I have the fortune of being able to walk to the Main Street station every morning for my commute downtown. Access to Metra was one of my “must haves” when we were house shopping a few years earlier (so was a wet bar staffed by strippers moonlighting from Scores, but the wife never agrees with me).

I vary my walk to the train every morning, sometimes serpentine along a street I rarely see,  or most likely,  taking a direct route because I’m running late.

Regardless of the direction, I almost always arrive at the crossing at Forest Avenue and the tracks, timing my arrival by the clock on the Downers Community Bank building, knowing that if I don’t cross by 7:57 the gates will swing down and I’m stuck on the north side, waiting for the 8:16 and the slow walk of shame that says “late again moron.”

Thursday, May 4, was exactly such a morning.

Having missed the 8 (again), I crossed at Forest and cursed whatever bug my daughter picked up that caused her to barf her Cheerios that morning. Coffee at the station is only a buck and a half and I could take solace in a gorgeous, sunny morning for my walk of shame, and maybe one of those chocolate donuts in the bakery case.

Coffee of the day was hazelnut (!) but the donuts never look as good as they sound. I exited the station by the side door facing the tracks, the gates were down and the 8:06 express was approaching fast from the west.

Walking east toward where the first car would load, I had my head down fumbling with my iPod and coffee cup when the engineer blasted his horn in one, long, non-stop wail. From my back, a hot wall hit like a sandstorm rolling through the station, acrid train smoke and burning rubber swept through the platform along with the deafening roar of the horn.

I remember instinctively ducking down on one knee and bracing myself for a crash as bits of rubber and unseen flotsam blast across the platform like shotgun pellets, bouncing violently across my ankles and carrying off one of my sandals.

I remember closing my eyes and screaming a stream of obscenities in the direction of the passing freight, but the roar completely drowned out my voice. Looking up, I was relieved to see the train pass without derailing. Rookie engineer maybe, overreacting to a commuter making an ill-advised dash across the tracks.

I grabbed my sandal and continued east along the platform when I noticed something curious, the train had stopped about a half mile past the station, and although my ears were ringing, I could sense it was deadly quiet.

There was a woman in front of me staring at a point on the tracks just to my left and whispering into her cell phone. I glanced over and saw a bright, red carpet tossed on the tracks, just a few feet away. It wasn’t until I walked another 50 yards or so did my mind process the image correctly. The carpet had a face. A man’s face. I doubled back slowly. The carpet had a torso and one outstretched arm, and was not a carpet at all.

It was a man, or at least the upper third of a man. Having been fortunate enough to have never fought in a war, my mind had no frame of reference for what lay crumpled next to me. Commuters around me were frozen in place, gawking. There was a brief moment, before the confusion and chaos that followed, as I was staring at what remained of this man, that I was overwhelmed by how undignified this felt, how absolutely wrong.

I was embarrassed for him. I wanted to grab a coat and cover him up and scold passing commuters for gawking, which, of course, was exactly what I was doing. Breaking off, I forced myself to look away, and I never looked directly at him again.

In the first of many ironies on that day, there was a ‘commuter safety’ patrol at the station, two DG police officers issuing warnings and tickets to commuters making late sprints around the gates. They were the first to run to the scene.

Images for me become choppy from this point on, but some have left an impression:

A woman kneeling in prayer near the beauty shop entrance, a man walking right by the body, newspaper tucked under one arm and iPod cord dangling, oblivious.  People running away, people crowding close. A young student vomiting next to the fountain, apparently not wanting to sully the water. Construction workers running over from one of the condominium sites. Police swarming in from the station, running across the parking lot and over the platform.  Silence. Tears. Shouting. Surreal. A woman asking her friend:  “do you think he’s all right?” Another woman asking no one in particular “is that a deer?”

Credit must be given to the DGPD. With a stoicism that I admire but could never emulate, they quickly covered the scene as best they could and arranged transportation to move bewildered commuters anywhere but there.

As we were walking toward the bus that was to take us to another station, I noticed for the first time that the flotsam that showered the station on impact was not bits of rubber or stone. With as much dignity as they could muster, a dozen or so DGPD stood scattered around the platform warning commuters to “be careful” as they stepped. I thought about my ankles, and a queasiness washed over me that lasted several days.

