Bill Valentine

BILL PEKARA (BP): Good afternoon and welcome to Northbrook Voices, an oral history project sponsored by the Northbrook Public Library and the Northbrook Historical Society. Today is April 1st, 2024. My name is Bill Pekara, and I’m pleased to welcome Bill Valentine, who has lived in Northbrook since 1959. So, Bill, what brought you to Northbrook?

BILL VALENTINE (BV): Well, my mother managed to get pregnant with me and I was born in Lake Forest Hospital. Then my grandparents had moved here and my grandmother had married her third husband. They bought this house in Northbrook. I’m not quite sure if they were white flight. That would’ve been in 1957. But, you know, because they were never like the people who said epithets, you know, everything. I grew up with Martin Luther King and civil rights and everything. So that’s what happened. Mom brought me there. My dad, I never knew. In the one photo I had of him – she’s twenty-three when she has me, and I look, I’m like, please tell me he’s at least eighteen. But on the other hand, I was like, thumbs up, mom, You know, like she was doing maybe the Blanche Dubois thing. But my mother had functional cerebral palsy and the one question I always got is like, what’s wrong with your mother? Why does she walk funny? I told people, you know, she walks more than any of the hausfraus that were driving.

She had me on the 212 bus at the corner of a Church and Shermer and Cherry. We lived on Chapel Court. I’m gonna tell you that in a minute. And [we would go] to her forever beloved Loop, you know, we always went down on the train. You know, I can’t tell you how many meals I had at the Walnut Room in Marshall Fields.

She grew up in Lincoln Park. Since she passed, I can go find the apartment on Geneva Terrace, off Fullerton. And right there would be the Conservatory. And so I could go by. And of course, there’s the apartment above what is now a garden apartment, but that was her grocery store.

But let’s talk about Northbrook. So it’s Chapel Court we lived on. 1805. It was a magic house for me because I got so fascinated early on with Victorian architecture and it had some of the best trim and everything. My grandparents, when I was four years old, put the back end on.

If I could have stayed there, I would have knocked that thing off, you know, and gone back for restoration. But you know, things don’t always work out financially for us. I took care of my mom in that house till the end, and that was in 2015.

Back then in the sixties–because I’m one year old by 1960–there was the Christian Science Church, which used to be the village church, and I guess they turned it around. We were across the street from it on Chapel Court, and there was this wooded lot there–and we were all known as the Wolf property. I imagine if you go back, the whole block must have been the Wolf property, because it seems like everything was being built really quick except for Church Street.

BP: Was Church Street there at that point?

BV: No, because all the older houses were there. It seems like that was downtown enough, you know? But it would be interesting to know what was the first family on that territory. I could imagine selling off the parcels but then eventually Meadowbrook came into it. In the back of Meadowbrook in the sixties, there was still a little creek. I think they kind of tiled it over and everything. There were farms and Techny was all farms. I don’t know when they built the McDonald’s with the golden arches, but my folks made a big deal about it. We’d go across Lake Cook Road and I swear to gosh there were farms, trees, and forest, and there was a McDonald’s. In the eighties they kind of romped in the landscape. 

So it was known as the Wolf property. I’m trying to stick to the story, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Now Mr. Wolf would have been old enough to go down to the south side, to the dunes with Jens Jensen and everything.

So we had this wooded lot next door.  Anyone knowing A.A. Milne–if I were Christopher Robin, that was my hundred acre wood. Eventually when I worked with the restorationists in the forest preserve, I’m like, my gosh, I saw these plants when I was a kid.

So I saw Mr. Wolf show up maybe a couple of times. He went down to Jens Jensen. He was obviously a naturalist. In the 1920s, my understanding is, when Cook County went looking for forest preserve property, Northbrook passed a law saying you can’t take any of our property within the borders. That’s why the forest preserves all surround us. I think this guy held on to this in hopes that it would just be held on to. 

