Time Traveler

Thomas Wolfe believed you can't go home again.  But I just did.

Quite unexpectedly a book arrived the other day, a thoughtful gift from a sister-in-law.  Its title:  Goodbye Elgin High by Mike Bailey who authored a fairly parallel story of us coming of age in a city undergoing dramatic change (except for a minor two year difference in our academic schedules and the fact I attended the other high school).  Reading it immediately transported me back to my teen years in this median size northern Illinois city that we called home.

I was reminded that during my high school days the St. Louis Gateway Arch was completed; the news was all about the Soviets first "spacewalk" and then their first soft lunar landing;  the Crocker Theater was showing The Sound of Music; WLS radio was playing I Got You Babe, Help, and Catch Us If You Can;  the popular TV shows were Bonanza and Andy Griffith.  Tang, Cool Whip, Pampers, Pop Tarts and freeze-dried coffee appeared on the shelves of our 35+ neighborhood grocery stores.  Modern Dairy still delivered milk to the insulated aluminum cube sitting by our back door.  There was a live lion at Lords Park. And gas was 30-35 cents/gallon at more than 55 service stations in town.

As far as coming of age memories go, the author has a lot more of them than I do.  My most vivid high school memory was me nearly scaring Dad to death as he was teaching me how to drive (might have been his most memorable too).  But before the State of Illinois would grant me a driver license, they made me get glasses-- their testing discovered that sometime during my tender years I had become near-sighted.  Once I got my new glasses I really began to discover the world around me.  Coupled with the newfound independence my license and an old beat up '47 Cadillac provided, my life took on new dimensions.  I became a better student, did well enough on my ACTs, graduated in 1966 and went off to college.  About the same time as my life seemed to be ascending, Elgin's started descending - both economically and in my consciousness.

In 1952, Elgin was selected as an All-American City and rightfully so.  It was a great place to grow up.  But starting in the mid-sixties, circumstances conspired against it. The tipping point was the closure of its most prominent and famous namesake employer: The Elgin National Watch Company.  It had been an economic engine providing a substantial foundation of local employment for thousands of skilled, above average paid folks who had, in turn, attracted other manufacturing and retail businesses for more than a century.  Some say it was the victim of cheap foreign competition, but the tremendously successful marketing campaign (spearheaded by John Cameron Swayze) relentlessly promoted the rugged (and cheap) virtues of the Timex brand watch also took its toll.  In retrospect, the Timex slogan “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking” could have been adopted as an Elgin city slogan after the demise of its own watch company.

That started the slow decline in the community.  Other local businesses withered, died or moved.  The demographics shifted toward lower income families.  More and more Spanish speaking students appeared in the schools struggling with the English curriculums which negatively affected overall education performance.  Increasing numbers of families left for other places with better performing schools.  This ripple effect continued for the next three decades (some would say it hasn't ended yet).

Elgin most certainly would have died if it had not been successful in attracting a casino.  The city coffers now receive $1 for each gambler and 5% of their losses.  City government now has more funds than ever.  While providing for infrastructure improvements, they don’t have that many more better paying jobs or much better educational performance.  I guess you could say they gambled their future . . .  and at least won an All-American City designation a second time (in 2002).  I hope the good fortune lasts.

But I’m glad to have lived there when I did; As I’m fond of saying, it was a good time and place to be from.  Thank you, Judy, for providing the vehicle for this trip in time.