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Closing “The Home”
The last nursing home resident left Pleasant Hill Village in Girard last week, almost 112 years after the first ones arrived at “The Home for the Homeless,” a beautiful large brick facility with 50 rooms and great halls, built by a small German-originated denomination, the Church of the Brethren.

A better way to help the homeless
They won’t – or can’t – go to the hospital and no one knows where else to send them. The issue becomes so disruptive that a rule is proposed: If you are having a heart attack after 9 p.m., you can’t be on library grounds. But that won’t work.

A test of character
“Small army of migrants marching toward the United States,” headlined his favorite show, “Fox & Friends.” The commander-in-chief wasted no time in responding to this imminent threat, reflexively trumpeting to his loyalists that a caravan of some 1,500 marauding Latinx militants was coming to crash our southern gates.

LETTERS
HELPING THE HOMELESS There seems to be multiple discussions ongoing about how the city of Springfield can solve the homeless conundrum in our city. I have been a part of two groups who have prepared warm meals for the homeless, and Helping Hands has done its best to provide sleeping arrangements and meals, too.

Rauner fights back against Pritzker
Rauner, along with other major statewide candidates, spoke to the Illinois Agricultural Legislative Roundtable near Normal. It’s a rite of passage for statewide hopefuls. They speak and take questions under a large, open-sided tent next to a cornfield.

Pillars of salt
St. Louis-based artist Amanda Bowles’ current exhibit at the University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is entitled “digital dusk shadow storage,” a multimedia installation which combines striking sculptures made from crystallized salt along with a large oil painting and re-contextualized pieces of computer technology.

AUTHOR AT NEW SALEM
Jan Jacobi, author of a new young adult historical novel called Young Lincoln, will be appearing at the Railsplitter Gift Shop inside Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site to sign copies of the book during the New Salem Music Festival on Sept. 8 at 10 a.

HOSPITALS BOOST COMMUNITY HEALTH
The two nonprofi t hospitals received the NOVA Award, which recognizes hospitals and health systems across the nation for their collaborative efforts toward improving community health.

CLIMATE MARCH IN DECATUR
Macon County activist group SONA (Save Our National Areas, a subcommittee of the nonprofit Community Environmental Council of Macon County) will lead the “RISE for climate, jobs and justice march” on Sept.

SPD fights gun violence with tough love
“They won’t listen to cops or parents,” said Winslow. “It just goes in one ear and out the other.” However, when offenders are told that the SPD is working with state and federal prosecutors to build cases for maximum sentencing based on their existing case files, with no option for plea bargains, they tend to sit up and take notice.

Politics of civility
“He’s a nice guy.” Democrat Marc Bell and Republican Mike Murphy have known each other for several years and have ridden bicycles together as members of the Springfield Biycle Club. Both are longtime area residents who have worked and raised families in the district and have served on local boards or commissions.

Mature Mob celebrates the 50s
It’s well established that the 1950s was a decade of enormous change on many fronts. It’s especially true within the narrower context of popular music, from the growth of rock ’n’ roll, rhythm and blues and country music, as well as how those musical genres influenced each other, and society in general.

Food as medicine
I recently had to spend an unanticipated couple of days in Memorial Medical Center. Aside from the unpleasant and painful circumstances that precipitated my visit to the ER, my experience was actually quite pleasant.

Isaac, Kingsley arresting in Finale
Unlike many of the other high-ranking members of the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution, survived World War II. He fled to South America where he continued to live with his family and get up each morning to enjoy the day, a privilege those put to death because of his machinations were denied.

Fruits of music labors
Here we are rolling into Labor Day weekend 2018, signalling the end of summertime and the beginning of autumn, if not by weather, at least by date and tradition. Let’s go out and in with a band and a bang, becoming a blustering, beautiful beacon of believers in our musical labors on this celebratory day for the workers.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Ivas John Band
Born in Chicago to first generation Lithuanian immigrants, young Ivas first learned music through his family’s folk sensibilities, then as a teenager, felt the powerful pull of Chicago blues.

PUB CRAWL
The Deep Hollow, Ethan Taylor Stephenson.

THE CALENDAR
Decatur Craft Beer Festival VIP Event.

THEATER | Celebrate the joy of reading
During the daytime, A Likely Story looks just like any other book store, but at night the characters in the books come to life. During this presentation by M.A.S.S. Media, six characters from various stories band together to help Margie, the scatterbrained owner of a A Likely Story, save her store.

FESTIVALS | 12 hour-long historical presentations
The 20 th Annual Prairieland Chautauqua, an official Illinois Bicentennial event hosted by the Morgan County Historical Society, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 1, through Monday, Sept. 3, from 4-9 p.m. nightly in the Jacksonville High School auditorium.

THEATER | Spoon River Anthology
A cast of local actors and musicians is bringing Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology.