The Heritage Corridor and the Herald News

Well I'm done with my internship for the week so updates will be more frequent until next Tuesday. However, this also means no more train time this week. For some reason the number of hot guys I see on the train is infinitely larger than the number I see at the bars. However, the train (though people do drink beer on it) is just not a pick up atmosphere.


Yesterday's Herald News contained a delightful police blotter entry that I like to call "I Feel Like Chicken Tonight."


Police seize cash among chicken


PEOTONE — A tractor trailer hauling frozen chicken parts happened to have bundles of money among its load, police said, and the thousands of dollars found mixed in with the chicken was taken by the law.

State Trooper Chuck Arceneaux and Agent Herb Hardy of the Cooperative Police Assistance Team stopped the truck Friday evening during a motor carrier safety inspection and interdiction effort held at the Interstate 57 southbound scale in Peotone.

The drivers of the 1994 Freightliner raised suspicion during questioning, police said, and a consent to search the truck was obtained.

Trooper Chad Brody and his drug dog, Buster, then were called in to check the outside of the truck.

Buster indicated something was amiss, police said, and the truck was searched for contraband.

Police reportedly located 32 bundles of cash stuck between pallets of chicken parts in the trailer. The bundles of bills of various denominations totaled $328,980, police said.

The two "team" drivers, brothers Cruz and Jose Gaitan, ages 51 and 44, respectively, denied any knowledge of the money, police said, claiming it was not theirs and that they had no idea how it managed to find its way into the chicken.

Police then seized the cash.

The Gaitans were allowed to continue with the Dallas-bound chicken.

Buster the drug dog. . .doesn't that sound like the name of a puppet that one of those DARE officers would have?

The Wright family is all over the Herald News these days, as a column about Jennifer's sister Elizabeth appeared in today's paper. A couple years ago there was an article about the culinary habits of Jennifer's mom. . .when will the feature on Jennifer appear? Soon, we all hope.

However, I do have a beef with the weekly "Teen Scene" section of the Herald News. Maybe I'm just bitter because they didn't have high school correspondents when I was in high school, but come on, can we find some people who can write focused articles? This week contained two crappy articles about proms. Unfortunately, I can't find these articles online, so I'll give you the highlights. Mark Mason, a Minooka High School Junior wrote the creatively titled "All About Prom." I'm very tempted to type up this whole article, but it's just too much. Here are some favorite quotes:

"The mighty Honda-CRV roars, and Benjamin "Chuckletrousers" Young (aka Chuckles, for his goofy laugh) and I sit in silence for several minutes. . ." "Bob is a lofty senior who sits at my lunch table, loves hard rock and extreme sports and can build anything provided it will explode." "Chuckles, our beautiful dates and I drift off into the beautiful Joliet evening, Corey Posvic behind us majestically releasing stolen purple balloons into the silent dark sky." " 'Did you have a good time tonight?' my date asks me, her eyes sparkling and her voice like softly falling snow.' "

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's time that Mark Mason's poetic license was revoked. The other prom article, written by Lincoln Way Central junior Beth Starczewski and entitled, "My Funny Prom," is a classic in its own right. As it is fairly short, I'll include the entire article. Bold sections in parentheses are my comments that I added to the article

Two funny things happened at prom that I will never forget.(Really, only two?) The first one happened at the dance in Ashton Place in Willowbrook: During the crowning, the junior class officers were on stage, crowning the princes, princesses and the king and queen. Well, Natalie Schultz, president of the junior class, was in charge of crowning the king and queen. She was really nervous and ended up crowning the first-runner up prince, Scott Behrens. Everyone started cheering and the look on his face was out of this world. The look on the faces of teachers who were on stage with us (Nice way to imply you were part of the court) were of astonishment. They could not believe what just happened. Finally, they ended up taking the crown off of hm. The funny (Really? Was it funny?) part of the whole situation is that when the teacher announced the actual king she said, "And now your 'real' king is Kevin Schaefer." (I'm sure Scott Behrens found the situation simply hilarious.)

The second thing that happened that we all thought was hilarious (well, as long as you all thought so. . .)was when my group and I went to dinner at The Wildfire in Oak Brook. There were four of us, so we were sitting in a semi-circle booth. It gave us a great view of the restaurant. There happened to be these three ladies who were sitting right in front of us. Well (Beth seems to like that word a lot), to use up some pictures, we decided to take them sitting in the booth. One of the ladies turned around and asked us if we wanted her to take a picture. We said sure. Of course, we all wanted one, so there were four cameras so she directed her two other friends and a waitress to help in the picture-taking. The funny part (Beth, was it funny?) was that she was acting like our mother. One of the two guys in my group had spun his bow tie around the back of his neck because it was bothering him. Before the lady would take a picture, she asked him to turn it around. He very politely said that it was OK, but she did not take no for an answer. She literally (literally?) jumped into the booth and fixed his tie for herself. It was so funny! (Again, Beth, was it funny? I didn't get that from your article title, "My Funny Prom.") She told us that she had four daughters at home, and boy do we feel sorry for them!

Beth, your article just wasn't funny, honey. I'm not saying that the hard-hitting profiles of Becky Shinn and what kids are doing for spring break that I wrote for The Student Prints in high school were Pulitzer material, but I believe that if I had written an article entitled "My Funny Prom," it would have been a lot more amusing. Yes, probably more mean spirited, and probably focusing on my fellow classmates' poor fashion choices, but still funny.