Since we were not able to go home between games and our next game site was in the Midwest, we had a bit of time to poke around on the journey. As usual, Greg found some interesting sights for us to check out. Our first day's drive took us to Champaign, Illinois, home to the University of Illinois Fighting Illini and, it turns out, quite a few quirky attractions.
Like the theater where Roger Ebert watched movies as teenager. He honed his film appreciation skills during many hours watching current (now classic) films in the majestic Virginia Theater. They've put a statue of him entitled "C-U at the Movies" right outside. You can even sit with him and weigh in on the whatever's showing. No popcorn, though.
A few miles from Roger we found this gigantic copper Indian in a field near an apple farm. Maybe he's trying to shoot an apple off of someone's head?
[From RoadisideAmerica.com] Herbert W. Drews was a heating and air conditioning man by trade, but an artist at heart. In the 1930s he built a big Tin Man and stood him outside his business in Danville, Illinois. Then in 1949 he built the Big Indian.
A plaque at its base calls the statue "The Chief" and says it was built to honor Kesis, "a famous Kickapoo Indian chief of east central Illinois." The statue stood on the old Dixie Highway for 46 years, outliving both Herbert W. and his son, Herbert O. A grandson moved the statue to its current spot in Champaign in 1995.
Standing nearly 17 feet tall, the statue is surprisingly lifelike. Obviously a tough man, Chief Kesis wears only moccasins and a loin cloth. Old postcards show a murderous tomahawk belted to his waist, but it's gone now.
Made of hammered copper, the statue initially mimicked the skin color of its Indian subject. But time has turned the Chief green, like the Statue of Liberty or Frankenstein's monster.
In his current location, the Chief aims his bow west toward Interstate 57. His scowl of concentration suggests a fatal end for whatever is on the receiving end of his arrow.
But, I am grateful that so far our family has been able to stay reasonably healthy and that Greg and I have been able to support each other during a long journey and even longer year. We are blessed to have three wonderful adult daughters who have managed their own challenges and still had help and encouragement to spare for their road-weary parents.
Here's our Christmas card. (Spoiler alert: the picture was taken last January as we have not been all together in may months. I'm pretty sure I've got quite a few more wrinkles now.)
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