March 12th, 2009
We think Shawn Ryan, who grew up in Rockford and became a big-time TV producer and writer, had a hand in Janesville, Wis., being spotlighted in Sunday’s episode of “The Unit.”
The American action-drama TV series is about a top-secret military unit modeled after the real life Delta Force.
A Register Star editor who watches the series, co-produced and sometimes written by Ryan, said that Sunday’s episode focused on a new recruit who was trying to join the team. The reason for his addition was the death of one of the main characters.
At the end of the show, two members of The Unit were at a graveyard to pay last respects to their fallen brother. The site of the graveyard: Janesville, Wis. The city’s name was stripped across the bottom of the screen.
Ryan also created, produced and wrote many of the shows for FX’s “The Shield,” a cop drama series that ended last year. In the final episode of that series, Rockford wasn’t specifically mentioned, but the Burpee Museum of Natural History of Rockford was referenced. The lead character’s ex-wife was being relocated to Rockford under the witness protection program.
March 12th, 2009
Every Thursday morning when I’m going to work at the News Tower after having traveled to WREX-TV at the far west end of Auburn Street to promote fun things happening on the weekend, I turn south on Central Avenue and drive on different streets on the way to my desk at 99 E. State Street, Rockford.
When I’m driving on those streets, I always feel like it’s a different world there than the one I’m used to.
Not that I’m rolling in the dough by a long shot. But where I come from and where I live, houses have glass in the windows. The windows aren’t broken or boarded up like they are on too many of the houses I see on streets such as Furman, Fairview, Bluefield, Oakfield. And too many lawns in the area are littered with junk.
Things are quiet when I’m driving on those streets about 7:10 a.m. About all I see is a few kids walking together on sidewalks to their school bus stops or waiting with one or two others for the bus at corners.
This morning, though, a little girl, maybe 6 years old, with straggly, dark blond hair, was walking north on Forest Avenue almost in the middle of the street. Her coat was open in the 10-degree temperature. She was wearing a back pack.
She was alone. She was crying.
And I felt sad.
I had no idea what was bothering her. I didn’t want to stop and lend her a shoulder to cry on for fear of me being a stranger and scaring her. As I turned a corner, I saw a school bus rambling up another street, and I rationalized it would be her bus. She’d get on it, and the bus driver would notice she was crying and say something to her that would make her feel better. Or at least she wouldn’t be alone.
All I could think of when I got to work was that a little girl shouldn’t be walking in the street to the bus stop by herself on a really cold morning with tears in her eyes.
IÂ hope the house she lives in doesn’t have broken or boarded-up windows.
