With apologies to Carl Sandburg, I am NOT a fan of Chicago.

Apparently my beloved Cardinals agree with me. What is it about the Windy City that has rendered the Cardinals zero-for-Chicago this year? I can handle losing to the Sox better than I can losing to the Flubs. Good grief ~ let the Cardinals come to town, and the underachieving, Lee-less Small Bears think it's 1906 again when they won 116 games. A lot can change in a hundred years.

Anyway ~ except for some fun times with Pammy and Mark, Chicago isn't on my list of favorite places to be. I will always remember the crude and rude fans at Soldier Field when Pammy and I attended a Cowsboys/Bears game. The vocabulary of most of them was limited to nasty four-letter words directed not only at Cowboys and their fans but also at some of their own kids who didn't do so well in a punting competition at half time. Broken beer bottles littered the dark and dismal path from the parking lot to the stadium, and when we finally returned to the car, a Bears' fan was tinkling on our car.

Give me good ol' Southern Illinois any day. Yes, America, there are parts of Illinois that aren't Chicago. Thanks be to God.

And go, Cardinals!

Artwork of June Goldsborough

Salem, IL

The tranquil apple orchards in rural Illinois are far from the bustling Big Apple. However, June Goldsborough managed to balance both worlds as she built her reputation as an artist and an independent woman before “women’s lib” became a buzz phrase of the late ‘60s.

Nelle June Goldsborough was born May 30, 1923, in Paragould, Arkansas, close to the Missouri boot heel, where her father, Marshall Goldsborough, an accountant, was working. Marshall and his wife, Nell Beasley Goldsborough, already had a 10-year-old son, John B. Goldsborough. By 1930, the family of four was back home in Salem, IL, living for a time with Marshall’s parents, John T. and Margaret “Maggie” Goldsborough.

Young June took full advantage of the opportunities available in the rural community, where she caught minnows and frogs in Town Creek. The creek at that time was a lush haven where wild animals could drink undisturbed from the cool water and where young girls could watch them and dream. She was fascinated by nature, particularly by animals in their natural habitat.

When she was six, she commandeered some of her brother’s art supplies while he was at school. Now she could express on paper and canvas the beauty of the natural world around her.

Her parents encouraged her. In fact, both of them had a deep respect and appreciation for literature, art, and music; and Marshall Goldsborough drew well himself. He was to be an important influence in her development as an artist.

Later, when June was working in her first commissioned assignment, he constructed the scaffolding to help get her started.

This work came to her when she was still in high school. School Superintendent B.E. Gum used a WPA grant to commission her to paint a mural at Oak Park School in Salem.

The mural, which depicted a young girl, two boys, and a dog, resembled a “Dick and Jane primer,” said Frank Brinkerhoff, former principal of Oak Park School.

The school was later closed and eventually remodeled into an apartment building. The mural is still intact, but hidden behind drywall because June had painted directly onto the concrete wall.

After high school, she attended Southeastern Missouri State College and the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University, where she was one of the youngest students. Even in St. Louis, she managed to find nature subjects for her artwork. Some of this work appeared in Parade Magazine, a national supplement to Sunday newspapers.

In 1949, after a taste of the professional art world in St. Louis, June moved to New York to attend the Arts Students League. The League had a reputation for both progressive teaching methods and radical politics.

Although June was quick to share her opinions with anyone who would listen, she was probably more attracted to the League because of its artistic philosophy: artists were there “solely for the love and pursuit of art, the yearning for exchange of artistic ideas and techniques.” A cooperative society based on mutual help among all its members, it was, at one time, the most important art school in the country.

Besides, the young girl could not fall into ways that were too radical because she had brought her mother with her to New York.

Where June’s father had been such an influence in her early development as an artist, Nell Goldsborough now became June’s constant companion, confidante, and adviser.

“Nell had an unbelievably strong influence on June. They were best friends,” said Martha Richardson, who was the Goldsboroughs’ neighbor at their first address in Brooklyn, on Pineapple Street.

When closing the June Goldsborough estate in 1999, executor and friend, Myron Lloyd, found many pictures of June and Nell together, pictures that showed how happy Nell, in particular, was with the New York lifestyle.

“June idolized her mother, not to say they didn’t disagree sometimes,” said Lloyd.

Her deep respect for her mother kept June from using her first name, Nelle.

“That was her mother’s name. June would not have felt worthy,” said Lloyd.

Richardson remembers hearing, through an adjoining apartment wall, the mother and daughter laughing together at two in the morning as they were washing dishes.

“Nell was as smart as June, and they both loved children,” she said. They were also frequent babysitters for Richardson’s son, David, who later served as a model for June when she began illustrating children’s books.

Before the children’s books, however, she worked with advertising and promotional illustrations, especially those for New York phone book covers. A sample of her art from this time is actually quite prevalent even today: the phone receiver that appears on many phone booths.

Despite her successes in these arenas, June most enjoyed drawing children and animals because she felt that her talents were best suited to these images. Eventually she was able to focus her freelancing entirely on illustrations for children as she drew for some of the popular Golden Books, textbooks, and even film.

Her first children’s book was The Nine Friendly Dogs by Felix Sutton (Wonder Book 1954). Perhaps her most recognizable characters, however, were ones she did not enjoy drawing: Raggedy Ann and Andy. She felt these characters did not challenge her enough. She especially disliked The Raggedy Ann and Andy Storybook because the publisher reduced some of her color drawings to small black-and-whites.

In 1964, she designed and illustrated the Sights and Sounds film series, which won the first award in its category at the American Film Festival in New York.

Her work seemed especially popular in the 1960s and 1970s, a time of tremendous changes in America.

“June was a barrier breaker,” said Richardson. “She definitely approached things out of the box.”

In fact, June broke some traditional artistic ground when she brought minorities from the backgrounds of illustrated scenes to the central focus of the picture.

Richardson remembers a cover that June illustrated for a New York Times “camp issue.” The pictures showed integrated children—Asians, African-Americans, as well as Caucasians—going off to camp together.

