My name is Scott T. Holland. I'm a newspaper columnist-editor-designer, a self-published author and a marketing-sales-Web-whatever else guy for my parents' family business, now living in Gurnee, Ill. The site is about my life, which includes a beautiful wife, our four young sons... plus way too much time watching the Cubs and bad television. That said, if you don't find me interesting, this blog will likely bore you to tears.
You've heard the story before: national chain announces plans to move to town, mom-and-pop operators tremble, townspeople rally against the evil corporate overlords, or at least they say they will.
Except that's not always the way it works. Sometimes the townspeople take every chance they can to step all over mom and pop in a rush to open their hearts and wallets to the new kid in town.
As Walmart prepares to open a store in Streator, it is greeted with comments like this posted on this newspaper's website:
"Yes Walmart is doing wonderful things for Streator and the rest of America, but it is too bad they are so evil. Oh, and i'm non union or a local business owner. They do know how to survive in these poor economic times while squeezing as much as they can out of their employees and anyone else they can take advantage of. And they don't care who they destroy along the way as long as they thrive. But that is business and Walmart is good at business. I hope when times get better that Walmart remembers all these people and gives them what they really deserve, a decent living. They stood behind you in poor times to keep you afloat just remember them when times get better. And yes I do have a grudge against Walmart and it is legit. Advertising has made Walmart No. 1 because it sure isn't the prices."
As Olive Garden announces plans to open a restaurant in Peru, however, it's been a gigantic lovefest. The only negative remarks, it seems, are from people who seem to think the only thing better than an Olive Garden in Peru is an Olive Garden in Ottawa. To wit:
"Ottawa goofed again !!!! Why can't we get these great chains here in this town? Perfect location, right off 80. And with all the bike traffic and sightseers. Gosh I just don't get it !!! I'm beginning to think this town has no taste in good food. Whatever happened to the Dairy Queen that was to go up by Culvers? Ottawa wouldn't even want to try to get a Portillo's here because they just can't deal with the competition. Wake up already. Most people drive out of town to get good food. You get pretty tired of the same old stuff Ottawa offers which isn't much!!!!!!! Bet you won't print this because it's the truth and the way most people here feel, but are afraid to admit it !! Just keep adding another tattoo parlor, bar or resale shop. It's getting really sad watching other towns making smart decisions."
It's not too much of a stretch to say Olive Garden is to Italian cuisine what Walmart is to the big box department store, although the restaurant tries much harder to convey a high-end aura. But really, neither makes any bones about what they are: a homogenized experience that sells you on its brand as much as anything else. Based on the strength of national advertising campaigns and the proclivity of the consumer to seek out the familiar, each attempts to deliver on its stated promises to the customer every time someone is ready to spend money on the product.
After lunch and some napping, we headed out for part two of dad's birthday bonanza: bowling. Jack had some free games saved up from his junior bowling league, and we decided this might be a good time to let Max try bowling for the first time. And we though Charlie might enjoy something new to look at. So off the Vernon Hills we went. Aside from about 15 minutes spent getting our lane to function properly and getting moved to a new lane, things went pretty well (and I suppose I should mention the time Max managed to get his ball between the bumper and the gutter, and that when an alley employee rescued the ball, he promptly did the exact same thing on the other side of the lane). I present, without much in the way of narration, photos and videos from our family affair.
After bowling we headed to Pops and K's house for a wonderful cookout meal and dessert with candles and singing and the works. After that is was off to Gurnee for the fireworks (we opted to watch from our car in a fairly secluded spot with some excellent music on the van CD player) and a wonderful end to my 32nd birthday. The weekend was not over, however. Hopefully more pictures tomorrow.
Each summer, Gurnee Days happens on the second weekend of August. Since my birthday is the 13th, there is generally some close proximity between the two. This year, the biggest day of Gurnee Days actually was my birthday, and we aimed to take full advantage of the coincidence (by taking part in only the festival stuff we wanted to and avoiding the park with the rides, games and "food"). The first order of business was tours of the fire, police and public works facilities. Though we only made it to the first two, I'd say all of us (save Charlie, who was in his typical state of compliant oblivion) had a great time.
First up was the fire station. Since we didn't want to wait in line for the fire truck ride, we headed inside to the open house. Jack put up a mild protest before agreeing to pose for this photo.
After that, he and Kristie (and, by association, Charlie) went to wait in line for popcorn. I used the opportunity to take Max to the bathroom (always nice to pee in a new public restroom) and then pose him in front of the firefighters' gear:
They have a fire pole at the fire station for events such as this. It's basically a pole you access via an attached ladder, and the whole thing can be wheeled off into storage. I guess they figure you can't have a fire station open house without a fire pole for the kids to slide down.
