this fine day is that you never bicycle or walk on Illinois Route 10 for the first 20 miles or so west of Champaign.
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