A Trip to NIU-- Part 3

For some reason, we hadn't really noticed how cold it was at the boards. Despite all that cold, there were a lot of people there reading and writing. Another person had a big piece of video equipment and was filming here as well. More people kept coming.

We froze our way back to the car and after warming up a little, drove over to part of the parking lot closest to Cole Hall and viewed from the car. We just were not in the mood to walk over to it and we couldn't have gotten too close anyway as the yellow police tape was still up.

We had to back track out of the lot as a Channel 7 van had stopped in the road and wouldn't move out of the way. Nice guys!!

Decided to get a bite to eat and went to the long-time Dekalb favorite eating place called the Junction, right on Lincoln Highway. It opened my first year at Northern, 1969, and has been owned by the current family since 1979. The owner was cleaning partition windows and said he thought his family had made a good purchase of the place. I was wondering why he was cleaning the glass with newspaper and found out it reduces smudges. I didn't know that.

We had been looking for the Feb. 15th Northern Star, but could not find any at the places we stopped. But we did get the Feb. 14th issue. It was strange to read about usual campus happenings, bar parties and specials before the HORROR hit. One group was having something that night at the Cole Hall film area. I guess they didn't have the meeting.

After the excellent sandwiches, we drove across Lincoln to Record Revolution, one of the few remaining mom and pop record stores in the US. They opened in 1973. I talked with the guy there who has been there almost since the beginning. He said that even though they were close to Cole Hall, he knew nothing about it until he heard all the sirens and saw squad cars from many other towns flying down the road to campus. Several helicopters stayed positioned over Lincoln for about three hours until the situation was contained.

I always buy a CD to support them when I'm in town, and got the Best of the Beau Brummels, whose "Laugh, Laugh" was one of my favorite songs back in the 60s. Listened to it all the way back home.

Drove around the dorms and found this is not as easy as it used to be with all the deadends. Also cruised by Altgeld Hall and the Lagoon, two of our favorite places on campus. Next, we went through Greek Row where we saw flowers along a fence in front of one house and I think it might have been the Pike House where the one male killed in the attack was a member. One sorority had a sign on the door about the tragedy.

On the way out of town, we stopped at Steve and Barry's on Sycamore Road to check out their NIU apparel. On checking out, I talked with the cashier who said she was a student but not on campus during the shootings. However, she said her boyfriend was a member of that ill-fated class, but had thankfully decided to skip it that day. Talk about a good decision!!!

Came home and Liz found that the NIU site on Legacy now has 371 pages with about ten entries on each page.

This Still Hasn't Completely Registered.