The rest of the day is a bright sunny, surreal blur. It was still a beautiful morning. We sat silently on the bus, which transported us to the Fairview Avenue station. There didn’t seem to be a plan from Metra as to what happens next. It had been over an hour since the accident and the train still sat on the tracks just east of Main Street.

Several commuters hung from the open vestibules and looked back toward the body. Having not witnessed the accident first hand, they seemed animated and annoyed, shouting about being late, talking loudly into cell phones and shaking their heads.

Truth be told I would have done the same if I were on that train, but unfortunately I get on at Main Street and my daughter had a tummy ache that morning and I was running late and the promise of coffee and a donut was my way of making the most of a bad situation.

Somewhere around 11 and with no word from Metra, I started to walk back toward Main Street and home. Somewhere between Fairview and downtown, in a lovely neighborhood just south of the tracks and near a small park (a place I’ve never been able to locate again), I found a dog, or I should say he found me.

He came bounding out between two parked cars, dragging a broken leash behind him, wagging his tail and hopping with excitement. I spent the next hour walking him door to door, trying to find out where he came from and racking my brain in an attempt to decipher the deep cosmic or spiritual significance of finding a lost dog on the same morning I’d witnessed a horrific death firsthand.

I never did figure that one out, but I did find a nice woman who knew the dog’s owner and graciously allowed me to leave him with her until the neighbor returned home.

When I finally walked past the Main Street station a few hours later, the scene was organized chaos. There was a cover (not unlike a carpet, but not red) on the tracks covering the body. The woman whom I saw kneeling in prayer recognized me and pointed me out to an investigating officer, who wanted a word with me about the accident.

Did I see where he came from? Did I recognize him? Did he have anything with him? I began recalling how I found the dog near a little park and I think his leash broke because it was worn near the collar, but I’m pretty sure he’s not a stray — and the strange look in the officer’s eyes made me realize I wasn’t making any sense at all.

Then it hit me — all of it, all at once. I began sobbing and my face flushed from embarrassment at my loss of control, which just made it worse. I apologized to the officer, I just wanted to go home,  please? I just want to go home, can I just go home?

The officer could not have been kinder. He put a firm arm around me and promised me that, whatever reasons the young man had for stepping in front of that train, there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, nothing.

Oddly, I felt a sense of relief. Until that point I assumed the train hit a bone-headed commuter who had carelessly run around the gates, trying to make a train (like you see every morning), but it never dawned on me that I witnessed a suicide.

I’m not sure why that’s any better, but somehow knowing that somewhere, there wasn’t going to be a knock on someone’s door and an officer with hat in hand explaining that “your husband had an accident,” made me feel better. I spoke to a priest for a few minutes and walked up the hill — home.

I spent the afternoon painting the ceiling in the dining room because I could, and listening to the Crosstown classic on WGN. I threw my sandals into the garage where they sat in a damp corner for 3 years until I finally retreived them and tossed them out.

That evening I sat at the bar at Emmett’s nursing a 1a.m. ale and watching the highlights from the Crosstown. Around me were other commuters from that morning who had been propping up the bar for the remainder of the day. I eavesdropped on conversations about the incident but avoided engaging in any of them, mostly because I had nothing to add.

This is what I saw, this is what happened. I didn’t know the guy, but I witnessed his last moment on earth and the undignified way he chose to end it,  and I don’t know why.  I had no business being there, being a witness. No one asked me. I had no choice, I was powerless. My daughter was sick in the morning and I was sick the rest of the week.

I don’t have any profound insights to offer as to how this has affected me. I wish I did, because I feel I should. I don’t. Maybe I will some day, but for now it comes and goes like a ghost when I least expect it.

The crossing at Forest is just another crossing, but the bakery case in the station makes me uneasy. I read a newspaper account about the accident that mentioned the man’s name and that his last known address was at the Tivoli Hotel, as if I needed another reason to despise that place.

