Chase ‘em but Don’t Catch ‘em

When I turned seven we moved to Peoria Heights. Because of my inquisitive nature it didn’t take me long to deduce the origin of the name. They called it the heights because it was perched on a hill. Sherlock had nothing on me.

Tastes Like Chicken

I remember when I was a kid most of the other families were well off enough to have houses. Not us. We lived in a big twelve by twelve foot army tent made out of that green canvas. You know? My dad built a big wooden foundation so we weren't sleeping directly on the ground and so that the table and chairs, which we only had two chairs, would sit level. It was somewhat convenient though. Whenever the river would rise or start to flood, other people would lose their houses, or at least take a lot of damage and have to clean them back up afterwards. It was a real mess. Not us, we would just pick up our house and walk up the bank a ways and stake it down again. It was one upside I guess. My dad had a way about always looking at the positive. That's probably one of the reasons he didn't have an enemy in the world, except for FDR. He never got too upset about things. 

KICKAPOO JOY JUICE

When I was five years young my family moved into a crumpled shack in Kickapoo, Illinois. The town had no formal or legal name. It was a collection of shacks, shanties and lean-tos huddled together near the headwaters of Kickapoo Creek, halfway between Dogpatch and East Peoria.