So I turned 18. It’s 1978. He passes away and his family splits up the property, selling two houses instead of one big McMansion. I kind of thought they put one house, you know. All of our hearts were broken for the kids that grew up there. I can, in my mind, just walk through it, you know? It was there for the longest time. Now that you know, those were the Wolf properties.

So I stayed there until 2017. My sadness with the neighborhood other than the fact that Northbrook doesn’t seem to want to preserve any of its historical architecture. Like the Brandt house, if anyone knows what I’m talking about, there was a red building literally at the dead end of Chapel into Church.

(overlapping dialogue)

BP: Yeah. It was a beautiful home. With the nice porch around the side. 

BV: Yeah. See, I grew up with prairie balloon frames, if anyone knows what that means. I was in sadness because I had to lose my house, and I really wanted it. It was one of the last ten buildings built before the 20th century. And now it’s still there. But they just tore out the trim. I can’t even look at it anymore. So I’m sorry, folks. I wasn’t the economic winner, that I get. But I took care of my mom, you know? 

We are in an old burr oak grove, quercus macrocarpa. The thing about that grove is right to the west of us was the west fork of the north branch of the Chicago River. What had happened, because prairie burns happened, you know, prairie burns didn’t just happen, the Native Americans actually set them to save themselves. Oak trees are a quirky bark and could survive it.

The prairie would burn up to the west bank and sometimes not skip over. So where we were on the east bank of it, we have these big old oaks. They’re over a hundred years old. I had what I think was the grandmother oak, because all their roots could connect up, they actually are in contact with her in our backyard.

But of course, when they built the McMansion on–the Karlmans, if anyone knows this–Bob built this wonderful little brick ranch, you know, and of course when they passed—

BP: –it’s gone. 

BV: And they did a driveway right up to the base of the tree. But the worst part is the lawn crews. You want clover in your lawn. Our dogs, all the ducks, all the Canada geese you see, all the rabbits, all the squirrels, as tasty as they look, they are full of atrazine, 2-4D and—I’ll think of it later. This is to say I’m not happy about it. And I’m watching some of the big old oak trees die. And I’ve been telling them, especially for the historical society because you lost that huge oak. So when I’m out at the forest preserve, I know what dead rot is. That wood was solid all the way through when they took that tree down. People say, that’s like oak leaf wilt. I’m like, no it isn’t. Atrazine, when it hits, the leaves will curl up like claws. And I had photographs of it and everything and, and I put it out on– there’s a botanist site that I’m on, Illinois Botany or whatever. So I put it out and interestingly enough, there are people in the industry who watch out for that and they get mad at you. I had a bunch of them jump on me. Rachel Carson is one of my biggest heroes, you know? I remember DDT coming down the streets. And fortunately, my folks kept me indoors. But I had friends who were actually–and you see like video footage of kids running under the sprinkler trucks. 

BP: They just chase the truck.

BV: Yeah. 

BP: They didn’t know any better. 

BV: I’m not a brain genius either. My folks are smart enough. But we also were a household that had like National Geographic’s every journal.

My mom, the sweetheart that she was, at seven years old got me Ranger Rick’s National Wildlife. So that’s what made me an early environmentalist, if anyone doesn’t like me being the lefty I am. No one censored civil rights, the hippies, the Vietnam stuff. You know, I didn’t hear the epithets until I was in Northbrook Junior High and Glenbrook and I’m hearing it from kids.

BP: Did you go to Meadowbrook? 

BV: Oh yeah, Meadowbrook was in my backyard. Meadowbrook was great. This is 1960s again. So we have Ray Rayner in the morning, so I could go at the absolute last minute to Meadowbrook. Yeah. Because all I had to do was run across the yard to the school. Both the village church and St. Norbert–the bells rang every hour and one of them every quarter hour. At the hour you had a full song. But I listened for that 12 o’clock and I ran home and I could watch Bozo and mom had a hot meal for me. The reason why Mom was there was because of my grandmother who grew up in Murphysboro. She graduated in the thirties from SIU. That’s why she with a high income and her third husband was able to allow me–I actually had a privileged life. When I look at the Christmas tree photos, I’m like, who robbed the toy store?

BP: So there were good childhood memories then. 

BV: Well there were childhood memories that we can say are bad, but I’m not gonna go there. I remember hearing something talking about as we age, we kind of like weed out the bad stuff and say everything’s okay. So I call it the fuzzy nostalgia of selective memory. But, you know, I’m the average human being. Trust me, there’s problems even going on right now. I thought I’d be friendly in this broadcast. 

BP: You can feel free to say whatever you want. So you went to Meadowbrook Junior High and then off to Glenbrook North.

BV: In junior high, I worked really hard to be in the upper classes. You know, honor classes. and I did really well in seventh grade. In eighth grade, I encountered these bullies. I tried to get it solved, but I was told by the principal it was my fault. Watch the Bully Project. So like, I went through the whole eighth grade stressed out. It’s part of my PTSD. And by the time I was going to Glenbrook–and I had my friends and everything, luckily I did–but there was a separate kind of group of people. There were the people–when you get to Glenbrook–who are like the activities hall people and then the freaks. So I liked joining the freaks, but it was a big class of people. The first day at Glenbrook, I’m walking around, it’s just herds of people. It’s the ugliest architecture. There’s no windows you can look out of. All classes, you had to go around a corner.

The first day I’m in my English class and there’s a TA. She comes up to me and she’s like, did you have lunch? And I’m like, yeah, I just did. She’s like, well you look awfully pale. So then right after class I’m walking down the hall and my friend Deb, Deb Kennedy, who’s really popular, is like, you’re as white as a sheet Bill. And all I can think of is that I must be stressing out just being in this place. I was 17 by the time it was the middle of junior year. I could have gotten through all my classes and been done and graduated my junior year and my folks gave me the approval. I went in and the counselor marched me around to all the counselors. Also sophomore year they gave me–what do they call it when you just sit and read a book– 

BP: Study hall?

BV: Yeah, like at the end of the day. Why couldn’t I leave and go to work? Come on. They literally had me surrounded, you know, with the two deans, and they’re like, this is why you’re coming here your fourth year. I kind of maybe stuck up a finger and said, all you want me here is to collect the money you get off me. My folks approved of this. I was in tears, literally in tears. I just ran out of the building because I don’t think they were happy with me cursing at them. I hopped on the first bus and went home. But my folks knew and I just told them, I’m like, look, we got to figure out something else because I’m not going back and I’m going drop out at 17. So I got sent away. I ended up going to the prep school in Saint Louis, which was probably a good idea because it pulled me away. I was kind of learning how to party a lot with my friends. Learning the territory a little too well, you know? 

Another bad thing is, like, in third grade, we had a mean teacher, but everybody has mean teachers in third grade. And I figured out the reason why. State and federal testing of kids. The schools are relying on that money and what’s just obnoxious to me, it’s like, well if the school is performing poorly give it more money to do better. Don’t yank it away, you know? So I think they try to whip us in shape, you know. But this one told me in the first two months, like, because I, I, you know, my next door neighbor the Karlmans, and Bobby (Roberta Karlman), like she–six years older–I loved her. She was good in school. She came home with like one of those dissecting trays. We found an earthworm in the yard. I’m six years old. We’re doing this, and I’m just like, I’m so old, I’m into biology now, you know? So where was that going with that? So, but so I made the mistake–because I thought, you know, I’m sucking up as a little kid. She was asking me why I drew animals all the time, you know, and I was like, because I want to be a veterinarian. I want to grow up, go to school, like my neighbor, Bobby. Or college, I said college. And she just kind of snorted. And she says, what do you think makes you think that you’re going to school instead of the other way around? See, the other problem is, I did have a disabled mother. My father wasn’t there. We’re out of Ozzie and Harrietville fresh in the sixties and everything. Yeah, the attitude back then was like. Like there’s a problem there we’re seeing ahead of it instead of making it in a way, you know. So I’ve got all the way into freshman year of high school, you know, because my folks didn’t really talk about it or anything.