In the days that followed, a small scrap-wood cross appeared next to a bush near the Forest Avenue crossing. The first time I saw it I felt a deep stab of anxiety, followed by a flush of anger. Who put this here? Were you a friend of his? Why didn’t you talk to him, or did you? Who was he? Why? I catch myself because I don’t know if I feel this way because a young man chose death by Metra or because I was forced to witness it, and that makes me feel shame, and who wants to feel shame over something they had no control over?

I’ve had many friends tell me that there must be a deeper lesson here for me, but I find myself feeling exactly the opposite, that it doesn’t mean anything at all, it just is. That’s the randomness of life. One day your daughter has a tummy ache, then you witness a bloody suicide, find a lost dog on your walk home, talk to a priest and paint the ceiling in the dining room. The next day is Saturday and come Monday morning you’ll still be late for the 8 o’clock and you’ll still skip the chocolate donuts in the bakery case. Then its Tuesday.

I have noticed one change in myself, one big difference in my morning routine. I’m still often late for the 8 o’clock, which leaves me standing at the crossing when the gates go down.

There are other commuters around me, and sometimes I recognize those distinctive twitches, their body language and gestures and how they’re measuring the speed of the oncoming express, poised to dash around the gates in order to make a train. Now, I’ll pre-empt their dash by screaming PLEASE DON’T.  It’s effective. I’ve done it a few times and received a mix of sheepish grins, scowls and one woman who flipped me off and ran across anyway.

Regardless, I would have never spoke up before May 4, 2006. Everyone deserves the chance to go home.

Oh sure, like most men of his era I’m sure necessity dictated he be a handy guy around the house — dependable repair services were likely scarce in the Thirties and I’m pretty sure Sears Hardware was closed on weekends.

The simple stuff he could handle. Pet canary peck a hole in the plaster? Wallpaper peeling in the bedroom? That damn furnace acting up again? No problem. Like most wives, Mrs. Kerchner had a lengthy ‘honey do’ list she henpecked poor Messers over and when he wasn’t hanging out over at the Moose lodge or ‘hunting’ with the guys he would get to it, promise.

But finish carpentry? No. The gap between fine craftsman and weekend warrior hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years, and Messers was no Bob Villa.

I know this because I live in the house Messers built.

Downers Grove is believed to host one of the nation’s largest collections of Sears-Roebuck Catalog kit homes, most built between 1908 and 1940.

As insane as it may seem now, it was assumed that the average Joe (or Messers) of the time could assemble his own home with little more than a hammer, saw and the ability to turn a screwdriver. One could also assume that do-it-yourself home assembly required the patience of Job and a steady stream of rock-gut moonshine, this being the days before power tools and Home Depot.

Somehow the Messerses of the age managed just fine. Most of them.

Sometime in the fall of 1922, Messers kissed his wife on the cheek and made the first of what was likely hundreds of trips to the rail yard near the recently extended Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and began to load up the more than 30,000 individually cataloged and labeled pieces of lumber that would soon become their home.

A Sears catalog ‘kit’ home, the ‘Cornell’ model on page 61 of the Sears Home catalog of 1920. The home that, in an unimaginable moment of naïveté, I purchased in Spring 2004, eight decades after the last of the creaky floorboards were clumsily hammered into place.

Did I mention that Messers was not a carpenter?

I’ve read a few books dedicated to the history of the Sears Catalog Home (thin volumes, all), and the emotional attachment the current owners feel about sharing a unique piece of sturdy American craftsmanship.

Sometimes I get emotional about my house. It usually involves uncontrollable fits of rage and hysterical laughter every time I open a wall and discover that the short in the outlet was caused by a frayed cloth wire coming in contact with the beer can pull-tab that was holding it against the joist. Messers enjoyed combining alcohol and home repair. Actually that’s something we have in common.

I think he was a short man. I assumed this when I smacked my forehead squarely into the ceiling as I was navigating a queen box spring up the stairs into what would soon be our bedroom. Try as we might, the box spring would advance no further than the second stair, so a full-sized bed it was.

It’s just one of the many concessions we’ve been forced to accept in order to live in Messer’s house, although somewhere between the 123 and 125 time I smacked my head into the ceiling while half asleep, I grabbed a claw hammer and smashed the overhang into a pile of plaster rubble and shattered lathe.

