Downtown.

“And go down town.

Things will be great when you're

Down town.

No finer place for sure,

Down town.

Everything's waiting for you.”

When you leave your home, and venture out, you never know what you will encounter. In our local downtown, especially on a nice day, people are milling about…you see people you have not seen in ages, stores you have never noticed, and signs of life we have forgotten. Especially in the middle of a pandemic.

We live in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. A village about 30 miles west of Chicago with a real Main street, train tracks separating north and south, and generations of people who go way back to when it was known as Danby. It actually has had seven different names; the one before Glen Ellyn was named was “Prospect Park.” It just didn’t sound as charming as Danby. Want another detail? Ellyn, was the name of one the earlier settler’s wife,

I didn’t grow up in anything like Glen Ellyn; in fact I would say we couldn’t have been any further removed from this form of living. We lived in a subdivision carved out from a large patch of farm land. No downtown, no train, and only a few farms that were part of the community. For those farms, their land went up in value and they sold and moved on; today, they are millionaires many times over.

There is something really cool about the history of a town. We see it for what it is today, with little knowledge of what it was as recently as a 100 years ago. The Main Street mentioned above had wooden side walks, dusty roads, and if you were to walk about a half a mile or so, there was a brothel. True story.

A lot has happened in our little town. It has grown in population and housing—and with growth comes increased home prices. I remember when I moved here a million dollar home was few and far between…today, there are many. 

The photo above was taken during a beautiful fall day in downtown Glen Ellyn. While walking down the side walk, I saw probably one of the biggest dogs I had ever seen. The funny thing about large dogs is…they are often some of the sweetest. This dog only wanted to be scratched and when I did, he stood still and gave me the look, “don’t stop.” I didn’t for probably 10 minutes as he became part of the experience of being downtown—one I truly treasure living in Glen Ellyn.

Thanks for stopping by.