Annoying adventure ( sort of) on the 4th of july....
Everyone in the USA not living under a rock knows today is Independence Day....the day Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saved us all. Joking aside and lame joke a side i'll get to business. Today wasn't sure if we'd get to go to the fireworks since the donut on the car blew but luckily Farm King was open and sells and puts on tires so we got that taken care of which thank god I would have been mad if i had to miss one day of the year event. My luck would take a weird turn later than evening and missed half of the fireworks after two locations failed to pan out. Before that we go to Lakeland and feed the Canada Geese to give them a little treat as well as get out in the sun a bit. We feed them and we seen this one weird looking goose for a second time that prior to last week never seen before. It sort of looks like a different goose yet at the same time has simular markings as them. We sort of wondered if it was a very old Canada goose, a hybrid where one breed had sex with another and somehow reproduced or just a different type altogether. We sort of just think it's a very old goose as they can live up to 20 to 24 years in the wild if lucky. The geese the other day chased him or her away and today it was the opposite it was getting aggressive with the Canada Geese. If it is infact an old goose then it is a very wise goose to have lived that long and beat the odds. It's odd it don't have a mate since Geese mate for life but it's partner probably died i'm guessing. I don't know. /shrugs.
So every year other than twice in like 20 years i've been going to Havana for the fireworks show. Dad started that since he worked at Intermet Havana Foundry for a decade up until it closed in 2004. I worked there for over a year. We had made it a tradition to go every year down there. The first year we went it was held at the Riverfront then it was changed to the high school then in 2016 went back to the riverfront. When Dad took us we went down to the riverfront park itself. Now i just have a spot away from the crowds by the huge grain silo ( ADM i think) and at one time the Illinois Central Railroad ran through the property before crossing the main drag over behind where Hardees now is and went back. Hardees used to be a depot so probably Illinois Central but Chicago & Illinois Midland Railroad also had one so i keep getting the two lines mixed up both had various track in the city before 1980 ( way before probably). IC was abandoned in 1980 at Havana. Anyways i go see what Intermet is looking like these days which is same old same old nothing else has been torn down. Not sure what they are doing with it but it's kind of a shame bacuase that back section was built when i was working there between 2000-2001 so that section was built only to close down 3 years later. Talk about a waste then again the whole dump was a waste thanks to bad management and poor safety record. Anyone that worked in production got their lungs polluted with silt and sand. Later EPA fined the property who ever owned it around 2009 for the water being contaminated. Intermet contaminated....the hell you say. Shocking! The only good thing about working there was my relationship with Dad improved as i seen what he was going through to sympathize and a few friends i made there at the time. No idea what became of them. I know my favorite person there Buckley died years ago. He used to flip quarters with other people for fun and was a nice funny fellow who Dad was friends with. I also checked the railines to see if any activity which i knew there wouldn't be but you never know. I just figured might as well while down there. I didn't see anything. The Caboose has been moved further down the line. In 2016 it was sitting by the Old C&IM box car remains i photographed now it's further down.
Now to the fun part we go park in the spot i picked out last year and someone was going around telling people the firework show got cancelled due to someone losing their license. Then the woman who was told came to us and told us. What the.....? Turns out the firework company lost their license according to the Havana Police facebook page and the city didn't find out until the last minute which is messed up and sucked for everyone. We leave to go to Lewistown to watch theirs. I call my mom and was informed they had theirs on the third which is also messed up. They had been previously having it on the fourth itself so was annoyed after that. We drive back up to Canton and watch the rest of it. Leave it to a redneck next to us to be hooting and hollering probably drunk. We snarked and had a few laughs at his hooting and hollering. I said loud enough this is fire works not a naked woman and not to cream himself. Shaun actually went with me which was shocked but we bonded over snarking at the hollering redneck sitting next to us so the night wasn;t a total lost cause. If Havana reschedules i'll probably go down and watch it to make up for tonight. Maybe. Or go railfanning....eh either one. Despite that bull crap it wasn't a bad night. Sure we snarked at the events and at my luck as well as that bellowing redneck but it wasn't that terrible just annoying driving from town to town looking. I should start making a back up plan and write down lists of towns having them in case of events where it gets cancelled. That's never happened to me before. I seen a fireworks accident when we were watching in the stadium in Pekin in 1999 but despite a few injuries and a truck tire and telephone pole catching fire Pekin continued with it and didn't cancel even though if they did no one would blame them. Shaun and I missed fireworks one year to stay home so missed one Havana one with Dad, one with him and now one due to cancellation. It was srt of an adventure. It became annoying when we got to Lewistown and found out they shot theirs the previous night. Oh well. Breaks up the same old same old routine i guess. Atleast it wasn't cancelled due to an accident or injuries so atleast there's that. Better luck next year.