They knew I read, they knew about my little projects, and they knew I was getting A’s and B’s in school. I just figured I wasn’t going to go to university at all. But when I was in St. Louis for the first time, I was with a counselor who asked, “Where are you planning to go to school or college?”

I looked at him and said, “College? I’m just trying to get out of high school, and that’s what it’s all about.” But then he said, “No, you’re in a prep school. You’re going to university.” No one had ever really said that to me.

I’ve met plenty of parents from my parents’ generation who didn’t like junior high. A friend of mine, who I grew up with and went to Meadowbrook with, we’d go back and talk to the teachers there. They didn’t like the principal, Mr. Carver, who I think became superintendent of Glenbrook later on.

When I came back from university, I was working in the clubs in the city– 

BP: So you did go to university?

BV: Yes, I did go to university. I went to Eastern Illinois University. I almost didn’t go because I worked for a year after high school. Finally, I went to my grandmother and said, “I don’t like working; I want to go to school.” There was a teacher from Glenbrook going down there, and they were just accepting me. I wasn’t trying to go to Harvard or anything, but I got grants right away, and they paid for school. It was professor-taught, not TA-taught, and I had keys to the buildings. My only problem was it was down in the cornfields while all the action was happening up in Chicago.

I used to think it was a third-rate university, but now I appreciate how they helped me pay for it. 

BP: So what brought you back to Northbrook after all that?

BV: After all that, I ended up in Lakeview. I had to deal with my folks, and I always called it home central. I had my grandfather, who had recently passed. He was my emotional grandfather, my grandmother’s third husband. I had to watch out for them.

It was easy when you’re young in your twenties to go back and forth to your family’s house. Lakeview was great for me because I got to work in the nightclubs, because I was going to [see] these punk rock bands. So I’d meet these kids who realized who I was, because these were all ages shows, and they knew I was from Northbrook. We became good, long-time friends, actually. A lot of them experienced something that went on in all the high schools: what I call gulaging into a psychiatric ward. This is how the schools deal with what they think are their troubled kids. They’re specific, they tell the parents you gotta send the kids to these wards, it became a scam, really. We protested it. Depending on how much insurance you had on your kid, they would be there for three or six months. But what happens when the kid breaks their leg or something after that? They missed a lot of school, a lot of them had inappropriate sexual contact and dropped out. Some went and got their GEDs. I look at it, and I’m just like, why?

Now, I do restoration work when I can. I worked at Glencoe Beach and Wilmette Beach, and I could pull you out of the water, it may not be pretty but I’ll keep you breathing. How about that?

BP: So you’re lifeguarding at Glencoe?

BV: No. There was a conflict a few years ago before COVID because I was also a patron with my kayak there. They changed the rules from what it was 20 years ago. Usually you could just sign out and go do stuff and all of a sudden I’m there for the 8 hours and I can’t go do anything on my boat. I do have all the gear, still. I’m scrawnier now. I hit the hospital last year and lost a lot of weight. I was always 150 pounds from literally eighth grade on, everybody who knows me knows I was built. We’ll get back to it. I’m also 64, folks. Come on.

BP: What motivated you to stay in Northbrook? 

BV: I got to a point where…ok this is it. When we were young and really cool and like our music and can’t get away from it in any way. I bumped into somebody, I don’t know if anybody is familiar with New Order, they were supposed to play at the Metro, it was a messed up thing, it was a hot day. Well, it was hot that day, their equipment didn’t show up, the Metro’s air conditioning went out. They left us standing out there for hours. Everybody wanted to see New Order because if anyone knows they were Joy Division before that. I’m listening to this woman, I’m probably 25, she was like, “I’m 30 now. I’ve seen all this”. I still like a little kid in my head thinking don’t tell me that I want to love this forever. If anybody remembers The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, stuff like that, when I got to come home and be sick I was like, what’s going to happen when I grow up and I can’t watch these TV shows?