Her artistic progress seemed particularly astounding after that cover as June continued to break barriers—lunching, for example, at a New York club that had previously been designated as only for men.

Nell continued to be a guiding influence in June’s career, even serving in a capacity as an agent at times. Nell kept a library of clippings for June to give her ideas for possible illustrations.

The New York years were a busy time for the mother and daughter. June was impatient by nature, and during this time she always seemed to be rushing from one location to another.

Richardson remembers June’s mad dashes out the door each morning to catch the subway for some appointment for which she was probably already late. Mr. Richardson exited his apartment at a more leisurely pace, yet somehow he managed to be waiting at the same time and place with June for the subway.

June’s impatient dashes did not end when she became a licensed driver comparatively late in her life. She and Nell needed a car when they moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs. However, speed zones presented little discouragement to the spirited artist.

While in New York, June and Nell frequently traveled miles to see the sights. A pink dogwood tree in Fairfield, Connecticut, particularly intrigued June, and each year she and Nell traveled there to see the “famous pink dogwood all abloom.”

She also loved the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade, an area still visible from the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the bridge itself fascinated her. She had colored pictures of it in her bedroom and bathroom and several black-and-white snapshots of it around her house.

These snapshots always seemed to include a tugboat, an inspiration for the tugboat that appeared in her children’s illustrations.

Another favorite “day trip” for June and Nell was to Kent, Connecticut, to see fellow artist Eric Sloane. June was a big fan of his work and even tried to copy his style in some of her own work featuring barn scenes.

Sloane was considered an authority on early American rural architecture and early American tools. However, he is probably best known for his cloud painting that covers an entire wall of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. (Amelia Earhart was also a fan.)

June socialized in a world filled with artists, writers, and other interesting people. However, she never married. Her family consisted of her mother and her dogs.

She always traveled with her dogs, and if they were not welcomed somewhere, she did not go there.

Later, after she retired and returned to Salem, she was sure the Salem police were targeting her unfairly because they often pulled her over for driving with one of her three dogs in her lap and the other two in the car.

In New York, June also developed a fondness for antiques and furniture, particularly Hitchcock furniture handcrafted in Riverton, Connecticut. Hitchcock furniture dates back to as early as 1800 and is distinguished by elaborate stencil designs and complementary striping and banding that accent the contours of the furniture.

June’s only regret about her life in New York was perhaps that, although she illustrated dozens of books, she authored only one: What’s in the Woods. This book sold well in England but received only moderate attention in the United States.

When Nell passed away in 1975, New York was already changing, and the city was not as much fun for June without her mother. June stayed there for a few more years, but her longing to return home grew stronger each day.

In 1985 she moved back to Salem. The modest home on North Franklin appealed to her because there was room for an office with large windows that allowed plenty of natural light for her artwork.

Although the house was invitingly close to rural Salem, June used gardening skills she had learned from Martha Richardson to bring a bit of rural flavor to her yard. Landscaping in her back yard had a natural look with wild flowers, bushes, and many trees.

As happy as she was to be “home,” she also missed the “busyness of the city.” Nevertheless, she was quite interested in her hometown and became involved with projects promoting it.

A wall of the Marion County courthouse displays her mural of William Jennings Bryan, the “silver-tongued orator” who was born in Salem. Officials from the Salem Post Office also commissioned her for the design on its envelopes for the Bryan two-dollar stamp on its first date of issue: March 19, 1986, the 126th anniversary of Bryan’s birth.

In 1990 she painted Montage: Salem for brochures and other materials used for the city’s anniversary Jubilee dance. When Salem City Hall was later renovated, former city clerk Jo Stallings asked her to create a bigger version of the design, which is now in Salem City Council Chambers.

The mural consists of scenes that represent Salem and the overall spirit of Marion County: local industries, an oil well, the railroad, Salem’s participation in the Civil War, the old Brown Shoe Factory, and even a marker for Interstate 57, the construction of which seemed to fascinate her.

Her work is also included in Salem’s veterans’ memorial at East Lawn Cemetery. Jerry and Ellen Sinclair commissioned Lest We Forget, and June painted it in memory of her brother, John B. Goldsborough, M.D., a captain in the U.S. Army. The painting was subsequently donated to Salem American Legion Luther B. Easley Post 128, who distributed replicas as fundraisers to maintain the memorial.

Semi-retirement was not necessarily an acceptable lifestyle to June, who continued her freelance work for children’s books and textbooks. While in Salem, she illustrated an environmental series for young children. The books were published by Augsburg Fortress Publishing of Minneapolis.

In February of 1999, she finished her part of what would be her last work, Festival of the Animals, which remains unpublished because the narrative was never finished. The story is set in St. John of the Divine Episcopal Church in New York. A little lost dog shows up at the church for the annual Blessing of the Animals ceremony and is found by a special person.

The dog’s name is Dudley, the name of one of June’s three dogs. As always, June continued to have her dogs around her. They were usually passengers in her car as she made her way around town. Despite her love for her “family,” she did worry about becoming known as Salem’s “Dog Lady.”

June was intelligent, well read, well informed, and unafraid to share her strong opinions. A woman who loved life and people, she could be quite matter-of-fact about the celebrities she had encountered during her career.

However, she was not without a few endearing quirks. A neighbor remembers sending her son next door to help June find her glasses. He found them—at the bottom of her fish tank.

“There was so much about June that was wonderful, yet sad and depressing,” Lloyd said. “I think it was the typical life of an artist.”

Richardson considered her “one of my favorite people I’ve ever known.” A caring friend with a keen sense of humor, she was also an independent, freethinking woman ahead of her time.

“You always knew where she stood on any issue,” Richardson said.

Sometimes she could become angry, uptight, and tense around people, but she would quickly move past the anxiety. She was honest and could handle an honest opinion about her work or anything else.

“Just listening to June made one know her circle of friends in the art world and the footwork involved in selling her product,” Stallings said. “I don’t think she knew how interesting she was.”

Yet when she was gathered for conversation with friends, she seemed to hold audiences, almost like the Pope.

With her focus so much on her art, animals, and environmental concerns, she had little time to worry about her physical appearance.

“She couldn’t have cared less about looking stunning,” Stallings said.

She had a short, easy-to-maintain hairstyle and huge eyes that seemed to record every detail of the world around her.

“Most of the time, she dressed like a typical artist, meaning it just kinda happened, if she was lucky,” said Lloyd.

However, when she decided to dress up, the short, slightly stooped woman could be quite impressive.

She favored scarves around her neck, a mink-stole effect that may have been a remnant of her New York days when panhandlers did a booming business selling fake Gucci scarves on Fifth Avenue.

When she dressed up in winter, she often wore a gray wool cape that gave her a classic look.

Although she was receptive to the opinions and advice of others, her independence prevented her asking for help in more routine matters. Most of her work, prolific though it was, brought her relatively little money.

“In reading her journals, you could sense there was always a struggle financially,” Lloyd said.

When Stallings asked her to paint Montage: Salem for City Hall, June asked for an advance to pay for supplies. “I beat myself up for not catching on at that point,” Stallings said.

However, June would not have been one to accept financial help from friends. On the other hand, she was generous with her own time and money.

“She was quick to help,” Richardson said. Hand-painted cards and pictures were common gifts for those she cared about.

Nelle June Goldsborough passed away March 31, 1999, en route by helicopter to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. “Probable sepsis” was, at least, a contributory cause: she had eaten some egg salad that caused her to be sick enough to call for help. She was airlifted from Salem to St. Louis because the results of the food poisoning were so severe.

According to her cousin, Margaret Parsons, even at this time June’s thoughts were of the care of her dogs.

An auction was held May 16, 1999, to sell her possessions. Most of those attending were friends who were genuinely interested in June and in her work.

June’s career had begun and ended in the town she called home.

William Jennings Bryan / WJB Statue, Rt. 37 North, Salem

What do I have in common with William Jennings Bryan? Both of us were born in March in Salem, IL, although he made his appearance nearly 101 years before I did.

Thomas Wolfe may have thought that you can’t go home again, but people in Salem, have a different plan for their favorite native son, William Jennings Bryan, who was born here March 19, 1860. Memories and memorials abound in our small community at the juncture of Interstate 57 and Highway 50, about 70 miles east of St. Louis.

Politics formed part of Bryan’s education all his life. He became especially interested in the process when he was 12. At that time, his father, Silas Bryan, a prominent citizen in Salem, was seeking election to the House of Representatives. Young “Willy” accompanied his father to the campaign rallies.

Bryan’s mother, Mariah Jennings Bryan, also participated in her son’s education. Previous to his starting public school, she taught him at home, standing him on a table to recite his lessons. According to Bryan, these recitations atop the table were his first experiences with stump speaking.

This table is part of the exhibits in the Bryan Home and Museum, 408 South Broadway. Bryan’s birthplace and boyhood home has been carefully preserved and is filled with mementoes of Bryan, his politics, and his private and public life.

His baby gown, encased just inside the front door, is a symbolic beginning to the tour that parallels his journey from his boyhood in Salem to his death in Dayton, TN, just days after his participation in the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial.”

The front parlor of the two-story home contains furniture that belonged to Silas and Mariah Bryan. Some items, which were given as wedding presents to the couple, were made locally in Walnut Hill, Mariah’s hometown.

Walls and display cases in adjacent rooms hold other Bryan photographs and memorabilia, including many silver items. After his famous “Cross of Gold” speech in Chicago before the 1896 election, the Bryans received a variety of silver items as gifts.

When Bryan was six years old, his family moved to a 600-acre farm on the north edge of Salem. A large deer park in a corner of the farm is now a residential street called Deer Path Drive. The “Silas Bryan Estate” was at the end of Bryan Lane close to what is now Bryan Memorial Park. The Bryans’ 13-room, two-story brick house later burned down. In 1991, the current owners built a new home on the site, using bricks from the original home in their circle driveway.

Charred fire tongs from the burned house are now kept safely in the Bryan museum along with other mementoes of Bryan’s day-to-day private life: a wash bowl and basin, a kettle, ice skates, safety and straight razors, bowties, and walking sticks—one made from the backbone of a shark.

There is plenty to represent the public Bryan, too.

He traveled over 18,000 miles in the1896 Presidential campaign and wore holes in the soles of a pair of shoes because he walked so many of those miles. These shoes, along with a note of authentication in Bryan’s own handwriting are in the front room of the Bryan home.

Bryan’s first campaign for President also included his first ride in an automobile. A framed photograph in the museum shows him and his wife in an open automobile in Decatur October 23, 1896. Bryan had to stand up in the car to deliver his speech because the crowd was so big.

In 1906, Bryan and his wife and two of their three children, Grace and William Jr., went on a world tour. A collage of pictures from the trip can be found in the museum along with other mementoes like a Jerusalem picture book, Japanese art, and the hatbox for the silk hat he carried. Bryan brought back several rocks from the Sea of Galilee—one rock for each of the members of his church. Some of these souvenirs are also in the museum.

Part of the Bryan story included his time as a colonel in a Nebraska regiment during the Spanish-American War of 1898. His uniform is displayed in the museum.

Next to it is another relic of Bryan’s political life: the office chair he used during his tenure as Secretary of State for President Woodrow Wilson. After two years and four months, Bryan resigned this post in 1915 in opposition to Wilson’s hawkish anti-Germany policy. However, when the United States entered World War I, Bryan supported Wilson completely.

In the museum is an official government document for safe conduct that Secretary of State Bryan issued to a family traveling in Europe during this contentious time.

Where the Bryan museum now sits is actually eight feet farther south than its original location. The home was moved to accommodate the building for the Bryan-Bennett Library that Bryan helped to found. At that time, 1909, his cousin, May Davenport, served as the librarian and lived in the original Bryan home with her mother.

The Bryan Home and Museum, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975, is operated by the city with the Salem Historical-Patriotical Commission overseeing the operation. The museum is open to the public Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays from noon to 4:30 p.m. or by appointment by calling Salem City Hall, 618/548-2222.

A part of Bryan’s life that was both public and private was his devotion to his church and religion. In his boyhood he attended Sunday school twice each week because his father was Baptist and his mother was Methodist. At fourteen years old, however, he followed his own inclinations and became a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which is now the First United Presbyterian Church at the corner of McMackin and Washington in Salem. An ornate pulpit inside the church was a gift from Bryan, who gave an identical one to his church in Lincoln, Nebraska. The pulpits, which are crafted from pearl and exotic woods, display a carved scene of the burning bush as noted in Exodus.

Bryan was also generous with his father’s church. Hearing that Salem’s First Baptist Church was in debt over $500, he matched donations made by the church members so that the debt could be paid. His gift of $217 is noted in church minutes from that time.

Bryan’s staunch belief in the literal word of the Bible was one of the reasons why he became involved in the Scopes trial in 1925.

John Thomas Scopes, who had been indicted for teaching evolution in a Dayton, Tennessee, high school, was also from Salem, Illinois. When he graduated from Salem High School May 16, 1919, Bryan delivered the commencement address.

In Salem, Scopes boarded in the Badollet House, still standing at 310 North Washington. This house, which was the first brick house built in Salem, had also served as a slave stop on the Underground Railroad. It was originally built for Howard and Tabitha Pace Badollet.

At the trial in Dayton, Bryan was never out to discredit Scopes. In fact, Scopes and Bryan’s son were friends. Bryan himself thought the Tennessee law was a poor one because it involved fining an educator. He even offered to pay the fine if Scopes was convicted.

Nor was Bryan against teaching evolution if it was presented as a theory along with other options such as creationism.

However, defense attorney Clarence Darrow unexpectedly called Bryan to the witness stand as an “expert” on the Bible and then ridiculed Bryan’s beliefs in the literal interpretation of the Bible rather than questioned Bryan on the points of the trial. In truth, the whole trial had been something of a circus with extremely hot weather and crowds so huge the proceedings were moved outdoors when the courtroom floor began to crack.

Despite the conditions and Darrow’s strategy, Bryan handled himself well by sticking to the facts, defining terms carefully, differentiating between literal and figurative language in the Bible, and questioning the reliability of scientific evidence that contradicted the Bible.

However, Darrow’s questioning revealed that Bryan actually knew very little about those he had denounced for their criticism of the Bible. Darrow also induced Bryan to admit that parts of the Bible were open to interpretation, an admission that was, at best, a Fundamentalist faux pas. According to Bryan biographer Robert W. Cherny, “The gasp of the startled Fundamentalists must have been loud enough to carry over the national radio hookup.”

Scopes never took the witness stand, nor was he jailed. The judge abruptly stopped the trial amid the confusion and fist-shaking emotion of Bryan and Darrow, and charged the jury, who returned in just a few minutes with a guilty verdict. Scopes was fined $100, which was later refunded.

In spite of the verdict, Bryan was humiliated and exhausted by the trial. In true Bryan fashion, however, in the five days following the trial, he was as busy as ever:

On Sunday, June 26, he drove from Chattanooga to Dayton, participated in a church service, and then lay down for a nap from which he never awakened.

Papers reported that he died of “apoplexy,” the term used for a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage at the time. Some accounts claimed a heart attack had felled the “Silver-Tongued Orator.” Others cited diabetes mellitus. Whatever was determined to be the official cause, surely the intense heat, the stress of the trial, and his diabetes contributed to his untimely death.

Some reporters and editors of “big-city” newspapers continued to ridicule him even after his death. Most of them considered him to be an ignorant hick with no redeeming qualities.

However, the “common” people realized his dedication, hard work, and sacrifice in their behalf and showed up in large numbers for his funeral.

Because of his service in the Spanish-American War, Bryan was buried in Arlington Cemetery along with his wife and a daughter, Grace Dexter Bryan. However, Bryan’s parents and some of his siblings were buried in Salem in the Bryan plot in East Lawn Cemetery: about 200 feet from Main Street on the west side of the main cemetery road. In 1896 Bryan walked up this same road behind his mother’s funeral coach before boarding a train to Chicago, where he delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention.

While in Salem, he reportedly told a friend that he felt he would receive the Democratic nomination if he had an opportunity to speak to the delegates. Some historians maintain that Bryan’s Chicago speech was probably the highlight of his political career even though he was a Presidential candidate two more times and eventually Secretary of State for Wilson. His “Cross of Gold” speech drew a greater ovation than any other speech at the convention. Even those defending the gold standard applauded his eloquence.

Although Bryan’s aspirations and careers in law, journalism, and politics took him to places far removed from his small Midwestern hometown, he returned to Salem often. Even the local media bear the stamp of the respect that Salem continues to have for him.

For example, the first three call letters for Salem’s radio station, WJBD, are Bryan’s initials. The B does double duty since the last two call letters represent the initials of Bryan Davidson, one of the partners of Salem Broadcasting Company that built and operated WJBD, which began broadcasting in December 1956.

Salem’s tri-weekly newspaper, the Times-Commoner, was also named in honor of Bryan, who was known as “The Great Commoner” because he consistently defended ordinary, working-class Americans. When the Salem Republican and the Marion County Democrat merged in 1955, a contest was held to select the best name for the new publication. “Times” and “Commoner” were the two most popular entries. In Nebraska, Bryan himself had had a newspaper called The Commoner.

The Republican was first printed during the year of Bryan’s birth, 1860. Consequently, the Times-Commoner can claim to be the oldest continually published newspaper serving the Salem area.

Bryan has also been called one of the most influential “losers” in American history. Despite three defeats in Presidential elections, he dominated his party for 16 years, from 1896-1912, while leading the Democrats through a major transformation “to make the masses prosperous.”

During this time of change, he was also “the watchdog of Congress and the conscience of the country.”

Some of his most “radical” ideas eventually became realities: the 16th Constitutional Amendment dealing with graduated income tax, the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of Senators, the 18th Amendment concerning prohibition of liquor, the 19th Amendment for women’s suffrage, public disclosure of newspaper ownership and the signing of editorials, workmen’s compensation, minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, public regulation of political campaign contributions, the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, voting reform, safety devices and pure food processing—among many, many others.

“Bryan was no intellectual giant,” said historian Dennis Phillips in his review of Cherny’s biography, “but how many men have been? Like him or not, William Jennings Bryan has had more influence on American public policy than at least half the men who won Presidential elections.”

Phillips also believes that the Depression may not have hurt common people so much if more of Bryan’s ideas had been made into law before 1929.

“When he was right,” said Phillips, “he took up a cause with a zeal not often found among politicians.”

The Bryan statue in the Bryan Memorial Park triangle on North Broadway in Salem represents another time when Bryan may not have received the respect he deserved.

Gutzon Borglum, who sculpted the faces on Mt. Rushmore, created the statue, which originally stood in West Potomac Park in Washington, DC. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated it there May 3, 1934. About 10 years before Bryan’s death, Borglum had also created life masks of both Bryan and his wife and a cast of Bryan’s fist. These smaller sculptures can be found in the Bryan museum.

Later, however, the statue in Washington, DC, was literally yanked down to clear the way for a new approach to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and lay in a vacant lot until Salem City Attorney Frederick Merritt and Illinois Senator Paul Douglas began a campaign to obtain the statue. They and others back in Salem agreed that “Billy” should come home where he would be appreciated.

In 1961, when Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall agreed to “loan” the statue to Salem, the exchange was not without its complications and mishaps.

The first problem was how to get a 2,700-pound bronze statue and its 29,300-pound marble base back to Salem without spending $2,000 on just the transportation. Insurance involved would also be an astronomical expense for Bryan’s hometown.

However, citizens of Salem banded together in this special project. James Johnson furnished a flatbed truck along with the insurance for the trip. James Warfield bought the fuel. L.R. Young donated a lead truck and driver. Emmet Kane Insurance donated three years of insurance for the statue when it reached its final destination, and Paul Henley made two long truck signs stating that Bryan was returning home to Salem.

Billy left Washington on May 22. During the journey home, the truck had a flat tire, brakes on the truck caught fire in the mountains, and the load shifted so severely that Billy nearly toppled off the flatbed.

Nevertheless, the trip was successfully completed, and Billy was escorted into Salem with respectful pageantry. People from throughout the Marion County area lined Highway 50 east of Salem, and the Salem Fire Department, the Salem Police Department, and the high school band paraded Billy to the Bryan park triangle.

Back in Washington, the mood was not so jubilant because some people there objected to the statue’s removal. One paper erroneously reported that a “crew of Shanghai toughs” had tried to smuggle the statue out of the District only to be stopped by outraged citizens.

However, Salemites point out that no one in Washington seemed too concerned about the Bryan statue while it was lying neglected in a vacant lot.

In 1973, Congressman Kenneth Gray introduced a bill to the U.S. House of Representatives to give Salem a quitclaim deed with all rights, title, and interest to the $125,000 statue of William Jennings Bryan. Congressman Paul Simon turned the title over to the City of Salem on March 31, 1975, in a ceremony at the Bryan home.

Billy was home to stay.

Take a good look at this picture to the right, and then take a look at my bio picture. Practically twins, huh? :)

This gentleman is Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president. According to a database at MyHeritage.com, he, Peter Sellers (actor), Douglas Adams (author), Nana Mouskouri (singer), Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York), Jean Seberg (actress), Karl Lagerfeld (fashion designer), Bruce Dickinson (heavy metal singer), Lara Flynn Boyle (actress), Jeff Goldblum (actor), and I have similar facial structures.

Basically intended as a genealogy resource, the Web site (http://www.myheritage.com/) also provides addictive face recognition technology that matched me to a former Communist leader and my beloved mother to mathematical philosopher Gottlob Frege. (Gottlob had a full beard ~ Mama didn't.)

The Israel-based site uses algorithms to compare faces. From a database of 3,200 famous people, ten results are provided, results which can be quite different at first impression. Whatever the differences, however, MyHeritage suggests we share some facial similarities with the people we are matched to.

To find out which celebrity you most resemble, click the link on the main page of the Web site and then download a photo of yourself. You’ll quickly receive a list of stars with similar facial features. The results, which can include men and women, are often surprising.

You will have to register first, but registration is free. Have two or three pictures handy. For one of mine and one of my mother, there were no results, and another photo of me was too small.

I have never been a huge horse-racing fan, but I do pay attention to the Kentucky Derby because it is tied into a memory that I have of my beloved mother. As a bonus, her boss gave her a weekend in Owensboro, KY, to see the hottie of her dreams, Tom Jones, perform. As we discovered, *Derby Weekend* in Kentucky is a mega-event. (But that's another story and another post!)

I qualify my attention to horse racing because I'm rather surprised myself that I have become so attentive to updates on the condition of Barbaro. When the reports have been good, I have been joyful. When he suffered a setback and developed laminitis, I cried and cried ~ and prayed all the harder for him to be well. Yes, I am an animal lover ~ as you could probably tell from my post on Chelsie ~ but my empathy for Barbaro has run much deeper than expected for just a casual horse-racing watcher. I can't even say that I'm a fan because I don't watch that much.

However, I am, generally, a sports fan who hangs out at online sports Web sites, and at one of them I found a wonderful article that helped to explain me to me. This article by Phil Taylor, "National Treasure: Barbaro's Grace and Spirit Has Touched Us All," at the Sports Illustrated Web site is worth your time: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/phil_taylor/07/19/barbaro/

I have an anniversary coming up. Five summers ago in August, I discovered that I had skin cancer; and within the span of a couple of months, I had two outpatient surgeries ~ one a biopsy and the other to finish removing the spot. As writers do, I wrote about my experiences in an article that was available online for a while. However, that particular Web site no longer exists. While it was up, I had e-mails from several people thanking me for sharing the information and my own thoughts as I progressed through the diagnosis and treatment phase. Therefore, I decided that my blog would be a good place to return this particular article to the cyber-world:

Basal Cell Carcinoma
(Written Fall, 2001)
“If you are going to get cancer, this is the kind to get,” Dr. Hamid Mahmud told me as we studied my biopsy report, which indicated “superficial basal cell carcinoma present at one lateral margin.”

Dr. Mahmud is a kindly man who has guided me safely through flu, sinus infections, tachycardia, high blood pressure, anemia, and injuries from a car accident. Since he could tell that the word “carcinoma” had shaken me, he wanted to reassure me.

However, when you have lost a father, a grandfather, and numerous aunts, uncles, and older cousins to various forms of cancer, you tend to become rather jangled by “carcinoma.”

The biopsy itself had been unsettling enough, coming as it had the day after Maureen Reagan died (8 Aug 2001) as the result of skin cancer that spread to her brain. As I sat waiting to be called for my pre-biopsy prepping, news of her death and Katie Couric’s interview with a skin cancer doctor emanated from a television in the waiting area at Salem Hospital. I couldn’t help wondering if God was preparing me for some bad news.

After seeing the biopsy results, Dr. Mahmud was quite insistent: I had to get a second opinion, and that second opinion had to come from a doctor at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Second opinion? Barnes? And almost immediately, too. Dr. Mahmud would make the appointment for me himself. Is this the bad news You were preparing me for, God?

Dr. Mahmud read the concern in my eyes.

“Remember,” he said, “if you have to get cancer, this is the kind to get.”

Okay. Reassurances from a doctor I trusted. Reassurances from my “bestest” friend Pammy, who, as always, would be right by my side every step of the journey and who knows what a world-class worrier I tend to be. Reassurances from a favorite cousin in Texas, Linda Gayle, who has had 52 of these skin cancer adventures.

“Nothing to worry about,” she told me. “Each one makes you ornerier is all.”

Reassurances from some quiet moments in my church and from the promised prayers of two special priests, Father Jon O’Guinn, who baptized me, and Father Vijay Prabhu, my e-mail buddy in India.

Then, a few days later, reassurances from a cancer doctor at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

The fact that basal cell carcinoma (BCC) was present at a lateral margin of the biopsy specimen meant there was still malignancy present, Dr. Terry Larimore told me. However, BCC rarely spreads to other parts of the body. The surgery to remove the rest of the BCC would be quite minor outpatient surgery. His staff would call me to set up a surgery date sometime within the next two weeks.

Okay. I felt better, but this world-class worrier needed more reassurances in the meantime. Knowledge is power, so I searched for knowledge on the World Wide Web.

How could I, who had never been a sun worshipper, now be suffering the effects of obvious sun damage?

People with the highest risk of BCC are those with fair complexions (like me) and those with family histories of skin cancer. Besides Linda Gayle, my Aunt Doris has had her battles with BCC for several years.

Although it is occurring more frequently now in younger people because of increased recreational and occupational exposure to the sun, BCC usually happens in people age 50 or older. I had turned 50 in March.

A study in the June 2001 issue of Archives of Dermatology maintains that people with wrinkled facial skin are less likely to develop BCC. Experts think that BCC is linked to intense, intermittent sun exposure while wrinkling is the result of cumulative exposure to the sun. I don’t have so many wrinkles yet, a fact I attribute more to my fat, round face than to any inherent physiological tendency. However, here was another direct hit for me on the BCC checklist. (A note to any wrinkled readers: This Archives of Dermatology article cautions that even people with wrinkles should be careful about their exposure to the sun. Getting a sunburn is still a bad idea.)

Sun exposure from infancy to age 19 may increase the risk of BCC in adulthood. In the general population, the estimated lifetime risk of developing this malignancy is 28 to 33 percent.

Though I have never been the proverbial sun worshipper, in my younger years when my knees still worked, I spent a lot of daylight time on softball fields. At the beginning of each summer, too, I seemed to get one whomper-stomping sunburn, a sunburn that invariably peeled rather than turned to tan. I had to wonder about my EIU dorm sisters who had spent so many hours lying out in the sun after marinating their bodies with iodine-tinted baby oil. Some of them had even used homemade aluminum-foil reflectors to intensify their cooking time. Now young ladies, and even young men prefer to bake themselves within the confines of tanning beds, which create the same damaging effects on the skin.

Overexposure to powerful ultraviolet (UV) rays from either the sun or tanning beds ravages skin cells, which are made of two layers. The top layer, the epidermis, includes three types of cells: flat, scaly squamous cells; round basal cells; and melanocytes, cells that give skin its color. Too much sun prompts the visible damage we see in our sunburns and tanning. However, there is also invisible damage in the cellular level, damage that accumulates over the years. Depending on the individual, this damage will eventually prompt wrinkles, age spots, and often skin cancer.

According to estimates by the American Cancer Society (ACS), this year there will be more than one million cases of highly curable nonmelanoma skin cancers like BCC and squamous cell skin cancer. Of the 9,800 Americans expected to die of skin cancers this year, only 2,000 will die from the nonmelanoma skin cancers like BCC, which accounts for 75 percent of all skin cancers in the United States. The relative five-year survival rate for patients with BCC is greater than 99 percent. Although I am not a math whiz, the numbers were reassuring.

My BCC was but a freckle measuring 1.0 x 0.6 x 0.2 centimeters, a small spot just above the outer edge of my right eyebrow. I can’t even tell you why I asked Dr. Mahmud to check it out. Perhaps my guardian angel was whispering the suggestion to my subconscious. I had had a few concerns, however, because the freckle seemed to glow somewhat after I had been outside mowing on sunny summer days. Because of its location, I couldn’t see it well enough to determine whether it was changing shape or size. In any event, Dr. Mahmud didn’t want to waste any time. He scheduled the biopsy for two days after he checked out my freckle, and my surgery at Barnes was a month later.

There was some wiggle room because BCC generally does not spread quickly. Lesions may take months or years to reach a diameter of half an inch. However, if BCC is not treated, it can grow to several centimeters and invade bone or other tissues in the area or beneath the skin. Dr. Mahmud’s concern was that the location of my BCC was so close to my eye, my brain, and my temporal artery. Untreated BBC can cause loss of eyes, ears, and noses, and if it invades the brain, it may even be lethal.