Thankfully, we have a contractor on speed dial and, with another dip into our dwindling savings, we now have a queen-size bed in our bedroom. I wonder if Messers would approve, or would he think us vain? The previous owner lived here 20 years. He’s taller than me, which means for approximately half his life he instinctively ducked his head E-VAA-REE TIME he went up and down the stairs. Apparently he didn’t own a claw hammer.

We’ve found little scraps of Messers’ life every year in our home: copies of the Daily News from 1925, postcards addressed to him and his lovely wife ‘E’, rail-tags on old fixtures and lumber stamped with his name and an assembly number identifying where it should be installed.

I’ve discovered many ‘Part #126-F hammered into Part #634-L, while Part #127-F is holding up the furnace downstairs. I guessing he lost the instruction manual and rather than face the wrath of Mrs. Kerchner (“I knew it! You’d loose your pants if I didn’t hand you your belt! What else have you lost?!? Well? I bet Mrs. Nesbit’s husband knows where his manual is! Maybe I should call him over to finish the house!! Messers I swear by God..”) he just winged it. Come to think of it we have that in common, too.

I’ve lost track of how many times a contractor has scratched his head and said “Wow! Never seen that before.” Messers had a sense of humor. When we refinished the scary basement we found that the main line that carried the plumbing into the house from the street was propped off the basement floor by a coffee can perched atop a cinder block.

When we removed the can (Hills Brothers), the line cracked and, since it was made of lead, had to be replaced all the way out to the curb. Our neighbors still recall the summer of 2007 as the year the cicadas returned and the moron across the street had the city break up the parkway and half the street. I still have that can.

I’ll admit to a few sentimental moments in Messers’ house. During the Basement ‘Big Dig’ Project (as it came to be known) we converted the old root cellar into a pantry/wine cellar. Originally we called that space the ‘room where the bad kids go’ because it was cold 4’ x 8’ space with a low ceiling and jagged chunks of grey masonry sticking out from the walls.

Messers had built a row of floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves from scrap lumber undoubtedly left over from combining Part #126-F into Part #634-L. Like most of his handiwork, no two pieces lined up at the same angle and the entire assemblage shrugged like it felt shame over its own existence.

Still, he did take the time to paint it all a lovely shade of flesh and it served us well as a storage place for our dog’s dry food. I actually felt a moment of compassion for it just before I swung the sledgehammer down the first time. It got easier after that.

Sometimes I fantasize about discovering a rusty old toolbox hidden behind a wall somewhere, filled with the life savings Messers wouldn’t entrust to a bank. I did find some old bones wrapped in cloth once. I’m pretty sure they were too small to be human, then again, I’m no doctor.

The misaligned trim, the water damage, the nightmarish black tangle of fraying electrical wires, hidden and spreading like a ghost behind the walls, I can’t blame it all on poor Messers (or ‘Mess’ as I suspect his friends called him).

There have been three other families who lived in his house before we arrived and I know for a fact none of them were carpenters either. I think the difference is that they all learned to accept (overlook??) the irregularities in Messers’ handiwork, some of them no doubt contributing some of their own. I admire them. I wish I could look past the trim that isn’t mitre cut or those damn counterweights that make opening a window sound like a garbage truck falling off the Sears tower.

I want to be like them, oblivious to the faults. I want to refer to cracked plaster as ‘charm’ and creaking floorboards as ‘character’, it just hasn’t happened for me. Honestly after four years of almost non-stop restoration, there isn’t a whole lot of Messers left in his house — and I don’t feel any real affection for what remains.

However, I do feel a sense of loss at having never met the man in person. I think I would have liked him. We could have sat down in the backyard over a metal rain-tub full of cold Schlitz on ice and swapped stories of home improvement misadventures, and how expensive screws are now versus 1924. I could show off my power tools, I could introduce him to that wondrous tool called a ‘level’ that ensures that everything magically lines up evenly. He would be impressed. After all, I think we have allot in common.

You see, Messers Kerchner was no carpenter.

And neither am I.

Meat is a resident of Downers Grove. He lives in Messers’ house,  a 1924 Sears Catalog Home, lovingly built by Messers himself.