From there we headed outside. I couldn't get a good picture of the guy who was in full scuba gear retrieving coins from the bottom of a Dumpster filled with water, but I did get this video of Jack "running" the obstacle course they set up. He opted not to wear the junior fire coat for this venture, and I can't say as if I blame him. It was pretty warm in advance of an early afternoon storm.
Eventually we made our way to the police station, where I was much more hesitant to shoot photos. The kids were sufficiently bored by the office areas (because, really, they look like any modern office), but Jack (and Kristie) were pretty enthralled by all there was to take in at the 911 dispatch center. You could almost see Jack lining up his career aspirations as he watched operators who had about 16 computer and video monitors to look at, all while answering the phone on hands-free headsets.
We also looked at the shooting range, vehicle garage, fitness center and meeting area... as well as the booking desk and jail cells. I couldn't resist taking one photo in here. This is about the time Kristie said, "If you boys are ever in here for anything other than a tour..."
We also took advantage of car seat safety checks and felt a little sheepish twice. Once when I parked the van and seven officers (some armed) strode purposefully toward the vehicle as if I'd just completed a high-speed chase, and again when they showed us how easy it would have been to properly install Max and Charlie's car seats. Whoops. We did manage to finish up just before the storm hit and head back home for lunch. That left the whole afternoon and evening open for activities before the annual fireworks show, but I'll address that in another post.
Middle school students in Ottawa this year will be learning about conjugating verbs instead of the proper way to operate a belt sander. And if you think that decision is about positioning students to succeed in a global economy, well, you obviously don't read comment threads on newspaper websites.
At a meeting one week ago, the Ottawa Elementary School Board voted 5-1 to eliminate the industrial arts program at Shepherd Middle School to be replaced with foreign language classes. Board member Mary Ganiere voted in opposition; board member Michael Bannister was absent.
"I think more kids need industrial arts," Ganiere said. "Too many kids are not high academically and they need to go into the trades. I think this helps them."
Superintendent Cleve Threadgill said the decision was made to swap the programs to offer a more enriching curriculum.
"Foreign language is obviously a way to target higher original thinking skills," he said. "And the world we live in is smaller than it used to be."
Now, a critical thinker might wonder why a school board made such a decision just days before classes were to start —especially when the language to be taught is entirely dependent on what teacher can be hired on such short notice. (Note: if this were a sitcom, you'd just have a shop teacher in coveralls trying to explain how in French some words are feminine and others are masculine.)
But no, the faithful commenters at MyWebTimes.com immediately took this dialogue to its only "logical" conclusion: this country is going to hell.
I give you now a few select comments with the user names removed to protect the stupid. Original spelling and "grammar" left as is.
Yes, I'm roughly two months past the fact on this one. But here is video of Jack and all the other Vacation Bible School kids singing in worship on a Sunday morning in June. There is a slow pan of all the kids in the first video where you can find Jack wearing a green polo shirt.
At the end of Jack's week at How's house, the rest of us drove out Friday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. Predictably there was some resistance from Jack upon our arrival. He and Max got into their first fight roughly five minutes after we arrived, and there were nightly battles over showers, bed time, etc. I know where he was coming from in terms of not wanting to share How and being forced to conform with some rules he'd been happily bending in our absence, but I also know we needed to start restoring some order or there would be hell to pay when we tried to get back to normal Monday morning.
(Side note: Monday actually went way better than expected because K offered to take Jack to the dentist with her in the hope of assuaging his serious fears in advance of his Wednesday appointment. That entailed coming to work with me in the morning, then hitting the dentist and getting lunch out with K (McDonald's for 10 McNuggets and ice cream) and then the full afternoon at HSE world headquarters. One of his top 10 days of 2011, no doubt, and he was amazing at his own dental appointment later in the week.)
But amid the fighting in Fulton there were some good moments. Kristie and her mom cleaned up at garage sales (no photos of that) and the boys got a few good chances to play with How. Plus we were able to take something resembling a cute four-generation photo with Great How.
Jack lives it up in How's basement. From How's House
Jack spent the first week of August at How's House. How and Pop came to pick him up on Monday of that week. After a full day of playing, including a trip to the library, Max simply could not remain conscious. And, as if my some sort of parental law, I documented his crash with a photo:
On Wednesday of that week, Kristie brought Max and Charlie to Libertyville for lunch. At least that's what I recall. It's been a while since then. But I can guarantee they were there at some point that day,because I took these photos:
That's it for this week. I guess without Jack around I wasn't compelled to take pictures. Or maybe I was just taken aback by how relatively quiet the house became with only two of our three kids at home. It was interesting to get a feel for what it would be like to have a baby and a 3-year-old (instead of a baby and a 4-year-old, which we had, and yes, it is that different). Of course, Jack at 3 and Max at 3 are almost indistinguishable from each other, and this week helped underscore that as well.
