County fairs, state fairs and country fairs dot the landscape in late spring, summer and fall, offering fairgoers plenty of attractions and rides to fill warm days and evenings. Families who plan ahead for the festivities may be able to improve their experiences.
• Purchase passes in advance. Some fairs enable visitors to purchase entry tickets, parking passes and even game vouchers online. There are advantages to doing so, such as bundling discounts. Buying tickets in advance also cuts down on time spent waiting in line.
• Devise a basic plan. Look over the list of attractions and activities to gauge what you want to get out of the fair. Some fairs post their calendars online. With kids in tow, you’ll likely want to check out any children’s rides or animal exhibits and interactions. Create a generalized plan, but be flexible, especially when going with other families.
• Think about safety. Fairs at-
tract thousands of people and that can lead to confusion if children become separated from their parents. Write your mobile phone number down and put it in your child’s pocket or bag, so he or she doesn’t have to memorize it. Consider finding the tallest attraction at the fair (perhaps the ferris wheel), and make that the meeting point if anyone becomes lost. Snap a photo of youngsters when you arrive so that you’ll have a recent image and know exactly what they are wearing if you need to engage law enforcement. Some parents tell their children to find another parent and ask them to help them contact security.
• Time your visit. If the fair runs during the week and into the weekend, weekdays are likely to be much less crowded. Also, while not ideal, a cool day or one with a slight drizzle will cut down on crowds and improve the ability to see more things and get on more rides.
• Factor in food. Fair food is an
indulgence to enjoy when fairs come around. Rather than go overboard, pick one meal or item that the family will enjoy. Bring a backpack, if permitted, and fill it with bottled water and other light snacks so that you can tame hunger pangs and not bust the budget at the food court.
• Understand game odds. Fair games are largely designed to earn the event money and not to cash out prizes to all participants. The chances of winning the grand prize, which may be a giant stuffed giraffe, usually are low, so it’s best if children do not become overly concerned with winning a prize. Play the games for fun and memories and not to walk away with the biggest prizes.
In addition to these suggestions, parents can make sure they bring insect repellent and sunscreen to the fair. Dress for comfort and not fashion.
These strategies can help families make the most of the county fair this year.
Cities and towns across the country commemorate special days with various festivities, particularly when warm weather beckons people outdoors. Fireworks long have been a popular way to cap off parades, concerts, sporting events, and national days of celebration. Entire communities come together to watch spectacular shows in which blazing pops of color light up the night sky.
Smithsonian magazine reports that pyrotechnics displays have been astounding audiences all over the world for centuries. As early as 200 B.C. fireworks were developed in China to first scare off mountain men and later evil spirits. However, soon the Chinese incorporated “fire drug,” essentially saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal (a recipe for gunpowder), into their cultural celebrations.
Early Chinese fireworks consisted of the gunpowder mixture stuffed in bamboo tubes.
Fireworks have evolved since then, but by and large they’re still comprised of the same main parts: an oxidizer, fuel and chemical mixture to produce desired colors.
Fireworks are a wonder to behold when they are part of professional displays, and their history can be interesting as well.
• While the Chinese invented fireworks, Italians helped finetune them. Italians are credited with designing aerial shells and figuring out that certain metallic powders could create specific colors.
• The largest consistent fireworks show in the United States is the Macy’s show in New York over the Hudson River on July 4th. More than three million people view the show, which includes more than 40,000 shells.
• The Walt Disney Company is the largest consumer of fireworks in the world, according to Business Insider. It also is the second largest purchaser of explosive devices, behind only the U.S. Department of Defense.
• High-energy metal compounds like copper chloride emit colors like violet and blue in fireworks. Low-energy compounds like strontium chloride produce orange and red.
• The pattern fireworks will produce in the sky is determined by
how stars are arranged inside of the shell. Stars are the cubes or spheres that contain the chemicals needed for the firework reaction.
• Mental Floss notes that “daytime fireworks” are made up of colored smoke and can be seen during the day.