I liked Emma.

Actually, I never really met Emma but I knew she was living in there somewhere inside that battleship grey bungalow with the cracking stucco just down the street.

Her flower boxes were weathered and peeling but the flowers themselves always meticulously arranged and cared for. Her lawn never looked great but it was neatly trimmed.

She always kept the shades pulled down tight across the old window panes regardless of the time of day; not a single shaft of sun would invade her living room that she didn’t personally welcome. She was in there all right and, like so many older folks who live alone, she seemed to prefer to keep to herself.

The first winter I spent as a proud homeowner here in town I was looking forward to that first big snowstorm so Icould fire up the new snowblower (a gift from my Dad) and slay the drifts in the driveway (pathetic, I know).

When that first storm came I knocked on Emma’s door and offered to clear her driveway and sidewalks. She shuffled cautiously into the screened in porch and, backlit by the cold fluorescent light in the entryway, and eyed me suspiciously.

She then waved me off with a ‘no, leave it alone’, and back inside she went. I understood; she didn’t know me. I cleared her sidewalks anyway but left the driveway alone.

The last few years weren’t kind to the little grey stucco. The dandelions were the first thing I noticed, followed by the
shades pulled wide open day and night and the porch light that was always on. Seems Emma had moved away.

The rumors around the neighborhood were many, but the balance was that she couldn’t keep up with the demands of an old house and an older body, and had moved in with her kids. That snowy evening on her porch was the first and last time we ever spoke.

Predictably, the house was snatched up by a local developer with plans to build two grand houses where Emma’s once
stood. The grey stucco sat on a double lot and had “teardown special” written all over it’s sagging porch. I didn’t
mourn it’s fate.

Only a month earlier I walked through an even older home two doors down during it’s pre-knockdown estate sale, where even the baseboards and window hardware were available for a price. I bought an old lawn edger (the kind you push) and walked around the deserted bedrooms and creepy basement.

Like Emma’s home, this place only meant something to the people who were raised here. Now, stripped of the laughter and the memories it was exposed for all it really was — a crumbling old home whose value was a fraction of the land it sat on. The demolition took place a few days later and now, a month later, the old grey stucco had its own date with the bulldozer.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the quick flip. The housing market tanked, and with it went the buyers forthose new Craftsman style two-stories that seemed to be popping up everywhere. The grey stucco sat, undefended and unaltered, for almost a year.

A caravan of four cars pulled up late one night last fall, and an uneasy feeling pulled in with them. I couldn’t imagine that any sane person would have bought Emma’s old home to actually live in it; it needed more work than the Blodgett House.

The following morning I watched from my porch, hoping Armando Montelongo from Flip This House would
be leading a camera crew around the exterior pointing out where the hot tub was going to go and how best to fit in an addition and retain the home‘s original charm.

I didn’t see Armando. I saw a brindle pitbull take a crap on the parkway and a burly looking young man with a neck
tattoo lead it back up the sagging porch, back into Emma’s house. The porch light had burned out.

Instead of taking his lumps and selling the property at a loss, the developer decided to rent it, and the saga of “Section 8 house” began. For those who are not familiar, this from the U.S. Department of Housing website:

The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program increases affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing. The public housing authority (PHA) generally pays the landlord the difference between 30 percent of household income and the PHA-determined payment standard-about 80 to 100 percent of the fair market rent (FMR).

Key statistic: The public housing authority generally pays a percentage to the landlord, AKA, the developer. The same developer who was poised to build a home you couldn’t afford right next door to yours has now put out the welcome mat for creepy Neck Tattoo Guy, his pit bull mix and a scary mix of his friends and family and the government is going to pay him to do it. Right next door.

If you brought over a bundt cake, the frosting would curdle when you crossed the threshold. Enough has been written on this blog regarding the opposing concepts of affordable housing and the insane teardown phenomenon, but there is a gray (stucco) area that no one ever wants to discuss.

What happens when the developers move on and leave behind dilapidated homes occupied by an ever-revolving cast of interesting tenants who have no roots here, no interest in establishing any and couldn’t care less what condition they leave the property in?

