Forty Years Ago
Remember in last week’s column the nifty doings of some Proviso high school students? They put action in front of words and collected school funds for a Jasper, Tenn., elementary school that needed the help. The local kids here made the trip down south and got to meet the students of Whitesides Elementary. It was a valuable experience for the students of both schools. After their return, two of their sponsors-Sue Van Theil and Barbara Wendt-sent a letter to the Review. Here is an excerpt:
“To the Editor: The 17th of December ended one of the most worthwhile projects Proviso East’s Student Council ever undertook. Many do not know the joy and sincere appreciation of the Tennessee kids who benefited. One can hardly explain without seeming sentimental the feelings we felt while working, eating and talking with these less fortunate students.
“Their appreciation of our efforts was genuine and sincere. And the check we were able to present them was just part of the gifts and goodwill exchanged.”
From the Jan. 4, 1968, Forest Park Review
Thirty Years Ago
It’s been 31 years and a month since the passing of Forest Park Mayor Howard R. Mohr. It was a cold day Jan. 12, 1977, and the place was our state capitol in Springfield.
Political colleagues, friends and family were about to be seated for a special, celebratory breakfast-the honoring of Mohr for his service at the close of his second and final term as state senator. His term would officially end at noon and there was conviviality aplenty. Suddenly, with hardly any warning, Howard Mohr was struck dead with a heart attack. The shock was sudden and the complete disbelief was overwhelming.
I do not know Mohr’s thoughts about poetry. Yet these lines by one poet (Auden) on the death of another (Yeats) seemed a match. “He disappeared in the dead of winter; the brooks were frozen, the airport almost deserted, and snow disfigured the public statues. The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. O all the instruments agree the day of his death was a dark cold day.”
In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden
From the Dec. 28, 1977, Forest Park Review
Twenty Years Ago
Ye cursed lost 1987 bound book! Ye insane-appearing strange names! … like Barack Obama … Wendell Yuponce … Iffy Amiemoka … Dudu Etzion …Essa-Pekka Solinan … Essa-Pekka Saraste … Truls Mork … Benjamin I. Mba … Boris Worm … Geronimo Spinks … Simba Sana … Nalbert Delude … Ian Ith … Dimple Joshi … Jaap Blonk … Jorge Ibarquengoitia … Cabdice C. Cusic … Casaba Csere … Apolo Ohno …Parker Posey … Breece d’ J. Pancake … Roberta Skloot … Shenandoah Hogan … Vivian Vande Velde … Eulalia Echo …Cobie Smulders … Fenton Mole … Season Mhoon … King Smoothie … Weeks Ringle … Pradeep Shimpi …Leka Zog … Tremel Sledge … Mr. and Mrs. Wong Bong Fong of Hong Kong … Dot Com (Only kidding, but who knows?) From the missing pages of Twenty Years Ago
Ten Years Ago
Guess whose birthday we forgot? Ours. The paper’s. The Forest Park Review. It beat out Hugh Hefner’s Playboy by 36 years. Eighty years ago the first issue hit the stands on Oct. 17, 1917. To put that in perspective, it went to press less than a month before the Armistice was signed signaling the end to “the war to end all wars,” World War I. It preceded the infamous White Sox scandal. There were only 48 United States at the time. JFK was running around in diapers then and the Titanic was in its watery grave only three years. And world maps didn’t show Iraq, only a place with the musical name, Persia.
Albert Hall was our newspaper’s first editor and publisher. He said in the inaugural issue that the possibilities of Forest Park mandated that the village have its own weekly and that the quality of the publication be worthy of the community. This has been attested to several times when, in two of the last three years the Forest Park Review received the General Excellence Award from the Illinois Press Association.
From the Dec.10, 1997, Forest Park Review
