Rob
Sherman Advocacy
Click on either picture for larger image and picture description.
Rob
Sherman Advocacy
Click on either picture for larger image and picture description.
"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
I was out of the office for much of the past two weeks. My trip took my daughter, Dawn, and me through more than a quarter of the states of this country, thirteen states in all, on a car trip through the southern part of America.
Supporters
bring you Rob Sherman Advocacy.
Click here to join them.
We left on Wednesday, March 27th, traveling mostly down old Route 66 from the Chicago area to Irving (Dallas area), Texas, by way of St. Louis, Missouri, Mountain Home, Arkansas and Wichita Falls, Texas. We took Interstate 55 (Old Route 66) from the Chicago area to St. Louis. There, we switched to Interstate 44, which is Old Route 66 through Missouri. Halfway across the state, at Rolla, we headed south to see my wife's sister (my daughter's aunt), Marlene, in the area of Mountain Home, Arkansas.
From there, it was southwest to Interstate 40 and west on I-40 to Oklahoma City, where we picked up Interstate 44 again to head to Wichita Falls, Texas. I-44 goes from St. Louis to Wichita Falls. We stayed overnight on Thursday, March 28th, at the home of famous atheist activist (and pro hockey fan) Dan Lewandowski, who helped Midwestern State University to rid itself of their bizarre fundamentalist god-invocations at their graduation ceremonies.
Next, it was on to the Atheist Alliance International Convention, which was held at the Harvey Hotel, located across Texas Highway 114 from the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport in Irving, Texas. I was the keynote speaker at dinner on Friday night, March 29th, where I spoke to about a hundred atheists about how to win state/church separation battles. Then, on Saturday, March 30th, I conducted a discussion seminar on the same subject. On Sunday, March 31st, it was time to return to Chicago, by way of Florida, where I went to see a couple of my uncles, Morry and Al, who are in a nursing home in the Tampa Bay area.
On the way to Florida, I drove through Dallas and saw the Kennedy Memorial for the first time. For those of you who aren't old enough to remember 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22nd of that year. A memorial covering several blocks was established around the scene of the crime to honor the life that Kennedy led, rather than to mourn his death. Then, it was on to Houston by way of Interstate 45, where I saw the famous Enron sites. I also saw, for the first time, one of the all-time greatest monuments of human engineering, the Astrodome. Next door to the Astrodome, a new indoor/outdoor Reliant Stadium for the new Houston NFL football team was almost complete. The place is magnificent, and really makes the rehabbing of Soldier Field in Chicago look pathetic by comparison. Then, I went downtown to see The Stadium That Used To Be Known As Enron Field. Likewise, that place sure makes the new Comiskey Park, here, look pathetic. Houston sure knows how to build ball parks, especially compared to Chicago.
From Houston, we headed east to Florida on Interstate 10. After spending Sunday night in Beaumont, Texas, we continued east on I-10, diverting off on Interstate 12 to New Orleans. There, we saw the improved version of the Astrodome, known as the Louisiana Superdome. Too bad we can't get the politicians in the Chicago area to get their act together and build a domed stadium like Enron Field that we could use all year, instead of cheaping out by just a few dollars and ending up with a bunch of crummy outdoor-only stadiums where the fan seats are so far away from the action that you need a television set near you to find out what's happening a quarter mile away on the field.
Then, it was back to I-10. We spent the night of Monday, April 1st in Biloxi, Mississippi.
On Tuesday, April 2nd, I celebrated my 49th birthday by continuing the drive east on I-10 into Florida, then south on Interstate 75 to Tampa. During the day, I spoke to famous Tampa-area atheist activist Ed Golly, who said that if I could make it to the TV studio in Tampa by 10:30 p.m., I could be a guest on his weekly Atheists of Florida television show. By traveling right at the speed limit (give or take 25 mph) on I-10 and I-75, I showed up at the TV studio at exactly 10:27 p.m., just in time to join Ed on the air as the show was beginning. We took calls from numerous viewers in the Tampa Bay area, who asked a variety of questions about atheism. Ed then invited us to spend the night at his place near MacDill Air Force Base, with breakfast on him at a Cuban-American restaurant nearby. Thanks, Ed.
On Wednesday morning, it was off to the western side of the Tampa Bay area, where I saw an old friend, Les Aradi, who used to be the Deputy Chief of Police in my home town of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, but took the job of Police Chief in Largo, Florida, several years ago. I told Les that if he was tired of beautiful weather, he was welcome to come back to Buffalo Grove and help my neighbors and me deal with next winter's ice and snow. He said thanks, but no.
(Largo is near just south of Clearwater, across Tampa Bay from the City of Tampa. Key Largo is a different city, located about 50 miles south of Miami on US 1. It is the easternmost (and northernmost) Key in the Florida Keys. Key West is the westernmost (and southernmost) Key.)
From Largo, it was a short drive north a few miles to the nursing home in Palm Harbor to visit my uncles. Then, back to Chicago from there.
Dawn wanted to "Do the Mouse," as they say down there, since we were so close to Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, right after we left the nursing home, God intervened, sending us a wicked storm that included, according to the WeatherAlert radio in my car, "severe thunderstorms with more forming just west of Tampa Bay, frequent cloud to ground lighting, large sized hail, winds in excess of 50 mph, a warning that anyone who was out of doors should immediately move to a place of safety inside a sturdy building," and a promise that this weather would continue for the rest of the day. Dad (that's me) explained to Dawn that she was only eight years old, that there would be plenty of opportunities in the future to Do the Mouse, and that if she wanted to live to see her ninth birthday, that this was not the right day to challenge divine intervention.
We drove north on Interstate 75 into Georgia, where we had dinner at a restaurant run by my old college friend, Ginger. We spent the night of Wednesday, April 3rd in Madison, a town about 75 miles east of Atlanta.
On Thursday, April 4th, it was back to the road for the trip home. We took I-75 to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we switched to Interstate 24. We took I-24 northwest through the Allegheny Mountains to Kentucky, where we went straight north on the Pennyrile Parkway to the Indiana border. There, we joined US 41, a four-lane divided highway, and took that north to Terre Haute.
Just before midnight on April 4th, we decided to go west from Terre Haute on Interstate 70 a few miles to Illinois 1, which is Halsted Street in Chicago but continues south along the eastern edge of Illinois, all the way to near the southern end of the state, where it meets US 45 west of Evansville, Indiana. I didn't want to spend another night away from my darling wife, Celeste, so we continued driving north on Illinois 1 for most of the night so that I could spend at least a few minutes with Celeste before she went off to work on Friday morning.
The last few days were spent catching up on two weeks worth of mail, e-mail and newspapers.
This was a very successful trip. Everything went as expected due to a lot of careful planning and preparation. A number of social and political issues came up along the way. Details on that in my next report.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com