• Individuals who are employed in the manufacture of fireworks must wear cotton clothing, including undergarments, as synthetic clothing can create sparks capable of detonating fireworks, according to Alamo Fireworks.
• Various fireworks shapes have their own names. They may be called willows, palms, crossettes, horsetails, rings, cakes, and more.
• New Castle, PA is known as the “Fireworks Capital of America” because Zambelli Fireworks Internationale and Pyrotecnico both got their start there in the midnineteenth century.
• Scientists are currently working to create more eco-friendly fireworks.
Fireworks will soon be booming in towns and cities all over, and their history is as interesting as their displays are awe-inspiring.
Music inspires devoted fans across the globe. Whether a music lover can’t wait to rock out to a favorite bad, settle in for a classical concert or visit a favorite opera house, he or she no doubt enjoys some form of music every day.
Come the holiday season, shoppers with music lovers on their list can stoke their loved ones’ passions for music by giving them a music experience they’ll remember for a lifetime.
Concert tickets
Perhaps nothing appeals to music lovers more than seeing a favorite performer in person. Ask your loved one’s parents, siblings or significant others which artist or artists they listen to the most and then look to see if they’re on tour. Summer tends to be a popular season for outdoor concerts, while winter beckons many performers indoors for concerts in more intimate settings. If a loved one likes a particular style of music instead of a given performer, then tickets to a festival where many acts perform on various stages can make for the perfect gift.
Lessons
Lessons make a great gift for music fans who love singing along or playing air guitar with their favorite acts. Local musicians
and/or school music teachers often supplement their incomes by offering lessons on various instruments, from piano to guitar to drums to violin. Aspiring singers can benefit from working with a local voice coach.
A night out
A live music experience is not limited to arenas, ampitheaters or other large scale venues. Many local restaurants host live music nights featuring local musicians, while others may host open mic nights that can help aspiring musicians get their music out there while overcoming any nerves they may have about performing in front of a crowd. Of course, few music lovers can resist belting out their favorite performers’ songs at a karaoke joint. Research local karaoke bars and invite some of your loved one’s friends for a memorable night out on the town.
Many music devotees insist that the best way to experience recorded music is on vinyl. While music fans over 40 might know how to spin the black circle, younger fans might have no such familiarity. A turntable and some vinyl records can open young music lovers’ eyes to a piece of musical history, which might just be music to their ears.
Even though Gov. JB More than 332 million people live in the United States, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. There’s a good chance that, come July 4th, a considerable number of those individuals will be hosting or attending parties to celebrate American independence.
This year those planning on a July 4th fête can consider these tips as they prepare to celebrate with family and friends.
• Borrow a second grill. Those tasked with grilling often find themselves standing there for hours over hot flames. Cut down on time at the grill by adding an extra cooking surface. That’s easily achieved by having more than one grill going simultaneously. Cook fast-cooking items like hamburgers and hot dog on one grill, and reserve the other for sausages and chicken, which may need more time to reach safe levels of doneness.
• Stop peeking. Resist any urge to check the food too often. Every time you flip, press or move the meats, you compromise flavor and could make the food dry out.
• Lure insects away. Bees are attracted to sweet smells, but wasps and hornets are drawn to meats. Put a saucer of very sweet soda and some chicken scraps in a far corner of your yard to attract yellow jackets and other stinging insects to that area, drawing their attention away from guests and their meals.
• Hire a lifeguard. If your party will involve time spent in a pool, consider hiring a lifeguard or designate someone to observe pool
activities. Party hosts may be distracted by other duties, and one can’t count on guests to watch what is going on in the pool. For safety’s sake, a dedicated set of eyes on swimmers can prevent injuries and accidents.
• Give neighbors a heads-up. Parties and barbecues on July 4th are largely expected, but you can offer a courtesy to neighbors by informing them of your plans, including the start time and proposed ending time. If you are close with neighbors, consider inviting them to participate.
