Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Archive for June 23rd, 2009

Peoria’s got two things Rockford doesn’t

4 comments June 23rd, 2009

I am one of those Rockfordians who believes the world ends at I-80, and that anything south of there is, well, the boondocks. State capital notwithstanding, it gets kinda sparse once you’re really downstate.

So, when I have to go to Champaign, Peoria or Springfield I tend to whine and wish I didn’t have to. All that to say, I had to go to Peoria last week for a meeting. Two and a half hours of gorgeous skies and boring interstate. I’ll spare you the travelogue and get to the point:

Peoria has two things Rockford does not have: (1) bluffs; and (2) Ray LaHood.

God gave Peoria those soaring bluffs above the Rock River, which encouraged the early settlers to build close to the river rather than high on the bluffs. Easier, you know. And, that means one enters Peoria from the top, looking down the river and down on the city. One could wreck the car over that hard-to-beat view on a beautiful day. It makes one think kindly upon Peoria.

God did not favor Rockford with bluffs. The best we offer is a peak from above if one stops at the top of the North Second Street-Auburn Street-Spring Creek Road interchange and admires Symbol and the Rock River from there. There’s not an entrance to Rockford that makes one think kindly upon us.

Then, Peoria has Ray LaHood and we don’t and LaHood brought home the state road cash to Peoria. I swear, I went looking for potholes, filled or otherwise. If there are potholes and chunked up, dirty, dreary roads in Peoria, they sure as heck are not on the main drags and their number twos.  No teeth-rattling downtown roads and entrances for Peoria. They must not patch holes and cracks in Peoria; I think they must repave the entire street.

Bluffs and LaHood. We are lesser without either. I don’t want to live in Peoria. I hate hearing others say “Peoria is so better than Rockford.”

But, I have to tell you, if we Rockfordians don’t create stunning, welcoming, jaw-dropping entrances to the city, and if we don’t fix the main drags and their number twos, we can say farewell to any hopes of being Illinois’ second city again.