Big thanks to How, Pop and Uncle Kyle for hosting Jack for a week. It is so clearly one of the highlights of his entire year, and given the experiences I had spending weeks with my grandparents in Elizabeth, I know exactly how Jack feels.
How far behind am I on putting stuff on the blog? This video of Charlie in his Jumperoo is from August 1. And he now is so disenchanted with the Jumperoo that it's probably going back in the basement Sunday afternoon. But, for the sake of posterity, here he is:
It's great fun every spring to solicit advice for graduating high school seniors. What a heady time for those young folks on the brink of adulthood when nearly everyone they encounter offers congratulations.
Though it's been a few years since I collected a high school diploma, I can vividly recall the feeling of empowerment from that June slowly giving way to many less wonderful emotions as it dawned on me I would actually be going off to college where I would know precisely one other student. He'd been my best friend forever, but still, it was the two of us in an entirely new world.
It's that time of year again where last spring's high school seniors become this fall's college freshmen. The advice in this instance is much less "the world is your oyster" and much more "buy enough socks and underwear so you only have to do laundry once a month."
From my own experience, I strongly suggest trying to spend as little on books as possible. As an English major, many of the texts I needed were cheaper at the mall than on campus. Also, if I'd asked some upperclassmen, I would have learned which professors have a tendency to put books on the "must purchase" list and then not bother to work them into the curriculum.
For students going from a larger high school to a smaller college, you may well be a big fish in a small pond — but not on day one. On day one, you are all guppies.
Many of my Facebook friends suggested the same kernel of wisdom I planned to impart: meet people on campus. Do not go home every weekend, do not spend all your free time visiting high school friends at other colleges. It is fine in moderation, but if you find yourself isolated and alone on a college campus, you have only yourself to blame.
Learn as quickly as possible the rules of your school's food service program. They are different at every college, but successful mastery of getting the most out of your meal plan dollar is absolutely essential. Likewise, figure out if you can use your own computer in conjunction with network printers. A printer in your dorm room takes up too much space, not to mention the impact of ink or toner on your meager budget.
Let me start this out by saying I love my children. I really do. They are amazing little creatures, and watching them grow and hearing the things they think of is really a neat thing. However, why oh why do they have to be SO destructive? Is it just because they're boys? Is it because I don't discipline them enough? Is it because they have too many toys?
I've thought about all the possible answers to those questions and I've decided it's simply because they are boys with an incredible amount of energy. And because they're smart and inquisitive, which inevitably leads to trying things out to see what will happen. For example: What would happen if I threw this frisbee on top of the roof? OR What would it look like if I took this radio apart? OR Why shouldn't I throw anything that slightly resembles a ball around the house despite the fact mom and dad have told me not to every day of my life?
I have to be done with this post. I hear them throwing something against the side of the house.
A few more photos from later July and early August. I'm hoping once the school year settles into a routine I can maybe stop being a week or two behind on photo posting, but who am I kidding? There's always something unexpected just around the next corner. In fact, you might say the lack of routine is what has become our routine. Predictable unpredictability. Like Charlie's decision to start getting up at 4:30 a.m. each day instead of 6 a.m. An unwelcome development.
Anyway, here are some cute around-the-house snapshots. I really should try to capture more of these moments. It's pictures like these where I can really tell how much more camera time we had with Jack, and that's back when we were using film. We were lucky he was such a ham as each roll always had five or more high-quality shots, and we were developing a roll at least once a month if not more.
Well, on to the artwork:
This is how Charlie prefers to sleep during daylight hours. From Hollands at Home 2011
There comes a point where a potentially decent idea crosses the line from feasible to foolish, and it seems likely the notion of rewatering a portion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in Ottawa has cleared the threshold.
I'm more inclined than many naysayers to support beautification projects, especially those that might be considered unconventional. But when the canal issue resurfaced at a recent Ottawa Canal Association meeting, the discussion left me square in the camp of opposers.
Mayor Robert Eschbach explained the plan, as currently proposed, is to return water to a section of the canal from a recently restored and toll collector's house, perhaps from Guion Street west to the railroad crossing. Motorists crossing on Columbus and La Salle streets would have the sense of going over a canal, instead of the unshakeable ditch sensation that is the status quo.
