Adventures on Water Street

It all began with a trip past the Sears Block on the Water Street side. I haven't been by the fence since they painted it black, so I was a little shocked to see some additional painting being done on it. The artwork has now been replaced with various bastardized sayings in bright, 15 foot lettering. As I drove by, I read, "THEY HAD A DREAM," "WALLS TALK," and "PLAY IT AGAIN, PEORIA."

What?

Perhaps the words not currently on the fence will explain it all to me, but right now, it seems like (yet another) misguided marketing attempt. Who had a dream? I think most Peorians now see the Sears Block situation as more of a nightmare than a dream. Or maybe they mean, "It was all a dream . . . " like on Days of our Lives. But again, more of a nightmare. Maybe it was supposed to invoke Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech. But is this really the appropriate place? I'm sure they mean to be inspiring and whatnot, but it's really just sad.

The WALLS TALK one made me laugh. If these walls could talk . . . . I don't think Lakeview or Cat wants people to go there either. Imagine what these walls would say if they could talk! Right now, all these black walls are saying is "FAILURE" no matter how many happy words are painted on them.

The funniest to me was PLAY IT AGAIN PEORIA. Play what again? It kinda sounds like begging. Come on, Peoria, believe in us again! Nevermind the crap you've seen and heard for the last five years. Nevermind the men behind the curtain. Nevermind the millions of dollars coming out of your pockets. Come on . . . come play with us!

I'm sure the people who deserve credit for these little tidbits are the same people who came up with the suggested names for the museum. Well done!

While still shaking my head over the black fence, I was attempting to go to the downtown post office and was stopped by a TRAIN immediately before turning into the post office. Shocked by the lack of crossing protection between the train and my car, it took me a minute to realize the really amazing thing about this train. It was the cleanest train I have ever seen in my life. The engines were shiny and polished, gleaming black, red, and gold. The cars were sparkly silver - no graffiti or rust spots anywhere. I don't even think a bird had pooped on these train cars.

Every single car was identical - all silver, all carrying massive piles of coal. All so clean, it made my eyes hurt. After watching in a trance for a few minutes, I also realized this was possibly the longest train ever. It took five minutes to clear the intersection and it was going at a pretty fast clip. (I'm sure there is a story problem in there somewhere . . . if a train is travelling at x miles per hour and takes five minutes to clear a crossing, how many cars are in the train?) I had to look down at one point because I thought I was going to throw up from watching the cars go by.

Anyway, I finally got to the post office and was surprised by a kind postal worker asking me to try out their new automated system. So, I did. It is pretty nifty, really, and I managed to mail a package to my nephew, a letter to my dad, and get a book of stamps all by myself with only three debit transactions (you must pay piece by piece, not all at once). But leave it to the post office to make an automated machine, which is supposed to simplify things, more complicated than the actual transaction would have been at the teller window.

First of all, there are too many words and choices. I consider myself an intelligent person and I found the number of choices overwhelming. Every screen is full with words and explanations. I skimmed most of it by reading only the first three words of every sentence and assumed I was pushing the right buttons. Plus, I had the post office lady standing right there telling me when I could ignore a certain screen.

Can you imagine what is going to happen when some old lady tries to use this thing? Or someone that insists on reading all of the directions before making a choice? Yikes. As if it were possible, the lines are going to be even longer at the post office. The good thing is it will be available 24 hours a day, unless of course you want to mail something bigger than the dropbox hole, or purchase special kinds of stamps, or do anything else complicated.

I'm now happy to be back in my office wondering why I ever try to run errands during my lunch hour.