When I turned 30, my boyfriend and I came back, because I really was just done. A friend of mine got me a construction job where I could bike to. At that point I was biking. At 28, in ‘88, I stopped with the car; my last car burned out in Lakeview. It was a pain in the you-know-where to buy insurance and at that time buying insurance for ourselves and for an automobile. 

I had to come back. We had a big enough house, I actually had enough rooms that I had other people come stay.  My best friend Wesley ??? lived in the basement for the longest time. So we came back it was mostly to deal with my mom and everything. I was just done.

I encountered the restoration people right away. Because Somme Woods is where mostly I work. When I mention ? Kennedy, he and all my friends from junior high lived across the street from there and we could camp out over there. So I knew it. So when I bumped into these people I could kind of tell them the history. The childhood damage, the digging holes and stuff like that. And I was just learning a different thing.

BP: Where exactly is Somme Woods?

BV: Waukegan Road and Dundee Road. They’ve done an awful lot. I got started out helping them when I was doing the autobahn stuff. And not just the weekends, I’d go through the whole season to try and find what was doing what. With the buckhorn groves, there was just nothing there. Now, when you see it open, and I know everyone is complaining about the post office side, but there are orchids there, people! There are some really rare stuff.

BP: It is shocking after seeing it for so many years to have that all wide open.

We did it slowly with saws and axes. We had one person certified for a chainsaw. There was one time, I think it was in Harms Woods, where one of the trees–when they’re hollowed out you gotta watch out, I guess a fire spread, it became a chimney fire. So we had to watch it all night. Oh yeah, me being in the forest preserve all night? No. I’ve camped out in February with the Great Horned Owls, bubo virginianus. Better though, I sat outside because I discovered the first coyote den that we knew of in these forest preserves, this was back in the ’90s.

So in the summertime it’d be great because it was still like there were still trees around. And some of the trees, if anyone knows, they talk about how the Indians or even the settlers would bend the trees down.

BP: Yeah, I’ve heard that. Is that true?

BV: Because there were a few. 

BP: There really were?

BV: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Well, I think it’s just more recent people did it, but. But I’m sorry. And I never went close to the coyote’s den so they got used to me. They got very familiar with me, so, you know, but. And there was only two times I crawled out because I’m like, there’s gotta be puppies, then I realized the grass was so high. I literally crawled through mud and water, and to see puppy dog tails dive down the hole. Yeah, but I kind of backed off because I knew people were walking their dogs and the dogs would come up. 

BP: Yeah, that wasn’t a problem before I hate to say the word problem, but they weren’t around here, were they, coyotes?

BV: No. For us it was the first time because since I was watching the wildlife there we had feral cats, foxes and whistle pigs–groundhogs. Because they do whistle. They actually do whistle. It’s like a bird song. It fooled me one day, you know, like I’m looking up in the tree and like, what is that bird?

Because I listened to those bird tapes over and over again, I’m like, I just don’t know what that thing is. I’m looking up, looking up. And I look down and I see a mammal’s nose disappear in a hole, and I’m like, it’s a groundhog and that’s why they’re called whistle pigs. 

BP: Interesting, I did not know that.

BV: The coyotes came in. Basically, I don’t know why, but I showed up at the time that the red tailed hawks were like new that the owls had just showed up because they were in their battle. The owls would take over their nest and everything. They kind of switched off. The reason why the owls nest so early in February is because they want the darker sky to feed their young. They need the longer night still to keep hunting animals. But then the coyotes show up, too. And then I noticed certain animals were disappearing. The first year I was ever doing this, like back in the early nineties, there were crow nests everywhere. And before West Nile, I could walk out into the forest preserve and there would be fifty to a hundred crows mobbing this one tree and I’m like, oh there’s an owl there so I’d walk under it and a rain of little twigs is coming down on me. Because the crows can’t go up and attack them, and I’ll tell you why in a minute, but they were trying to bombard the owl.