The water ideally would be deep enough to operate a canoe or paddle boat —about three feet. A decade-old plan suggests piping in fresh water from the Dayton dam or Fox River. A newer idea is to line the section in question with clay or a bentonite/soil mixture and then simply pour in water from the city's fresh water supply.
To the city's credit, the planning to this point has been almost entirely talk. The idea is to develop a preliminary plan that could be submitted to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the agency that controls the canal. Then, the logic goes, the city could act quickly in case a grant or other source of money becomes available.
Many have come forward to discuss reasons this plan doesn't hold water (pun very much intended). What about the feelings of the nearby homeowners? What about unwanted vegetation? Sure, the canal looks great in Morris, but Utica has battled issues with its section for years. Furthermore, it's not as if Ottawa is starved for opportunities for water-based recreation.
And so Charlie has been with us for six months (as of Saturday) or 26 weeks (as of Sunday). And a quick look back at my own writing on this particular subject shows I haven’t weighed in at length for exactly half the little guy’s life. This is rather unfair to Charlie, who is pretty much an entirely different entity from three months ago. He still eats the same exact thing, and he’s still sleeping in a bouncy seat instead of a crib. No crawling, no sitting, no teeth and so on. But other than those basics, a six-month-old is completely different from a three-month-old.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is little more pleasurable in this world (so far as things you may discuss in mixed company) than coming home from work at the end of the day, saying hello to your six-month-old son and seeing him almost instantly break out into a grin so wide he also must flap his arms and kick his legs to fully express the joy your mere presence brings to him.
Of course, I am not the one who stays home with Charlie (and Jack and Max) all day every day while also being his only source of food. So I realize that all the things I love about Charlie do not come hand-in-hand with all the things that make him a terrible amount of work. Yes, I woke up three times the other night just to stick my thumb in his mouth until he went back to sleep. But that hardly compares to ceding one’s body for 15 months now just to keep this tiny creature alive.
I don’t just write things like that because I have to write things like that. I really do mean them. However, I also am absolutely serious when I say having a six-month-old baby in the house again is completely awesome, even as it also is awesome to have a 7-year-old and 3-year-old who each bring their own positive attributes to the family dynamic. But when you hold Charlie and he looks at you and smiles and squeaks you find yourself saying things like, “This is why people keep having babies!”
Peek-a-boo!
(Perhaps you, dear reader, have not had this experience, because in all likelihood if you have actually held Charlie, he did not look at you and smile. What can I say? He loves his parents. And he is nowhere near as particular about this issue as Max, so we’re considering it a victory. Who knew how spoiled we were by Jack’s absolute lack of concern for who was holding him from the very first moment?)
Of course, there are lots of reasons people don’t keep having babies, and all it takes is a cursory look at my Facebook news feed to encounter friends who are beyond uncomfortable in the later terms of their pregnancies, friends who have just brought home newborns in the last week or so and are therefore deprived of not just sleep but all rational thought and friends who, in the absolute worst-case scenario as far as my bride is concerned, have given birth to twins. This is written not to give any insight as to whether Charlie will be the last baby we make as much as to say: I know babies are a pain in the rear but gosh darn it I love them anyway. But only if they are mine.
For someone who is so enamored with being a father and, in some weird way, the particular challenges of very young children (yes, I’m talking about myself), I have long been uninterested in anyone else’s baby. I will look at the pictures, and sometimes seek them out, but I don’t really want to hold it. When friends are heading to the hospital I am always concerned that everything goes well ever since Max taught us full term pregnancy does not mean smooth sailing in the delivery room. But once the bundle of joy is out and safe, that’s good enough for me.
Maybe my tune will change when one of our siblings invents a cousin for our boys, but I’m not exactly holding my breath on that front. Kristie’s cousin, in fact, has had two children, including one very recently. I’m very happy for her and her husband, but should we encounter their entire family, I’ll be the one trying to connect with the 2-year-old boy while everyone else coos over the newborn girl. I’m not sure if this does or should say anything about me, but I feel compelled to share for some reason. Perhaps you can suggest why that is; I haven’t a clue.
As for the specifics of Charlie, I can report the following, some of which might not be new information: he is not close to being able to sit up. He seems to be far away from sprouting teeth. He regularly sleeps from 9:30 or 10 p.m. to almost 6 a.m., though he still is in a little seat in his room (strapped in) and has rejected my few attempts to get him to sleep in his crib. He will not use a pacifier, but he is in no way shy about isolating one of my thumbs and jamming it in his mouth. He likes to grab pretty much everything, with a special affinity for the short hairs on the back of Kristie’s neck. She does not enjoy this.
