Going home to Jacksonville.

October 7, Jacksonville, Illinois (94 miles, Liliana's house.)

Jumping ahead I came straight to Jacksonville, where I used to work. It's been six years since I left and I've never been back. It was a Sunday morning drive before farm people start for church, highway 72 all but empty. I missed the Illiopolis (Sunday, 38 miles) and Chatham (Monday, 36 miles) stops.
I am staying at my friend Liliana's house, a few blocks from where I used to live, and parked the trailer in her driveway (crushing more than a few of her lavender bushes in the process.)
Liliana is a gem of a woman, a busy bee, strong opinions and a huge heart packed into a little woman of 75. She's from Costa Rica but has been living in Jacksonville for many years; her second husband, Charlie, as tall and lanky as she's short and plump, all humor and sweetness, died in 2003. Liliana never tires of defending Latinos and advancing the cause of the underdog and she knows just about everybody, as often happens to active people in small communities, so that a trip to the grocery store with her on Monday turned into a social event as she stopped at every aisle to greet someone new. Dylan took to her in a minute and called her Yayana, and he and Nicolas ran around her beautiful home and managed not to break any of the many South and Central American artifacts she's collected over the years.
She drove me to Beardstown, where I worked a few too many hours completing an in-depth story on the Mexican community there; we saw Julio, the school Hispanic coordinator, Rafa, the Mexican store owner and pillar of the community, I saw these streets I knew by heart and memories flooded back of endless days getting to know people there, reporting, taking pictures, learning.
But mostly the three short days in Jacksonville were filled with all the friends I left behind: there was Liliana and Tiffany and Zuzana, there were the Steves. and Rob, and John, and Ruth, and the ones I missed.
I met Zuzana in photojournalism school at the University of Columbia-Missouri and stayed with her and her husband Rob a few years later when I came to work at The Journal-Courier; she had just quit as a photographer there to raise her son, John Paul, who's now nine years old and an exact replica of his father. We went over to their house for dinner on Sunday night; Zuzana's sister, Julie, was also there. Yesterday I visited Julie's husband, John, in his stained glass shop on the square; when I first arrived in Jacksonville I briefly worked for John selling hot-dogs on the street; he's larger than life in every way, I had the time of my life.
I saw Tiffany and Steve Warmowski. He used to be my boss and quit the paper in April to shoot weddings with Tiffany full-time. She is the same friend after so many years apart, she gives the best hugs on earth, she takes the breath out of you, she's an angel without wings.
The other Steve, Steve Copper, came by this morning; he was the chief copy editor and designer at the paper and still is, only there used to be four of them working jointly and now they're only two (hi, Guido.) Steve' son, Walt, is a month younger than Dylan and as reserved as his father.
I also saw Ruth, whose husband, Guy, a successful OB-GYN, helped me so many times with medical advice and free over-the-counter drugs I can never thank him enough. They're from Quebec and have two adopted children, Louis, from Colombia, and Mireille, from Guatemala, who are now off to college.
Then there were the pilgrimages.
Today Fridman and I went to the Chinese buffet where we broke the ice the day he came up to Jacksonville from Hugo to visit me, for Christmas seven years ago, a perfect stranger from an even stranger world. Later we would often go there for lunch and stay so long they once had to tell us to leave in order to close the restaurant. The Steak'n'Shake down Morton Avenue was another planned pilgrimage stop but it moved across the street to make room for a super Walmart so we skipped, it just wouldn't have been the same.
I was reminded once again that there is no coming back to the same, here or anywhere else. You're left with your memories and if you're as lucky as I am, a bunch of really good friends.

Rob Killam and Liliana Costa during dinner at Rob and Zuzana's home in Jacksonville.