• Skip the fireworks. Even if fireworks are permitted where you live, it’s best to avoid the potential safety hazards and leave fireworks displays to the professionals. Shooting off fireworks in neighborhoods causes debris to rain down on guests or land in pools, and it may even be ingested by pets or wildlife. Even sparklers can be dangerous, as they burn at 2,000 F. In fact, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says sparklers account for around 60 percent of injuries among children under five during summer festivities.
• Create a patriotic playlist. Use your favorite music streaming service to curate a music list that features America-specific songs, songs about summer and general party tunes. Be sure the music is in the background and does not overpower the conversation.
July 4th plans are heating up. When hosting a party or barbecue, keep it simple and safe.
Connor was a good driver right from the start and I’d like to think it’s because I used the same safety methods UPS taught me in my personal vehicle with my family,” Ceth said.
The Illinois State Trucking competition is an opportunity for professional truck drivers, both company and independent, to test their skills in a three-part competition that only partly includes driving.
“The driving portion is six obstacles on the course that they call problems, because we have to figure out get to the next one and get the points,” Ceth said. “They always set them up on angles, so you usually only do two or three miles per hour on the course so you aren’t bypassing something. The second category is a written test…The third category is called pre-trip, where they mock up defects – like they might hang a paperclip from the brake line or put a squiggle mark on a headlight or the frame and you have to find that when you do your timed pre-trip. I need to find 15 defects in six minutes.”
At a practice competition earlier in the year, Connor beat Ceth on the driving course, but ultimately Ceth
placed higher by scoring more points in the other sections. Father placed first, but son was barely behind with only seven points less. ‘I think the competition may be in his blood,” Ceth laughed.
At state, drivers choose one of nine vehicle classes to compete in and first place from each class advances to the national competition in August. Not only is Ceth a former Illinois Grand Champion winner, he has competed at the national level two other times, a fact that Connor finds inspiring and
intimidating.
‘We like to go head-to-head on things, but he’s an inspiration,’ Connor said.
The two are both enthusiastic and anxious to compete and compete against each other, but, according to Ceth, passing the torch to his son the weekend before Father’s Day would be fitting. “I’d be lying if I said I was not nervous,” Ceth laughed. ‘It’s a tough one. I want to go back-to-back as champion, but if I pass the baton on to Connor it will be bittersweet.”
2013 to about 2016.”
Former state Sen. Terry Link, a nearly 24-year veteran of the Illinois Capitol, publicly acknowledged for the first time this week that he’d worn a wire to secretly record a fellow lawmaker in 2019.
Link, a Vernon Hills Democrat, has spent years denying news media reports that he was the legislator-turned-cooperating witness described in charging documents made public after the arrest of exstate Rep. Luis Arroyo in October of 2019.
But in a federal courtroom this week, Link was forced to finally acknowledge the truth as he testified in the second of five major public corruption cases involving Illinois public officials scheduled for this year.
Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat, is already 10 months into the roughly five years he was sentenced to serve in prison in part because of his attempt to bribe Link. And Link himself is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the tax evasion charge that led him to cooperate with the feds in the first place.
Link, who at one time was a regular poker buddy of future President Barack Obama when they both served in the Illinois Senate, is the star witness in the government’s bribery case against politically connected businessman James Weiss.
Weiss had sought Arroyo’s help to get the legislature to legalize so-called sweepstakes machines in Illinois. The devices are close cousins to the explicitly legal –and heavily regulated – video gaming terminals that have proliferated in Illinois for the last decade. But sweepstakes machines operate in a legal gray area and have neither been specifically outlawed nor regulated in Illinois.
Speaking slowly and with a tremor borne of a neurological condition that’s worsened in the nearly three years since he left office, Link was concise when Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine O’Neill asked him to explain his crime in his own words on Wednesday.
“Underreported my income tax,” Link said, adding that he did so “I wanna say (from) 2012 or
O’Neill clarified that the tax evasion was related to improperly spending money from his campaign account. Some of the money, Link said, went to help a longtime friend who had been in the throes of family and business problems. But not all of it.
“I used some of it for gambling,” Link admitted.
After Arroyo’s arrest in late October 2019, Link falsely denied reports that he was the unnamed cooperating witness described in his colleague’s charging documents.