And it happened twice. But the first time I’m walking through the woods and I see this big circle of black, and it’s black feathers and it’s obviously crow feathers. You know, it’s almost like, you know, three or four feet in diameter. And at the center is the crow’s head. And I’m just kind of like, these things are such at war, you know, how do we not think they’re not smart?

Then the next year, the same thing. So when the owl does get to snatch one, that must be like schadenfreude. That’s the thing. You know, so it’s been a real experience. I wish I could’ve had my education be like that, you know? I always said I wanted to grow up on a farm. One because, like, I think we all need our children to grow up on a farm. One because then teaching them about sex won’t be such a mystery because they’re all already seeing animals doing it.

I was lucky. See, I realize this from my Facebook page, like, and why I’m interested here all the time. And literally the library is like my last university in a sense, you know, because they were sweet about giving me a lot of books I request and everything so they could go on my intellectual tangents, you know.

But the thing I realized, though, too, was it wasn’t like a wood paneled room or anything, but my folks had a small enough library and they were always big and good getting me–I got to the 1966 World Book, you know, and and so when I went through it, as the house is closing up, I hate to say this, it was pretty, I mean, they were pretty nice about it, dignified about it.

But then I opened up the part and there’s Martin Luther King and the chapter is “Negro”. Yeah. And like, you know, but that was dignified back then, trust me. When I got to like junior high in school, I’m hearing the N-word. And that just wasn’t–my mom loved Harry Belafonte and–who was the other guy? When I say the one name, I forget the other name. He was in A Patch of Blue. 

BP: Sidney– 

BV: Poitier. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m not Jeopardy ready, everybody. Okay, so. Yeah. So where were we going with that? 

BP: Well, we talked about you working in the– 

BV: The forest preserve. 

BP: The changes you saw there. I mean, we covered a lot of it. That was great. 

BV: There’s a lot. I mean, I try to tell people that this is a good thing because the more we increase the plant diversity–now over 20 years ago I was with a herpetologist, another young man like you, you know. He rolls over a log and there’s these salamanders. So all the time I’ve been walking around for 20 years, I’m rolling over logs now and not finding anything. Roll them over gently and put them back gently, folks. But, but then in the last few years that’s all I’m finding, you know, I mean, I’ve got nice photographs of everything.

And for me as a little kid, you know, I tell people–while everything was hunted out for one, you know, like in the sixties until the seventies, only because we don’t hunt now, you know, like that. We had the mallard and geese populations going on, you know, and on, and they would be delicious, except for the atrazine and glyphosate, that’s the word. And 24-D. 

BP: Was that a thing in Northbrook? They were hunting here in Northbrook? 

BV: Yeah. There were kids with B.B. guns. Everybody seen those black squirrels? Well, they disappeared when I was a kid in the sixties. 

BP: Kids were hunting? Wow. 

BV: So when I’m closing out of the house, there certainly was no gun ever, you know, and way back when–now my birthday is on December 9th, so it’s early enough while people are shopping to give you good gifts. So either I think it was for my birthday, somebody gave me–and I would have preferred the black version, but it was like because I think they gave me the girl’s gun belt with the two holsters and I ran around all night long, bang bang, bang, bang.

And I got up the next morning and I was going to play with that toy right away. And its nowhere to be found. It’s nowhere in the house. And I kind of like knew, you know, they weren’t happy that gift came along. 

BP: Yeah, it’s a touchy gift. 

BV: But that was the attitude. I mean, I can think of, like, Dennis the Menace, you know, dressed up as a little cowboy. We played cowboys and Indians, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Gangster stuff. We’re in Chicago. 

But they didn’t have a gun in the house. I don’t have a gun. I mean, I think I could kill somebody for something else if I really have to, but I’m truly not planning on it folks. Don’t be alarmed. I’m not infamous.