He has eaten trace amounts of baby applesauce (still heavy in Max’s rotation), mostly off a parents’ fingertip but once off a spoon, so there’s a chance this part of his diet will increase in the very near future. Kristie just recently put up the fancy-pants high chair we bough for him more than a year ago, but he’s not yet had a seat. He is on occasion quite happy to be in his Jumparoo, provided a parent is continually in his line of sight. Usually this contentment period ends without warning, and then he must be picked up.
The Jumparoo.
He is quite fond of being “worn” in any manner of slings, wraps and harnesses we have laying about the house. I suggest if we took the money spent on these apparatuses and invested it the boy might have a sturdy college fund in 18 years. But I am reminded some of them were bought for older boys, many were gently used and therefore came at a reduced cost and, really, what is the price tag on a wife’s sanity? (You guessed it: there is none.)
Charlie prefers to nap when being worn, which is good on the one hand because we have a reliable “get that kid to sleep” trick. On the other, it’s not that easy to be productive with a sleeping child attached to you, especially when your other, older children are wide awake. I am fond of strapping Charlie to my chest and heading off for a robust walk through the subdivision (past many very well engineered cul-de-sacs), and while it has not yet failed to secure at least a brief nap, it also is very good at making both of us sweaty and is avoided altogether when the heat and humidity are unfit for man and beast (and baby). If push comes to shove, I’ll drive him to the mall and walk around there.
Another downside of his constant physical connection to one of his parents (and also to summer being a harder time to get any boys to bed) is we’ve been staying up too late pretty much every night simply to give ourselves a chance to type two-handed, watch a television show featuring real humans instead of animated characters or simply eat without interruption. It has so far not made the days unbearable for lack of sleep, but at some point we will not be able to push it this hard. These are not uncharted waters for parents of more than one child, but at least we have the benefit of a DVR to store all the shows we swear we’ll get around watching before the season premieres start next month.
As I write these sentences the clock is rolling past midnight and so any earlier reference to today now refers to yesterday, if you’re keeping score at home, so apologies for that. I’d still like to find a photo or two to go with this post, so I’m going to cut it short. And maybe after 1,400 words on the subject I just don’t have that much more to say.
These first six months, on balance, have gone remarkably well. The next six months get Jack in second grade, Max starting preschool and Charlie hopefully learning some independence while also being the cutest damn thing you’ve ever seen on this planet, not to mention all the holidays, fall and winter coming back and a bunch more snow to shovel. Hard to believe how different things were six months ago tonight and how different they will be again six months in the future. Life with little ones moves at a remarkably quick pace while also being the most time-consuming activity possible. Such is life, and what a life it is.
My youngest son is nearly 6 months old, which means he is perfectly capable of locking into eye contact, studying every corner of my face as I gladly return the favor. And while Charlie looks at me and, seemingly, recognizes enough familiar features to feel safe and protected, I stare back at him and wonder what the future will hold for both of us.
Easter Sunday was our oldest son's seventh birthday. Jack made us parents in 2004. It was when my wife went back to work at the start of the following school year that I finally thought maybe we ought to invest in some cell phones. Judging by our peers, we were pretty late to that party, and we still lag behind. Friends use their iPhones to shoot video of their babies walking and post them quickly to Facebook.
I do my part — some would say more than my share — to populate the Internet with pictures, videos and stories of my kids. But I do it with cameras and cables and computers. It's not exactly smoke signals and semaphore, but I'm still aware of being behind the times.
Not that I'm complaining, of course. If we did have smartphones, we'd surely be spending far too much energy wrestling them away from the kids. The middle boy, who reached 3 in March, is capable of breaking nearly anything, save his own body (so far), in any manner of creative ways. I have not yet met a person who has had to retrieve an iPhone from a downspout, but with Max all things are possible.
I tried to tell the oldest a few weeks ago that when I was his age (in 1986) there was no such thing as a cell phone. At least not for the common consumer. You could say the same for laptop computers. Desktop models were primitive at best. Heck, I'm old enough to remember watching cartoons on a black-and-white TV and being amazed when new technologies like microwave ovens and CD players entered the home.
This notion of rapidly advancing technology is perhaps a hackneyed theme, but when viewed in the context of a child, it somehow becomes more striking. Jack has asked, too many times to count, for his own iPod. He has vowed to get a job strictly for the purposes of earning enough money to purchase an iPhone. How do you explain to such a child that by the time he's old enough to work, the iPhone he lusts for today will be only slightly more relevant than the dinosaur bones he'll see on his next field trip?
Continue reading "A love-hate relationship with national chains."