The former lawmaker took the stand for about 90 minutes on Wednesday afternoon, during which government lawyers introduced the first of several recordings of phone calls and meetings Link facilitated at the FBI’s behest.
The most anticipated of the recordings will come when trial resumes Monday after an extended recess due to the presiding judge’s work-related travel. In those recordings, the jury will hear Link ask Arroyo, “What’s in it for me?” in regard to Arroyo’s recruitment of Link in his push to legalize sweepstakes machines. And they will hear Arroyo tell his colleague, “this is the jackpot,” when he made good on the bribe arrangement for Link.
‘Get the f--- out of here’
Link and Arroyo have already acknowledged their roles in the alleged bribery scheme, but Weiss – the son-in-law of former Cook County Democratic Party boss Joseph Berrios and husband of former state Rep. Toni Berrios – has maintained his innocence.
In testimony so far in the trial, Weiss has mostly been a footnote compared to Arroyo’s role in the narrative. State Rep. Bob Rita, DBlue Island, and former state Sen. Tony Muñoz, D-Chicago, both described how Arroyo had suddenly become passionate about legalizing sweepstakes machines in fall 2018, with increasing persistence during the following spring legislative session.
“He continually pressed the issue to the point where I didn’t even want to talk to him anymore,” Rita said.
In spring 2019, Rita, Muñoz and Link were lead negotiators
on what would become the biggest gambling-related legislation since Illinois legalized casinos in 1990.
Unbeknownst to them, Arroyo’s sudden interest in their closeddoor working group meetings was prompted by his new side gig.
In fall 2018, Weiss’ newly formed sweepstakes machines company, Collage LLC, began paying Arroyo $2,500 per month to lobby the Chicago City Council against a proposed ban on the machines. During the trial’s opening statements earlier this week, Weiss’ attorney insisted they were “legitimate consulting payments,” though the feds contend they are bribes.
Chicago didn’t end up banning sweepstakes machines, and Arroyo pivoted his crusade to
Springfield, where he sought “to make them legit,” as Muñoz said during his testimony.
Rita, Muñoz and Link recalled that they’d briefly met Weiss in the Capitol in spring 2019, introduced by Arroyo when he approached them to talk about including sweepstakes machines in the major gambling expansion package.
Link described a time when he “lost it” on Arroyo when he tried to ask Link about the sweepstakes machines’ fate toward the end of spring session in late May of that year – one of “a number of times” Arroyo had pushed the issue with Link.
“I kind of exploded and used some unfriendly language; ‘Get out of here, it’s not going to happen and I’m not going to let it
happen,’” Link said.
Judge Steven Seeger told Link that he was welcome to be explicit about the actual words he used. Link obliged.
“I said ‘get the f--- out of here.’ And I apologize for saying that.”
Legal gray area
Sweepstakes machines began popping up in Illinois in tandem with the introduction of legal video gaming terminals in 2012, according to Frank Scanio, an officer with the state police’s division assigned to the Illinois Gaming Board. Scanio, the first witness the government called in the trial, explained the basics of how sweepstakes machines work.
According to Scanio, sweepstakes machines operate much
See ‘fbi’ page 15
Nine piano students of Stacy Jager of Lockport presented an intergenerational piano recital on Sunday, June 4, 2023, in the Ballroom of The Timbers of Shorewood Senior Living, 1100 N River Rd, Shorewood. The audience was composed of fellow residents, families, and friends.
“The nine students ranged from age six to 79,” Jager said. “A fun duet featured the oldest and the youngest student performing an original piece I wrote entitled, ‘Young at Heart.’ I wrote it in honor of the intergenerational theme of the piano recital.”
The duet featured six-year-old Hank and 79-year-old Paula Polechla, a Timbers resident since July 2022.
“The recital was very nice and a lot of fun,” Polechla said. “Originally my grandmother taught me to play piano when I was around ten years old. After so many years, I was very happy to take it up again with Stacy when I moved to the Timbers.”
Teacher Stacy Jager graduated from Alverno College in Milwaukee with a Music Therapy degree specializing in piano.