So every year other than twice in like 20 years i've been going to Havana for the fireworks show. Dad started that since he worked at Intermet Havana Foundry for a decade up until it closed in 2004. I worked there for over a year. We had made it a tradition to go every year down there. The first year we went it was held at the Riverfront then it was changed to the high school then in 2016 went back to the riverfront. When Dad took us we went down to the riverfront park itself. Now i just have a spot away from the crowds by the huge grain silo ( ADM i think) and at one time the Illinois Central Railroad ran through the property before crossing the main drag over behind where Hardees now is and went back. Hardees used to be a depot so probably Illinois Central but Chicago & Illinois Midland Railroad also had one so i keep getting the two lines mixed up both had various track in the city before 1980 ( way before probably). IC was abandoned in 1980 at Havana. Anyways i go see what Intermet is looking like these days which is same old same old nothing else has been torn down. Not sure what they are doing with it but it's kind of a shame bacuase that back section was built when i was working there between 2000-2001 so that section was built only to close down 3 years later. Talk about a waste then again the whole dump was a waste thanks to bad management and poor safety record. Anyone that worked in production got their lungs polluted with silt and sand. Later EPA fined the property who ever owned it around 2009 for the water being contaminated. Intermet contaminated....the hell you say. Shocking! The only good thing about working there was my relationship with Dad improved as i seen what he was going through to sympathize and a few friends i made there at the time. No idea what became of them. I know my favorite person there Buckley died years ago. He used to flip quarters with other people for fun and was a nice funny fellow who Dad was friends with. I also checked the railines to see if any activity which i knew there wouldn't be but you never know. I just figured might as well while down there. I didn't see anything. The Caboose has been moved further down the line. In 2016 it was sitting by the Old C&IM box car remains i photographed now it's further down.
Now to the fun part we go park in the spot i picked out last year and someone was going around telling people the firework show got cancelled due to someone losing their license. Then the woman who was told came to us and told us. What the.....? Turns out the firework company lost their license according to the Havana Police facebook page and the city didn't find out until the last minute which is messed up and sucked for everyone. We leave to go to Lewistown to watch theirs. I call my mom and was informed they had theirs on the third which is also messed up. They had been previously having it on the fourth itself so was annoyed after that. We drive back up to Canton and watch the rest of it. Leave it to a redneck next to us to be hooting and hollering probably drunk. We snarked and had a few laughs at his hooting and hollering. I said loud enough this is fire works not a naked woman and not to cream himself. Shaun actually went with me which was shocked but we bonded over snarking at the hollering redneck sitting next to us so the night wasn;t a total lost cause. If Havana reschedules i'll probably go down and watch it to make up for tonight. Maybe. Or go railfanning....eh either one. Despite that bull crap it wasn't a bad night. Sure we snarked at the events and at my luck as well as that bellowing redneck but it wasn't that terrible just annoying driving from town to town looking. I should start making a back up plan and write down lists of towns having them in case of events where it gets cancelled. That's never happened to me before. I seen a fireworks accident when we were watching in the stadium in Pekin in 1999 but despite a few injuries and a truck tire and telephone pole catching fire Pekin continued with it and didn't cancel even though if they did no one would blame them. Shaun and I missed fireworks one year to stay home so missed one Havana one with Dad, one with him and now one due to cancellation. It was srt of an adventure. It became annoying when we got to Lewistown and found out they shot theirs the previous night. Oh well. Breaks up the same old same old routine i guess. Atleast it wasn't cancelled due to an accident or injuries so atleast there's that. Better luck next year.
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