I have here Peoria’s City Directory from 1977 (don’t ask me why), and I thought you might enjoy some of the descriptions and predictions of Peoria from 28 years ago:

Population: 134,000
Area: 40 square miles
Parks: 7,000 acres
Airport: City is served by Ozark Air Lines, Continental Airlines, and chartered service by Byerly Aviation Company.
“By number of employees, Peoria’s five major industries are the Caterpillar Tractor Co., Pabst Brewing Co., Westinghouse Air Brake Co., Keystone Consolidated Industries Inc., and Hiram Walker & Sons, Inc.

“Peoria Water Co., in 1976 completed a $3.7 million addition to its Illinois River station that will increase water production capacity by 10 million gallons per day.

“Illinois Bell Telephone Co., in late 1977, will be installing a traffic service position system (T.S.P.S.) which is an electronic computer like system for handling long distance calls.”

And downtown was a hot topic then like it is today:

Peoria is looking to the future with a comprehensive plan to redevelop the Central Business District. The distinguished Washington (D. C.) architect and urban designer, Angelos C. Demetriou, AIA, was hired to create a downtown plan for Peoria and do a feasibility study of its long cherished dream of a Civic Center. The Demetriou Plan for downtown Peoria revolves around two key concepts: the mini-mall to spark retail shopping and the development of the riverfront to attract a 24-hour a day lifestyle in the Central Business District.

The Downtown Plan, developed by a team of consultants led by Angelos Demetriou, is tailored for Peoria. The document begins by building on the existing strengths largely provided by the over $70 million in downtown investment which occurred over the past 15 years. Integrated with the results of those 15 years of accomplishment are new projects which will broaden downtown’s base and which will make it possible to reach new potential for growth identified in the Plan.

The Plan outlines several major elements of change for the downtown.

They include: Housing about 2,550 units downtown; a civic center complex serving three important functions: a convention-oriented exposition hall with 20,000 sq. ft., an auditorium for the performing arts, and a sports arena-assembly hall. Also, new hotels to support the civic center; an enclosed shopping mall to strengthen the retail core; new offices for government, large firms and general occupancy; extensive beautification and improvement of riverfront; and convention parking which is so essential to downtown revitalization.

Considerable activity is underway for implementing the Plan.

The $6.4 million Peoria School of Medicine was opened in 1976 and its medical students are now undergoing training at the various hospital complexes located in the Peoria area.

Downtown received another boost when Cohen Furniture Company completed a major renovation of the “flagship” store at Harrison and Adams.

Final construction drawings are being prepared for the open air plaza on Fulton, between Jefferson and Adams, and renovation of the existing Jefferson Building in downtown Peoria. The plaza would connect the civic center activities in the “superblock” with the enclosed shopping mall between Bergner’s and Sears. The City has not yet proposed a financial plan to pay for this improvement. However, with a feasible financial plan, the project could move very quickly.

The county and city are negotiating for a new city-county administration building. The building would be located at Hamilton, between Adams and Jefferson, across from the Courthouse Plaza. The city has allocated revenue sharing funds toward the project and acquiring the property for the development.

The Peoria Downtown Development Council has been working closely with the City of Peoria and the U. S. Postal Service in the location of a regional Post Office in Peoria. The building will be constructed on about 10 acres of large blighted property on the southern edge of downtown. Also, the city and county have been discussing the issue of building a new jail. The site has not been finalized, however, it will be a common shared facility of the county and city.

These public projects will offer important contributions to downtown and help created the needed environment for major private investments to occur.

Well, that certainly sounds exciting, doesn’t it! It’s not quite the same as DPZ’s Heart of Peoria Plan, but there are a few overlaps: they both agree that retail is vital to downtown (Demetriou recommended building a mini-mall downtown; DPZ said the Shoppes at Grand Prairie should have been built downtown), that there should be more housing options downtown so people can live there, and that your downtown should “attract a 24-hour a day lifestyle.”

I’m actually quite amazed at how much of Demetriou’s plan was realized. The civic center was the biggest thing, of course. Unfortunately, the biggest departure from this plan is the retail aspect. In 1977 there were still several department stores downtown: Bergners, Sears, Sparr, Szolds, and Woolworth. Not only did Demetriou’s mini-mall idea never materialize, but the existing retail stores disappeared as well.

This does answer one question I’ve had for a long time: what was the purpose of Fulton Plaza? It was to connect the Civic Center to the retail shopping “superblock.” Now that Bergners has been replaced with One Technology Parking Deck and the other stores are gone, one wonders why we don’t tear the plaza out and make Fulton a through street again.

In 2033, when we look back at the Heart of Peoria Plan and Vision 2020, I wonder which things will have been implemented and which ones will have fallen by the wayside. I have a feeling there still won’t be any retail downtown, and we’ll probably have hired a new consultant to tell us pretty much the same thing the last two have told us….