If you are like me, you might wonder why anyone would let BCC progress to those degrees. Some of the BCC pictures I saw online were as gruesome as scenes from Halloween horror movies. (If you have a morbid curiosity to see what I mean, type “basal cell carcinoma photographs” into the Google search engine.) Faces were literally eaten away by oozy blobs: BCC that had been allowed to run amok.

Doctors recommend that people between the ages of 20 and 40 have cancer-related checkups and skin examinations every three years. People older than 40 should be checked every year.

Check your own skin about once a month in front of a full-length mirror. Use a hand-held mirror for areas that are difficult to see, or ask a partner for help. Up to 85 percent of BCC occurs in head and neck regions, but lesions occasionally crop up in unusual and routinely photo-protected locations. Ask your barber or hair stylist to tell you about any suspicious spots that may be hidden in your hair.

You should be particularly vigilant for spots that change in color or shape, new growths, spots or lumps that become larger, and sores that do not heal within three months. Make notes on the pattern of moles, freckles, and other marks on your skin so that you will more easily recognize any changes.

Since I have had BCC already, I can expect to have it again within the next five years, maybe even in the same location. Consequently, I will need to schedule follow-up examinations in three-month intervals for the first year. Thereafter, I will need a thorough skin examination each year, preferably by a qualified dermatologist.

This time around, my BCC was removed by simple excision: the lesion was cut out, along with some marginal skin, and then my skin was stitched back together. This procedure is most commonly used when the BCC is small and simple. Excision is quick and produces few post-operative complications. Cosmetic damage is minimal although I have been wondering why any woman would want a facelift. Just the pulling around my incision was been uncomfortable enough for me, thank you.

I experienced some swelling around my eye for a few days, and after a month, there is still some numbness in the area. I am also unable to raise my right eyebrow, a situation I am hoping is temporary so that I don’t have to manually maneuver my eyelid and the area above it when I am applying eye make-up.

One end of the approximately inch-and-a-half incision has been stubborn about healing, possibly because a couple of sutures were protruding there until I cut them off with manicure scissors. Though the stitches were supposed to dissolve a week or so after my surgery, for some reason they haven’t yet performed up to expectations. I am still going through a lot of hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin.

The scar remains rather ugly, but Dr. Larimore assures me that in about six weeks, it will be little more than a white line and the knots at either end of the incision will disappear.

Besides excision, other methods of treatment are electrodesiccation and curettage, Mohs Surgery, radiation therapy, laser surgery or topical chemotherapy, cryosurgery, and plastic surgery.

Electrodesiccation and curettage involves scraping off the tumor and cauterizing the base. The wound usually heals rapidly without stitches although for awhile there is a scab and scarring is marked, though minimal on certain areas of the face. Following this treatment, lesions smaller than five millimeters have a five percent recurrence probability. About half of the tumors larger than three centimeters will return within five years.

Mohs Surgery is a specialized, microscopically controlled surgical technique useful in treating tumors on or near the nose, eyes, ears, forehead, scalp, fingers, and genital area. The area of the lesion is mapped and excised, and the margins are checked immediately on frozen sections. If results are positive, affected areas are removed immediately. This process is continued until all specimens test clear. The cure rate when Mohs Surgery is used is about 96 percent, as compared to about 50 percent for other types of treatment.

Radiation therapy is a good option for older patients with large tumors, especially tumors involving skin areas that are difficult to treat surgically: eyelids, nose, or ears. Radiation is used only with complex tumors because it may be harmful to cartilaginous regions. Sometimes as many as 20 or 30 office visits may be required with this kind of therapy, which can also produce chronic inflammation, scarring, and further malignant degradation.

Laser surgery or topical chemotherapy is sometimes considered for very superficial lesions, those that have not extended too deeply under the skin’s surface. Thorough follow-up examinations are necessary because these treatments do not destroy any cancer cells that may lurk under the skin’s surface.

Cryosurgery, or freezing, involves the use of liquid nitrogen for small, superficial lesions. However, dermatologists generally do not recommend this kind of treatment, especially for larger tumors or those in certain parts of the nose, ears, eyelids, scalp, and legs. Although this procedure produces very little scarring, there can be post-therapy pain, swelling, tissue necrosis, and persistent oozing.

A patient with a larger lesion or a tumor in a difficult site may be referred to a dermatological surgeon or plastic surgeon, who may create a flap or graft to repair the defect after excision.

For recurrent tumors, surgical excision is the best therapy.

None of the treatments is pleasant, of course, but consider the alternatives. I have no desire for a face that looks like Hannibal Lector dined there. Besides the regular examinations, I will be following some good advice offered by the ACS.

Their slogan at ACS is “slip, slop, and slap.” In other words, anyone going outside should slip on a shirt, slop on the sunscreen, and slap on a hat (preferably one with a wide brim). Not that I am in the habit of leaving my house without a shirt, but you get the idea. You should use a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15. Some dermatologists recommend an SPF as high as 30.

The simplest way to lower the risk of BCC is to reduce the amount of time you spend in the sun and in other sources of UV light. Stay in the shade whenever possible, especially in the middle of the day when sunlight is the most intense.

Other important details to remember:
* UV rays can get through clouds, fog, and haze.
* UV rays can pass through water, so you need protection when you are swimming.
* Water, sand, concrete, and especially snow can reflect and increase the sun’s burning rays.
* You need sun protection even in winter.
* Tanning booths and sun lamps use UV rays.

If you must use a tanning booth, be careful to follow the recommended tanning times. Otherwise you will reach a point where your skin stops tanning and starts cooking, literally.

Doctors report that the single greatest factor contributing to the most serious BCC cases is patient neglect. What I have just been through with my BCC is quite minor in terms of cancer. However, I plan to do my part to insure that I have to face nothing more serious in the future.

As Dr. Mahmud told me, “With cancer, you don’t always get a second chance.”