“I taught at many other locations since then and now teach out of my home,” she said. “I go to the Timbers
to teach the seniors. I find both age groups very motivated. My younger students have more agile fingers, and my oldest students have past experiences and can pick up learning more quickly.”
There were several other songs in the recital such as “America the Beautiful,” “Home on the Range,” “Morning has Broken,” and “The Marines’ Hymn.”
“Stacy and I have been planning the recital for a while,” said Amy Odell, director of activities at The Timbers of Shorewood. “It was great to see it all come together and to see all the smiles in the room. To have Paula Polechla, 79, and Hank, 6, play a fun duet was the perfect piece to end the recital. It was very moving.”
For young or old, learning piano reaps benefits
There are many benefits to taking piano lessons. It improves mental and emotional health and achieves a deeper understanding of music. Lessons help improve mental and emotional wellbeing. Playing piano increases the production of endorphins, and learning piano can help relieve stress and improve concentration. This can be especially important
for children, who can benefit from the calming effects that playing the piano can provide.
In addition, piano lessons can be incredibly beneficial for hand-eye coordination. As a student progresses through lessons, they notice a marked improvement in the ability to play with both hands. Studying piano has also been shown to amazingly improve memory — particularly verbal memory — and build good habits like focus and perseverance, diligence,
and creativity.
Piano students can benefit from the healing powers of the vibrations and sounds of the notes which can help them get through difficult times and to find strength in times of trouble. It can be an escape from stress and help resolve tension.
“Music brings people together,”
Stacy Jager said. “It is universal. Music speaks what words cannot fully express. Teaching is what I love to do, and piano is part of my soul. Teaching
and playing piano are such joys for me. Sharing those joys is amazing.”
The Timbers of Shorewood Senior Living is a rental retirement community that provides independent living and assisted living apartments and a full schedule of activities and services. Residents whose needs may change are able to stay in the same place and receive appropriate and compassionate care. Furnished apartments are also available for short-term stays.
like their heavily regulated counterparts, video gaming terminals. Just like VGTs, sweepstakes machines dispense a receipt to hand over to the establishment that houses the machine for players to cash out.
“The only difference” between regulated VGTs and sweepstakes machines, Scanio said, is that sweepstakes machines also dispense coupons for merchandise that can be purchased online – and offer the option to play for free.
However, he testified, the free play is not easy to obtain; in order to play the slot machine-like games for free on a sweepstakes machine, a customer has to get a special code from the machine, mail it to the company that operates it and then wait about a month in order to get $1 worth of credits to play on that same machine.
While the Illinois Gaming Board has long considered sweepstakes machines illegal, the agency has gotten involved in the seizure of machines only twice. The incidents both wound up in court, and on appeal, judges declined to directly rule on the legality of the machines.
The jury this week heard audio from two separate committee hearings from May 2019, when Arroyo went out of his way to get a direct answer from witnesses about sweepstakes machines’ legal standing.
“Somebody here is lying,” Arroyo said during one of the hearings, in the middle of
testimony from Bill Bogot, a former attorney for the Illinois Gaming Board. “Why are you up here saying it’s illegal? Either you’re lying or the gentleman in the back (of the) room is lying.”
Arroyo was referring to a proponent of sweepstakes machines, who had testified earlier in the hearing in favor of legalizing them. Bogot had been explaining why state regulators considered sweepstakes machines illegal.
Rita witnessed the exchange from his position as chair of the House Executive Committee, and in court this week told the jury that it’s unusual for a representative to be so hostile to a witness tapped to give their expert opinion on a matter.
Rita said he was notified not long after that hearing that the latest amendment to the proposed gambling expansion bill included language legalizing sweepstakes machines – something he said he did not authorize. It was not included in the final bill.
“Do you think that someone was trying to sneak something into the legislation without you knowing about it?” the government attorney asked Rita.
That prompted an immediate objection from Weiss’ attorney, which was quickly overruled.
“It appears that way, yes,” Rita said.
The trial continues at 9:30 a.m. on Monday.