As a classroom teacher with 5 computers and a new “attachment” to the wide area network and the World Wide Web, I want to see my students engaged in meaningful use of these resources.  I have researched numerous sites that I feel would be useful for my students to access on a daily basis and also resources for teachers to use for their daily tasks.  Try as many of these sites as you like and see what you think.

• Brainteasers:  I used to do brainteasers in school — they used to call them “story problems,” and the teacher handed them out on a piece of paper.  This gave me the added benefit of being able to work out the math on the paper itself so the teacher could see how I came up with my answer, not just whether or not I got the right answer.
• Word of the Day:  We used to call these “vocabulary tests.”  We’d have a list of words for which we needed to know each spelling and definition.  Another way we got a “word of the day” was by reading books.  When we came across a word we didn’t know, we’d look it up in the dictionary (that’s a book filled with “words of the day” and their definitions).
• Yahooligans! News:  We read the newspaper — they still publish these today.
• Ask Jeeves:  We used a set of books called an “encyclopedia.”  The World Book encyclopedia was especially kid-friendly, with well-written but easy-to-understand entries and lots of pictures and diagrams.  Some entries even had little science projects you could do!  For really complicated questions, you might have to go to the library and look up more information in books.
• A Game A Day:  We used to play games with each other instead of with a computer.  Board games often required skills like counting, making change, or memorization.  Outdoor games required strategy and physical agility.  Playing outside instead of on the computer would go a long way toward keeping kids from getting fat, too.

Wondering what I got for my birthday? Well, I’ll tell you anyway.

I got David McCullough’s new book, “1776.” Looking forward to reading that. I read his biography of John Adams and it was most enjoyable presidential biography I’ve ever read. You really felt like you knew the man after you finished reading it. He’s a gifted writer.

And, at the other end of the spectrum, I also got the “Golden Collection” of Warner Brothers’ “Looney Tunes.” Boy do those take me back to my childhood. 🙂 I remember watching the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show every Saturday morning. Whatever happened to Saturday morning cartoons? Or Saturday morning kids’ programming in general? Anymore, it’s just infomercials, news, or perhaps a poorly-animated commercial masquerading as a kids’ show.

I also got gift certificates from my parents to use in jewelry stores in Kansas City and lots of affection from my oldest daughter. I think she was just happy that my birthday provided another excuse to have cake and ice cream.

I went to CEFCU Center Stage tonight to see Frank Abagnale speak. You may remember he was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” The event was billed as a seminar on identity theft, but other speakers talked about that subject. When Abagnale came to the lectern, he said he had spoken about identity theft earlier in the day to law enforcement officers, bank officials, and others, and tonight he was going to give a more personal talk.

He shared a lot about his life between the ages of 16 and 21 — his exploits, his crimes, his capture, and his imprisonments in France, Sweden, and the U.S. Many of the stories he shared were entertaining, and his way of impersonating airline pilots and doctors was ingenious. He even passed the bar in Louisiana and argued cases for the states attorney’s office for a year.

In spite of all his brilliance, he eschewed any praise for his street smarts. He told the crowd that people have written to him and said he was a genius. He said if he had really been a genius, he wouldn’t have had to steal money to survive. He said some people have written to him and said he really had a gift. He agrees, but says the greatest gift he had was being raised by a mother and a father for the first 16 years of his life.

He had already shared how his parents had divorced when he was 16, and how he couldn’t choose which one to live with, so he ran out of the courtroom so he wouldn’t have to choose and they parents skipped all the support payments required by the state since then. He never blamed his parents’ divorce for his life of crime, but he made it clear that it was a contributing factor, and now he reminded everyone of how devastating divorce is on children, “even though it’s not popular to say it these days.” Those who are planning to get divorced may want to consider reaching out to a divorce lawyer or a family law attorney for legal advice.

He saved his strongest moral message for the men in the audience. “There are a lot of fathers out there, but very few daddies,” he said. He told of how much he loved his dad, and how his dad tucked him into bed every night without fail, kissed him on the cheek, and told him that he loved him. Every night. Even when his brother was an adult and home on leave from the military, he still kissed him and told him how much he loved him. Contrary to the movie’s portrayal, Frank never saw his father again after he ran out of the courtroom the day his parents were divorced.

He said that some men think it takes money, cars, prestige, degrees, and all kinds of things like that to be a real man. But he had lived that life, and found it wanting. “To all you guys out there,” he charged, “a real man loves his wife. A real man stays faithful to his wife. And a real man is a daddy to his children.”

Some probably found it preachy, and maybe not what they expected from an ex-con they thought was going to talk about identity theft. But I found it refreshing. He’s right, of course. And in a nation where half of all marriages end in divorce, it doesn’t hurt for everyone to hear that message a little more these days.