Firefighters from five departments unsuccessfully battle a blaze at the Mapleton Church on Friday evening in Mapleton. The fire, which started about 5:30 p.m., destroyed the non-denominational church. (photos by Adam / Journal Star)

I’ve been to quite a few fires in my time as a photojournalist. There’s a distinct odor that make the flames almost unnecessary for comprehension; a horrific mixture of burning wood, plastic and irreplaceable items. This particular one happened several weeks ago and destroyed a 130-year-old church in a town of only several hundred. Firefighters tried to stop the flames but were no match for dry and ancient timber. I arrived relatively quickly, witnessing the steeple sag and eventually fall off the church. The city’s mayor saved a parishioner who passed out from the smoke, making this story a little more unusual.

Such a stunning scene.

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My dad, April 2000

Aboard Amtrak today, crossing the Mississippi River.

As I write this, my train is hurtling through the darkness toward Wichita. It’s been a whole year since I last set foot in Kansas, a timeframe that has passed astonishingly quick. We’ve blown by bombed-out factories and flooded farms, traveled for hours with no cell phone service. And at 3:30am this morning, I’ll be home.

The agony of a buzzer shot, Friday night’s IHSA state basketball tournament. (Adam / Journal Star)

At 10:50pm on a Saturday evening, I can say that the two weeks of hell known as the Illinois high school state basketball tournament has lifted and the future looks a little brighter. We’ve battled access restrictions that puts freedom of the press at an increasing risk. Kudos were given to our great photo department. And we were loaned the holy grail of all cameras, the Nikon D3, only to have it soon lifted from our clammy, shaking palms. It was nice while it lasted.

In the meantime, spring is stumbling. Temperatures soared into digits long forgotten six months ago, only to plummet with windy, wet snow today. “In like a lion, out like a lamb?”

Let us remember one more thing:
Seer warns Caesar to be on guard against a great peril on the Ides of March (15th.) Later that month..
CAESAR: “The Ides of March has come.”
SEER: “Aye, Caesar, but not gone.”

Pigeons, East Peoria. (Adam / Journal Star)

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

– Leonard Cohen

It was a slow day.

My mom called yesterday and asked if I was would be okay with them stopping their Journal Star print subscription. They’ve been taking paper 7 days a week for over two years, ever since I started as an intern. It arrives in the mail a few days late, and my Mom has dutifully clipped each photo of mine and placed them in a large collection of binders.

I did a similar thing personally, keeping stacks of yellowing pages in my closet. That stopped about 6 months after it started. I have no discipline, obviously.

Still, I was a little wistful knowing that they’d no longer have a physical and colorful reminder of myself arriving almost every day. There’s a comfort knowing that my parents care that much about me. But the subscription is quite expensive for out-of-staters and the binders are becoming unwieldy. I assured her it would be fine with me, as long as they keep up online…

photo by David Zentz

This year of aught-eight somehow rekindled my interest in radio. It’s truly an anachronism, a rather silly notion when I have two fully working computers that can reach into any country in the world and pull out live radio and television. But the bug bit hard and I set out to find a radio that would make me happy.

The Tivoli Model One

My day starts with NPR’s Morning Edition. Okay, that’s quite likely a lie; that would require waking before 9am. But when I return home from work, I’ll sit at my desk and gently navigate the dial through a sea of AM stations that flood the airwaves after the sun goes dark. This little radio is a hotrod, a divining rod of AM/FM, filling my room with a warm and full sound. Most of the AM stations blast conservative talk radio, but I’ve found a few gems: AM 740 out of Toronto is easily received and plays a great mix of classic pop standards that seems to channel a day when radio was king.

Most stations utilized identification jingles from the same two production houses; each had (and still have) that thick chorus straight out of a big Broadway closing number. It’s rather fantastic, really. Imagine rolling out of bed to this one from WOHO in Toledo. Don’t even think about messing with KHJ in Los Angeles. And if you still haven’t had enough, knock yourself out with a jingle montage. (even more here!)

In this day of iPods and YouTubes, I’m standing up for my right NOT to chose exactly what song to listen to. Three cheers for randomness!

Skater punks practice their kick-flips on a school-less Casimir Pulaski Day in Peoria.

Oh, you didn’t know? Unless you’re a lifelong Illinoisan, you could be forgiven for not knowing Illinois favorite Polak Pulaski.

Sufjan Stevens – Casimir Pulaski demo

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem,” a poem on the consecration of Pulaski’s banner.

On a similar note, I missed Leap Day this year. No celebration, no acknowledgement. A double whammy of holiday unfortunateness!