Let me tell you about my middle "child":

To Pee or Not to Pee: Adventures in Kitty Litter-ature
I have had kitties all my life. Some have been more difficult to train than others, but a new addition to my family, a three-month-old tortoiseshell kitten named Chelsie, provided the greatest challenge to my “catpertise.” Besides being rather willful about venturing into no-no places and terrorizing her older sister, Melanie, Chelsie (a.k.a. Wild Child) decided one cozy morning that her mommy’s bed was a good substitute for a litter box. Is there anything else quite so delightful as awakening to warm kitty pee on your feet?

Well, after all, she was just a baby. And she had been practicing her Olympic broad jumping on the bed at the time. Surely her youthful exuberance had caused this little accident. Surely it was an isolated incident?

That misguided optimism lasted exactly one day.

When she peed on my bed the next morning, I knew I had a developing problem. My first stop toward enlightenment was the Internet, where I had to get down to raw basics to find pertinent information. Polite prompt phrases like “feline urination” typed into the search engine did not yield much help. However, “kitty peeing on bed” brought forth many possibilities.

I discovered that Chelsie’s problem was not that uncommon among kittens, even older cats. However, each article seemed to provide a different reason for the problem and a different solution. No one, I soon surmised, knew with any certainty any more than I did about stopping a kitty from peeing on a bed. When behavior is involved, trying to analyze a kitty’s motivation is like trying to find common sense in government bureaucracy.

The only common thread was to check first for a physical problem. When I took Chelsie to the vet clinic for her boosters, Dr. Sprague examined her and assured me that the problem was behavioral, not physical. His recommendation was to keep Chelsie out of my bedroom for a couple of weeks.

That was the proverbial easier-said-than-done solution.

For one thing, my bedroom door is a louvered door that Melanie can easily paw open. I installed a latch to fix that physical problem, but an emotional problem remained: I am too softhearted about my little girls. I just couldn’t handle their crying at my door in the middle of the night. They wanted to be with me, and, quite honestly, I wanted them to be with me. Besides, I felt as if I was punishing Melanie for something that was not her fault. I caved within a week and opened up the bedroom.

Chelsie resumed her morning tinkles on the bed almost immediately. My new feather-down comforter was completely ruined, and I was washing my other bedclothes almost every other day. My laundry was becoming rather overwhelming because I also had extra towels to wash when she jumped into my bath water two consecutive nights, and I had to blot her dry. (I was beginning to think she wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box.)

Using one of the suggestions I found online, I bought some vinyl tablecloths to shield my bed and me. I placed one inside my duvet and one on top of my quilt. I thank the infamous Martha Stewart for creating attractive lace-looking tablecloths that matched my bedroom décor. However, sleeping beneath vinyl is not pleasant. You sweat like you’ve been running a marathon in ninety-degree heat, and personally I don’t need that extra thermal aggravation at this phase of my life.

Although chemistry had never been my strong suit, I studied pet catalogs for chemicals that would neutralize kitty pee, eradicate all traces of it, and make my world clean and serene once more. I even found a miraculous liquid in which I could wash my duvet and quilt to make them water repellent.

For several weeks, I also lost a tremendous amount of sleep. With kitties, you have to catch them in no-no acts before you can discipline them. That old trick of rubbing their noses in their accidents after the fact does not work on kitties. Consequently, every time Chelsie so much as moved on the bed, I was awake and watching to see if she “assumed the position.” If she did, I gently pushed her over onto her side to take her mind off the inclination. I didn’t sleep well for many weeks, but I could register some progress with the Wild Child. We had a few accidents, but thanks to the tablecloths and chemicals, the messes were much easier to clean up.

Another tactic I tried was adding a litter box to the two I already had. Somewhere in my online ramblings, I read that you should have one box for every kitty plus one box more. I placed this box in the living room, about ten feet from my bedroom. When you’re desperate, you are willing to overlook interior design faux pas.

One morning, after I had made the bed with one of the vinyl tablecloths on top, I wasn’t quick enough when Chelsie assumed the position. Just as she started tinkling, I pushed her over, and she continued to pee right up into the air like a fountain. At last, however, I had caught her in the act, and I “Bad kittied!” her profusely and sternly. I knew I had made an impression on her, for she ran and hid from me. I went on to work with that guilt weighing heavily on my heart, but she was there to greet me as always when I came home later.

There have been no accidents since that morning. I can’t say whether that last bit of discipline or the tablecloths or the extra litter box or the vigilance of watching her when she was moving on the bed was what effected the change. All I know is that we now remain dry in the mornings, and I have another sweet, furry fluff of love nuzzling my face as we cuddle in pre-dawn moments.

After breakfast, she and Melly...and now their baby sister, Elly Fae...help me make my bed. Of course, there are three purring designer lumps in the middle of the quilt when we are finished, but the bed, Chelsie, and I now remain dry: a cat-astrophe with a happy ending.

I finished my second novel, The Wading Place, at 11:34 p.m., Wednesday, 19 Jul 2006. I note the time with all the precision devoted to recording a birth, for the completition of any writing project is like bringing new life into the world. It started as a seed that I nurtured ~ it grew, feeding off my words and my imagination ~ and now I will send it out into the world to succeed or fail on its own merits.

Here's a preview for you:
Orphaned at fifteen, Katie Carson leaves her familiar surroundings in a small Midwestern town to seek her future in California. An accident sidetracks her dreams in the mountains of Oregon, where she finds love with a young Minkodan doctor. In 1949 America, however, their love was forbidden by both her people and his, and she must leave him when he is forced to marry a woman from his tribe.

Spanning the years 1949 to 1962, this is the story of one woman, two identities, and two men who love her. She will give herself to one man for love and to the other for money in a desperate attempt to save the life of her child with the man she could not have. Can a small-town girl from Lester, Iowa, overcome the bigotry and heartache she encounters on the West Coast to return with her son to the Wading Place and complete the Minkodan cycle of love?

The Wading Place is coming soon to an Amazon.com near you! :) PG-rated so that my students can read it! :)