URBANA — Wednesdays just got merrier and brighter. Each week, University of Illinois Extension educators will share holiday plant and home landscape tips for winter.
The free online workshops begin Dec. 1 and include live, follow-along activities led by Extension educators Andrew Holsinger, Chris Enroth, Ken Johnson, and Katie Parker, Each hour-long session begins at 3 p.m. Register online at go.illinois.edu/GoodGrowingWinter21.
YARD AND GARDEN: Change up your holiday plant tradition with amaryllis
• Unique Plants for the Holidays — Wednesday, Dec. 1: Are you searching for the perfect holiday gift for that plant lover on your list, but don’t want to give them the typical poinsettia or Christmas cactus? Learn about some out-of-the-ordinary plants and how to grow them like plumeria, citrus, tea, coffee, and miracle fruit that can make great gifts for the plant enthusiast in your life, or yourself!
• Going Nuts Over Tree Nuts! — Wednesday, Dec 8: It’s just nuts! Yes, through the holiday season it can get a bit hectic but sit back and relax while you learn about the wonders of growing nuts in your own back yard. The nuts that will be covered fall into the traditional holiday fare of chestnuts, walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts.
• Wonderful Winter Interest — Wednesday, Dec 15: The winter season can be a dreary time for your landscape. Learn what plants to use to add color, texture, and plant architecture to your winter landscape, such as red and yellow twig Dogwood, winterberry, witch hazel, serviceberry, and false cypress.
• Dealing with Winter Wildlife Damage — Wednesday, Jan 12: Wildlife can be fun to watch, but wild animals can also be very destructive to the home landscape. Learn how deer, rabbits, racoons, squirrels, voles, and mice may cause damage to your yard or garden this winter and some tips to help protect your landscape.
OVER THE COLES: Watering trees, shrubs in the fall and winter is a balancing act
If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate, or for more information, contact Katie Parker at [email protected]. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time for meeting access needs.
For more information on University of Illinois Extension programming in Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Moultrie and Shelby county, visit our website at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/ccdms/index.html or call us at 217-849-3931.
My Town: Clint Walker’s memories of Coles County as pulled from the archives
Cosmic Blue Comics
From the Nov. 22, 1992, Journal Gazette, this photo of Cosmic Blue Comics in Mattoon; where I spent virtually every Saturday afternoon for about two years. That small back room you see just off to the right of the Coca-Cola sign was where they kept the many, and I mean many, long-boxes of back issues. I still own my bagged copy of “Tales of the Beanworld” issue No. 1 that I found back there. Sadly, this location is now just a “greenspace”.
Mattoon Arcade
Pictured, Shelbyville’s Bob Murray from the June 2, 1982, Journal Gazette, displaying his dominance over the TRON arcade game at the “Carousel Time” arcade at the Cross County Mall, later to be the Aladdin’s Castle, soon thereafter to be not a thing anymore. I spent just about every Saturday at that arcade, perhaps with that exact same haircut. No overalls, though. I was more of an “Ocean Pacific” kind of kid.
Icenogle’s
Pictured, from the Nov. 28, 1988, Journal Gazette, Icenogle’s grocery store. Being from Cooks Mills, we didn’t often shop at Icenogle’s…but when we did, even as a kid, I knew it was the way a grocery store is supposed to be in a perfect world, and that’s not just because they had wood floors, comic books on the magazine rack, or plenty, and I mean plenty, of trading cards in wax packs.
Cooks Mills
I had long since moved away from Cooks Mills by the time this Showcase item about Adam’s Groceries ran in the June 13, 1998, Journal Gazette, but there was a time when I very well could have been one of those kids in that photo; for if it was summer, and you had a bike, and you lived in Cooks Mills, that’s where you ended up. At last report, they still had Tab in the Pepsi-branded cooler in the back. I’m seriously considering asking my money guy if I could afford to reopen this place.
Mister Music
Pictured, from the July 16, 1987, Journal Gazette, this ad for Mister Music, formerly located in the Cross County Mall. I wasn’t buying records at that age, but I would eventually, and that’s where it all went down. If you don’t think it sounds “cool” to hang out at a record store with your buddies on a Friday night, a piping-hot driver’s license fresh in your wallet, you’d be right. But it’s the best a geek like me could do. Wherever you are today, owners of Mister Music, please know that a Minutemen album I found in your cheap bin changed my life.
Sound Source Guitar Throw
Portrait of the author as a young man, about to throw a guitar through a target at that year’s Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest, from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette. Check out my grunge-era hoodie, and yes…look carefully, those are Air Jordans you see on my feet. Addendum: despite what the cutline says, I did not win a guitar.
Pictured, clipped from the online archives at JG-TC.com, a photo from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette of Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest winner, and current JG-TC staff writer, Clint Walker.
Vette’s
Here today, gone tomorrow, Vette’s Teen Club, from the June 20, 1991, Journal Gazette. I wasn’t “cool” enough to hang out at Vette’s back in it’s “heyday,” and by “cool enough” I mean, “not proficient enough in parking lot fights.” If only I could get a crack at it now.
FutureGen
FutureGen: The end of the beginning, and eventually, the beginning of the end, from the Dec. 19, 2007, JG-TC. I wish I had been paying more attention at the time. I probably should have been reading the newspaper.
Katie Parker is Local Foods and Small Farms Educator with the University of Illinois Extension