BP: So we’ve been going for just about 30 minutes. Is there, you know, other things you want to add? 

BV: We jumped into quite a bit. 

BP: We did. We talked about your hobbies, about your educational background. Your experience in Northbrook. 

BV: I could walk you down Church Street and tell you how everything changed. So the shopping center, Northbrook Shopping Center, that was our place.

That was a block away. My mom had me, you know–so you see the baby carriages? It was like a Mary Poppins pram. But she carried me through it. I think by the time I was three years old, she can walk me that far.

But we’d go uptown, you know, and there was always Country Maid Bakery, which people remember, you know, and then there was Ben Franklin’s, you know, and what was great about Ben Franklin’s is my mom bought me all those little push pin ornaments to make. So I built up extra, so I learned to make my own–my own design.

And then Herbringer’s. And the thing about Herbringer’s–Leach. Veach, John Veach was, I guess, the son who inherited it all. But there was one in Glenview and certainly the beautiful one in Evanston that was like, you know, there was wood paneled, you know, there was a wood paneled phone booth.

You know, I could order any shake. I would order a lemon shake. Yeah. Because we were waiting for the bus, you know, so Mom would get me on the 212 bus, we’d go to Evanston. We had to circle around Old Orchard. I really hated that trip. Everybody was smoking cigarettes. The diesel from the bus is just for a little kid, it’s just too much, you know? And we get off at the Davis Street station where the L is. And again, though, at the end, if we didn’t get there in time for the bus, we could be sitting there for an hour. You know, all the busses would be parked. And I’m just like, ah, get us home, get us home, get us home.

But yet there was Woolworth’s across the way. Got all my troll dolls, matchbox cars and everything. That was the sweet part. All the stores. There was Chandler’s. They all sold like puzzles. They sold different stuff. You know, Herbringer’s was like that too, and it was just like, real sweet. 

BP: I grew up here, too, so I remember Herbringer’s in the eighties. It was kind of a dilapidated drug store at that point, but there was a soda fountain in the back. But it didn’t operate well.

You must’ve gotten your drinks back there at some point, because they didn’t have–

(overlapping dialogue)

BV: Not at Northbrook’s–

BP: Not at the Northbrook one? 

BV: No, no. They didn’t have a soda fountain.

BP: So maybe I’m thinking of someplace else.

BV: Well, it might have been. I mean, I don’t know. You know, I kind of lost–as I got older, I kind of hung out with my friends and rode my bike. Beer cans collected and everything else. Like, you don’t go hang out with your folks so much. I always said if I had children, I mean, I have to be wealthy enough for them first, but they’re going to be with dad for the first ten years. I’ll get whatever teaching degree. I’ll get them academically there, I know how to do it. I’m not going to Jesusify them or anything like that. I realize some of the homeschooling programs are a little heavy on that. But then, well, you know, let them play sports and everything. And if they start saying, Dad, I kind of want to go to school with my friends. I’m like, okay, I’m paying taxes anyway, might as well. But at ten years old, you know, I remember how we all acted at ten and eleven as we’re approaching our teens when Dad’s no longer a hero and can’t do anything right. 

And you can come back, you know, when I’m sending you to university and you love me for my money. Cool. There. You love me again. Cool. You can be bitter over there. 

My poor folks. You know, the funny thing is that when my mom died, you’re in that special place when your parents die. And, you know, so I luckily, a friend of mine did GoFundMe so I could just relax for, like, three years. You know, all I did was sit at the beach and read and just, yeah. But I was, you know, I stopped cursing, I was pleasant on the bicycle, even in traffic, you know. But then it kind of–there were things though you’re crying about, you know, like, I miss you, I miss you so much. I love you. That’s the first one. The second one is like, I’m so sorry I was such a brat. 

BP: Thank you so much for participating in Northbrook Voices. Your memories of your life in Northbrook are going to add a very unique and personal perspective about the history of our town. Thank you, Bill.

BV: You’re welcome.