Links & Things 

Brad Dye's Lincoln Web Site (click on underlined phrase)

     Brad offers an impressive combination of brilliant photos and extensive writing.  This writing ranges from autobiographical sketch to creative writing (romance at Lincoln Lakes!).  His photos show downtown Lincoln, Central Junior High School, the remaining half (for now) of our "old, old friend" on Broadway St. (now Lincoln Junior High), Lincoln churches, and Lincoln Lakes.  These photos were taken on a sunny day in the fall of 2000.  Brad, who uses the best equipment, makes a major contribution as a photographer and writer.  You will want to return to Brad's remarkable site time and again to enjoy its ongoing development. 

Other Links Relating to Lincoln, Illinois, and Central Illinois

Official Web site of Lincoln Community High School
http://www2.ccaonline.com/lchs/  

Online News
http://www.lincolncourier.com/

http://www.lincolndailynews.com/    Link provided by Judith (Heinzel) Gordon (3-24-01)

Web Sites Concerned with History and Popular Culture
http://www.state.il.us/hpa/Sites/PostvilleCourthouse.htm

http://www.route66magazine.com/

     The Illinois State Fair

     http://www.state.il.us/fair

The Clown Band has been a feature of the Illinois State Fair for years and years.  I shot  this picture in the mid 1970s, when I took my children there almost every year (for their education in  popular culture). Brick row buildings in the background are show-horse barns.

Sam, the Candy Man, was the guru of fudge.  He kneaded it on a marble slab, which he intended to use as his tombstone.  As people watched him prepare the fudge on this slab, he happily explained that the bottom side already had some of his epitaph inscribed.  The counter of his booth always had free samples.  Black walnut fudge:  the perfect desert following an aperitif of cold draft beer and a meal of  corn dogs, fries, and lemonade.  Oh, of course, elephant ears were a good in-between-meal snack.

     Other suggestions are requested for hometown or Central Illinois Web sites.

Links Relating to our Generation

    Enough time has elapsed for historians to complete a significant body of work on how our parents' generation survived the Depression and won WW II.  Our generation has not been thrust onto the stage of history so dramatically.  For this reason and because we are just now entering "the golden years," historians are just beginning to tell our story.  

    As they do, what will they say?  What will they even call us?  Do you know that some historians include us in our parents' generation, the "Silent Generation" (1930-1945)?  It's not entirely logical that we should be so classified.  Also, we don't exactly belong to the "Baby Boomer" generation because we were not born after the war's end.  Then who are we?  If we are "WWII-Time Babies" (not the familiar way this word is used), we are rather small in number and perhaps especially difficult to define.  What does it mean to be a "WWII-Time Baby"?  In what ways are we or are we not a hybrid of the more conspicuous generations that preceded and followed us?

http://www.fourthturning.com/html/silent_generation.html

http://www.mmmfiles.com/emergin.htm

The 1950s

     The popular culture (once on this page, scroll to links near two standing ladies):  http://www.fiftiesweb.com/

     A hyperlink-rich resource of more "highbrow" cultural and historical subjects:  
http://dept.english.upenn.edu/ ̃afilreis/50s/home.html

Mr. Paul Million and the Lincoln Theatre Roy Rogers' Riders Club (click on underlined phrase)

     In childhood, our generation enjoyed westerns and other adventure films on Saturdays at local theaters.  The link above goes to a Web page consisting of 14 photos showing how one such theater promoted these kinds of films.  These photos are compliments of Fred Blanford, LCHS Class of 1959.  Photo captions indicate names of some Riders identified by various classmates who saw the photos when they were first transmitted by email to the group.  The RRRC page also contains memories of this Club submitted by various classmates.

     Other suggestions are requested for links to information about our generation.

Extracurricular Campuses
     The background image of the home page shows the drawing of the "new campus" adapted from inside the cover of the diploma.  The background images of the 1960s photos and guestbook pages show the buildings of the "old campus."  For many of us, informal education occurred at certain "extracurricular campuses"; one of the more respectable is depicted here.  Do you have a picture of another extracurricular campus?  For example, Leonard's?  Dial's?  If so, mail or email it (and your favorite stories about it) so I can publish them. 

An All-Purpose Hangout

This image, unaltered, is from a full-page ad in the Lincoln Evening Courier, Centennial Edition, Section Two, Wednesday, August 26, 1953, page 3.  In addition to the coffee shop, the ad refers to the "Fire Side Dining Room" and the "'Cub Room' Cocktail Bar."  I remember that in the entrance hallway across from the door to the coffee shop there was a framed letter signed by Abraham Lincoln.