CHARLESTON – The Charleston Fire Department is celebrating National Fire Prevention Week with an open house on Saturday, October 1st.
It will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Charleston Fire Station no. 2, 1510 A St., behind McDonald’s.
National Fire Prevention Week is observed each year during the week of October 9 in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire, which began on October 8, 1871 and caused devastating damage.
In addition to fire department personnel, attendees can meet other public safety officials from the Charleston Police Department, Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center’s Healthy Kids KickStart Mobile, Air Evac 145 and others.
13th edition Taste of Something Special to benefit Special Olympics
The open house will feature K-9 demonstrations, vehicle tours and home safety demonstrations. There will also be tours of fire engines, ambulances, special response trailers and the fire station.
Other activities will include a junior firefighter obstacle course, bounce houses, free fire prevention supplies and free hot dogs and mud.
My Town: Clint Walker’s memories of Coles County from the archives
Cosmic Blue Comics
From the November 22, 1992, Journal Gazette, this photo of Cosmic Blue Comics in Mattoon; where I spent practically every Saturday afternoon for about two years. That little back room you see to the right of the Coke sign was where they kept the many, and I mean many, long boxes of back issues. I still have my paperback copy of “Tales of the Beanworld” #1 that I found there. Unfortunately, this location is now just a “green space”.
Mattoon Arcade
Bob Murray of Shelbyville is pictured in the June 2, 1982 Journal Gazette showing his mastery of the TRON arcade game at the “Carousel Time” arcade at the Cross County Mall, later to be Aladdin’s Castle , soon after it will no longer be a thing. month. I spent almost every Saturday in that room, maybe with the same haircut. No mono, though. I was more of an “Ocean Pacific” kid.
Icenogle’s
In this Nov. 28, 1988, Journal Gazette photo, Icenogle’s grocery store. Being from Cooks Mills, we didn’t shop at Icenogle’s often…but when we did, even as a kid, I knew it was the way a grocery store was supposed to be in a perfect world , and that’s not just because they had hardwood floors, comics in magazines or a lot, and I mean a lot, of trading cards in wax packs.
Cooks Mills
I was long gone from Cooks Mills when this Showcase article about Adam’s Groceries appeared in the June 13, 1998 Journal Gazette, but there was a time when I might have been one of those kids in that photo ; because if it was summer, and you had a bike and lived in Cooks Mills, that’s where you ended up. At last report, they still had Tab in the Pepsi brand cooler in the back. I am seriously considering asking my money man if I could afford to reopen this place.
Mr. Music
Pictured from the July 16, 1987 Journal Gazette, this ad for Mister Music, formerly located at the Cross County Mall. I wasn’t buying records at that age, but eventually I would, and that’s where it all came down. If you don’t think hanging out at a record store with your friends on a Friday night with a driver’s license in your wallet sounds “cool,” you’d be right. But it’s the best a geek like me could do. Wherever you are today, Mister Music owners, you know that a Minutemen album I found in your bargain bin changed my life.
Sound source guitar launch
Portrait of the author as a young man about to throw a guitar through a target at that year’s Sound Source Guitar Throwing Contest, April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette. Check out my grunge era hoodie, and yes… look closely, those are Air Jordans you see on my feet. Addendum: Despite what the cut line says, I did not win a guitar.
Pictured, cropped from online archives a JG-TC.com, a photo dated April 18, 1994, winner of the Journal Gazette of Sound Source’s guitar throwing contest and current JG-TC staff writer Clint Walker.
from Vette
Here Today Gone Tomorrow Vette’s Teen Club June 20, 1991 Journal Gazette. It wasn’t “cool” enough to hang out on the back of the Vette in its “heyday”, and by “cool enough” I mean, “not skilled enough in parking lot brawls”. If only I could get a crack at it now.
FutureGen
FutureGen: The End of the Beginning and Finally the Beginning of the End, from December 19, 2007, JG-TC. I wish I had been paying more attention at the time. Surely he should have been reading the newspaper.
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