As we mentioned before, Park Forest will celebrate its 75th anniversary as a community next year. There are plans on the village’s drawing board for a plethora of plans and parties to celebrate the big event, including Park Forest Oscars for outstanding residents of the community nominated by residents.
Those walking down a proverbial red carpet will include 19 different categories, including outstanding student, community advocate, spoken word, stellar voice pioneer and local historian. Nomination forms will be available at Village Hall with a plea that no one votes for themselves.
This effort to celebrate the life of the village reminds some old hands of two the village celebrated the 50th year, back in 1999, when Park Forest, with two All-America City awards in previous years, made it to the finals of the All-America City award in Louisville.
The village should have won for a third time but did not. The following day as we packed up, two of the judges came up to members of our group and told us how impressed they were with our presentation and to “try again next year. One whispered to us that one judge “didn’t like us from the beginning,”
We didn’t get there the next year. We made it to the finals a few years later but alas, no grand prize. This anniversary year might be time to try again.
Garden woes
It was the rain, or maybe the extremely hot weather, or maybe it was the fault of the plants purchased at a local home improvement emporium, but whatever the reason, our backyard garden was a sad disappointment this year.
Those cherry tomatoes, sweet as lumps of sugar last year, turned tart this time around. Green and red peppers, once blocky and bulky, were hidden by leaves of the plants. Two cucumber vines produced a minimal harvest of three, and please don’t even talk to me about what happened to our peas and beans.
One veteran gardener suggested that we need to dig out the old soil. That is too hard to do, we thought. Our little tiller is not up to the job and the promise of a bountiful harvest is just that — a promise.
The kiss and promise of summer were undelivered by the last week of September as we dumped the residue of vines and stalks into the trash at the beginning of autumn. Gardeners always hope for a bountiful harvest and this corner is planning for 2024 comeback.
Sign out
It is a sad reminder and a sign of the times that store signs linger long after stores close in the south suburbs.
Drive along Orchard Drive and is a dim corner of the shopping area one can still see the round “Jet Foods” sign promoting a sad attempt to establish a grocery store in the village. Underfunded and overhyped, the only time the store doors opened was when the trash haulers picked over the carts and stalls gathering dust on the site.
There are similar signs throughout the area from Chicago Heights to Matteson. These are symbols of what once was and should be buried in the time capsules of memory.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
