Last month, the village of Park Forest distributed 100 hooded jerseys inscribed with the name of the village and its logo, as well as hat, scarf, and gloves to residents in need.
Park Forest is getting ready to celebrate its 75th birthday in 2024 by branding everything the village touches with that number. My proposal of how to best celebrate the yearlong event is to reduce one resident’s water bill each month by $75 and chipping 75 cents off everything else the village markets or collects.
Selling clothing or other items proclaiming who we are seems an easy thing to do.
In 1999, during the 50th anniversary of the community, and while shopping in the Jewel Food Store, then located on Orchard Drive and before it moved out of town, I came upon blue shirt with an emblematic “Park Forest” stitched across part of the American flag. Bought it. Still wear it on festive days in the village.
I still have three shirts emblazoned with the village logo that I wear every now and then.
I was working for the village that year and, as part of the celebration, we created license plate holders, pens and pins for residents. It was not about making money for Park Forest, it was celebrating who we are and that we are here.
Digression
While the village celebrates its existence, 2024 will be a turbulent year in our country’s history as we are accosted by those who, after nearly 250 years, demand a change in how we are governed; one in which a president can do no wrong, where those seeking a better life are described as poisoners of “America’s blood.”
More than 80 years ago, among the millions of those condemned to death as “poisoners of blood,” were the families of my father and mother. Some things and some words are unforgivable.
Being careful
During the morning roll call in every episode of television’s “Hill Street Blues,” there was a final instruction from Sgt. Phil Esterhaus to the officers.
“Let’s be careful out there,” he would say, often with a wag of his finger.
Be careful dear reader.
COVID is still with us. We can attest to that. Madame and moi got slapped with pre-Christmas cases last week. Thank you for your concern, but yes, we are doing better now. Since we celebrate most holidays, our village family serenaded us at our front door on Christmas Eve and gave us some goodies. We played safe. They were not asked in.
We, who are together at this season, may take our sons and daughters for granted. Those who live on the edge of disaster because of fear, famine or force of arms each day often live with danger, fearing the worst, navigating the minefield of their lives without a map. It is not confined to the Middle East. We see it or hear about it on a daily basis.
A week without a mass shooting somewhere in this land is an uncommon occurrence and the killing of the innocent, no matter where, seems to many, unforgivable.
Be careful out there.
The Golden Door
There is a poem written by Emma Lazarus engraved in the base of the State of Liberty which ends:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
The face of the statue looks to the southeast. Its back is to the west. It does not see our southern border.
Final Words
Among the verses in a Jewish Reform service prayer book are the words of O. Eugene Pickett, once the head of the Unitarian Church of America. He closes his thanksgiving poem with the fervent desire “that we live not by our fears but our hopes and not by our words but our deeds.”
Each year at this time I repeat those words here. Each year, I hope.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
