Listing Through Life

By the time we got to Bishop Hill, it was 12:30 and we were hungry. It was a Swedish colony, so we wanted to eat Swedish food, which meant The Red Oak. We entered the small waiting room and noticed right away it was crowded with people, none of whom worked there.

After a couple minutes, a harried hostess walked in from the restaurant and asked if anyone had reservations. One couple raised their hands, so the hostess grabbed a couple menus and took them in. A couple minutes later she was back. She checked a few people out, then asked if anyone needed to get their name on the list. We gave her ours, which prompted one woman to start crying in a loud voice that she was there first. The hostess asked us if this were true and we said yes, but for the entire rest of the time we were there I could see this woman and the others in her party glaring at us as though we’d tried to get away with something. But they got back at us in the end, as you will see.

Several other people with reservations came in and were seated, and several paid their bills and left. It was a hot day, in the mid-90s, and the waiting area wasn’t air conditioned. The hostess, on one of her frantic trips through the room, informed us that a large party was taking up the back room and that, as soon as they left, we would be seated. This large party was on their desserts now, so it shouldn’t be long. She said she’d hold our table if we’d like to wander next door to the colony store for 15 minutes or so.

While my wife and her folks wandered around the store, I set off with my daughter in search of a bathroom. We finally found a decrepit outhouse next to a baseball diamond that wasn’t pleasant but served the purpose. My daughter couldn’t get over the fact that the girls’ side of the outhouse had three seats right next to each other as though three people were supposed to be in there at once.

We got back to The Red Oak and stood around for another 15 minutes while the large party paid their bills and left with much ado. It turned out they were a Red Hat Club, which explains a lot. The other party, the ones who were glaring at us, were also still waiting, and they were seated just moments before us in the same back room. It was exactly an hour since we’d entered the restaurant for the first time.

Again, after all that to-do, I knew I had to order something Swedish. I got the Kottbullar — “Our Famous Swedish Meatballs (a traditional combination of beef and pork) served over Homestyle noodles.” My wife and her dad got Kottbullar with Lingonberries — “Our famous Swedish Meatballs in a lingonberry cream sauce served over mashed potatoes.” My mother-in-law ordered stuffed cabbage and my daughter had a hot ham & cheese sandwich. We were served Swedish rye bread, and I got lingonberry lemonade. It was all very good, and was worth the wait, even with the three people at the next table glaring at us — probably because we got our food about five minutes before they did.

The restaurant bragged on its pies. They were advertised all over the waiting room, they were promoted in a special dessert menu on the table, and they were listed on a sign on the wall of our room. So when our waitress (Lyndi) asked if we wanted dessert, we ordered pie. She said they only had two kinds left — strawberry-rubarb and Dutch apple. We ordered the strawberry-rubarb. Lyndi left and came back to apologize — the last three pieces of strawberry-rubarb had just been served to a table in the front room. OK, we’d have Dutch apple. Nope, the last couple pieces of Dutch apple were reserved by another waitress. We ordered homemade ice cream, and that’s what we got. A few minutes later, the glarers at the next table were given slices of Dutch apple pie.

But I don’t blame them. It was the Red Hat ladies that consumed the normal stock. The story has a happy ending, however. My wife bought a loaf of Swedish rye bread to bring home, and the hostess knocked $7.00 off our bill for being so patient.

Warning — the food is very good, and the staff is very nice, but the place is quaint and cozy and the odds of running into a Red Hat Club are high.

When Ronald Reagan was a young boy in Tampico, he attended this church with his mother Nelle. His father Jack and his brother Neil attended St. Mary’s Catholic Church two blocks away.

The church opened on April 4, 1903. The building cost $3,800 to build. Our tour guide told us that Reagan attended the church when he visited Tampico in 1982 (I think). She and her grandson sat four rows behind the President and his entourage. That sounded impressive until I saw the church and realized there can’t possibly be more than five or six rows in the entire sanctuary.

After touring Reagan’s birthplace, we drove a block along Main Street and and turned right onto Glassburn Street to see the house where Reagan lived with his family from May 3, 1911 to December, 1914. It is currently a private residence, and not a very well cared for one.

My in-laws were in town for the week. My mother-in-law recently read a mystery set in Bishop Hill and expressed interest in visiting the town. We’re always up for adventure, so the three of us and the two of them piled into the car early in the morning and headed west.

I noticed that Reagan’s birthplace was on the way, so it was an easy decision to add that to the day’s itinerary. There isn’t much to Tampico. The collection of buildings that make up “downtown” has been added to the National Register of Historic Places because “it is a good, intact representation of late 1800 small town America.”

Three of the buildings are museums, and several others are empty. Reagan was born in an apartment above a bakery/restaurant. The building was built in 1895. Jack Reagan, Ronald’s father, rented it in September 1906. John Reagan, Ronald’s brother, was born there on September 16, 1908, and Ronald was born there on February 6, 1911. Three months later, the family moved to a house a block away (see next post).

The building next door to the birthplace serves as the visitor center. When Reagan lived next door, this building was the Seymour Grocery. We entered to discover two elderly women sitting in rocking chairs. They welcomed us and told us we could wander around the displays in the two buildings (they are connected on the inside) on our own. They then proceeded to get up and follow us all around chatting about this and that and the other thing. There were posters of many of Reagan’s movies scattered about, along with photos and some souvenirs. The restaurant under Reagan’s birthplace was converted into a bank in 1919, and the old bank furnishings which had been stored in the basement have been set up in the room.

I asked one of the ladies if she was a Reagan fan. She laughed and said that was a question I’d better not ask. She then sat back down in her chair by the other lady and the two of them discussed how they’d voted for Clinton.

When we finished looking around downstairs, one of the women took us up to Reagan’s birthplace. We had to go outside and enter through the red door (visible in the photo above). We walked up a long stairway into an apartment that was much nicer and larger than I expected. There were two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a pantry and an enclosed back porch. Our guide showed us the room in which Reagan was born. She said the bed was the very bed, but I’m not entirely sure she knew what she was talking about. A bit later, I pointed to a picture of Reagan as a boy. He was standing with several other children and three or four adults. I asked her if the adults were Reagan’s parents, and she told me she had no idea.

As we wandered about, the guide and my father-in-law chatted about a variety of topics. Much of what she said about Reagan was speculation, but I had fun wandering about.

We stopped back in the visitor center to buy some postcards, then drove around town to see the other sights — including this Reagan mural painted on a building across the street.

It would have been nice if the tour guide actually knew anything, but the museum and the apartment exceeded my expectations. The whole “downtown” area still looks so much as it did when Reagan was born, I’d like to see the entire area turned into a National Park and interpreted well.

On my way from Navy Pier to the Metra station, I passed through Pioneer Court next to the Tribune Tower by the Michigan Avenue Bridge. It was still raining fairly hard, I was wet throughout, and the plaza was covered with about two inches of standing water. In short, I wasn’t doing a lot of sight-seeing — I was hurrying home.

But I couldn’t help noticing the life-size, chrome moose standing right in front of me. I looked it up on the Internet and discovered it’s a temporary exhibit, part of an event called Artists + Automobiles. Five area artists were allowed to salvage parts from wrecked cars and make sculptures. Four of the exhibits are in Grant Park. The moose, created by John Kearney, is made of car bumpers and stands nine feet high. It will be there until October 15.

By June 11, 2009, the Moose had wandered to the other side of Pioneer Court.