For those of you who lie awake at night fearful of the developer’s hammer swinging into your neighbor’s old house, imagine how much sleep you’ll lose when your daughter wakes up scared and crying because the man across the street is screaming bad words and his kids are standing around the front lawn at 3:28 in the morning.

Imagine how you‘d feel when you call the police for the third time this year and the flashing lights send rude orange beams onto your son’s bedroom wall. When the cars begin lining up at 10 at night on a Tuesday and you know this night is going to end with a screaming match, a fistfight and an indifferent police dispatcher. Again.

Could be worse. It could be a McMansion.

Here’s an interesting “post-renters” neighborhood dilemma. When Neck Tattoo’s kid (at least I think it’s his kid; there seems to be a dozen that rotate in and out) spends the afternoon hurling chunks of concrete against the stop sign on the corner and the cracking sound bounces around the street like a machine press in a glass shop, do you risk his wrath by gently reprimanding the boy or do you pretend not to hear it? Not to notice?

Do you cross your fingers and hope he has good aim because a misguided toss could easily reach your living room window? Do you really need any of this?

Emma’s house was never the centerpiece of the neighborhood, but at least she didn’t stumble onto the front lawn screaming obscenities and slamming car doors in the wee hours. She didn’t have a pit bull, but if she did I’d venture to guess she would have picked up the doo-doo on the parkway once in awhile.

I don’t know how well the Section 8 program has worked across the country, but I’m certain it’s helped some good people establish a foothold in pride and self esteem.

My experience, and that of my neighbors, has been considerably different. Emma’s home is one of three in the immediate area that is currently being rented and the drama narrative is similar in each case.

I never saw a squad car in the neighborhood when Emma lived here, and I don’t imagine I’ll see one when the new families move into the custom homes I pray are on the horizon when the leases run out.

Where we are now is in-between — a trough between collapse and recovery — and I can tell you from personal experience that in-between totally sucks.

In the meantime, I keep the police on speed dial and an ever vigilant eye on the neighborhood kids when they play in the front yard, fearful that one of our new four-legged neighbors may want to establish its dominance. It’s exhausting, but since Downers apparently has no ‘vicious dog’ ordinance, it’s reality.

Perhaps our village officials would enjoy living next to a snarling personification of a plunging housing market? Perhaps not — maybe they’re all cat people.

It’s unlikely that Emma is coming back any time soon, so I‘m keeping my fingers crossed for a market rebound. When I see that glorious bulldozer crest the hill and bear down on Emma’s house I’ll know the turnaround is approaching.

I plan to take the day off and set up shop on the front lawn with a comfy lawn chair and a cooler of Schlitz, and enjoy the show. It will be the first ‘show’ across the street that I’ve ever watched in the daylight.

Meat is a resident in Downers Grove. Having lost his position at the rubber tubing company during a recent downsizing, he is hoping to catch on as a stockboy at the White Hen downtown.

Local elections always make me think of minor league baseball: The game is the same but you don’t recognize any of the players’ names or have any clue what position they play.

I’ll take in the occasional Schaumburg Flyers game because the beer is cheap and the bleachers are cheaper, but it’s hard to get overly excited when Peanut Williams takes a fastball out to center versus when Jim Thome steps up against the Tigers with the game on the line.

Village elections are the same way:  the hype and excitement are just no match for the big leagues.  CNN versus local access cable channel 119a. Just not the same.

About the only way most of us know any of the candidates (aside from if your neighbor’s wife happens to be running or a candidate gets pinched for shoplifting) is those cheap little yard signs cluttering everyone’s front lawns, not to mention more than a few weed-choked empty lots (I had no idea raccoons and possums could vote).

Nothing screams local election quite like the yard sign, and nothing brings more unwanted attention to your neighbor’s clumsy carpentry skills and lousy taste in paint.

Candidates see these signs as a prime way to achieve name recognition in a crowded field;  I see prime examples of bad typography and that loose trim piece above your picture window that’s been hanging that way for the last three years! My God, didn’t Santa leave a hammer in your stocking this year?

Aside from my unabashed lack of familiarity with any of the candidates running for..anything..this year, I would never place a yard sign in front of my home for fear the neighbors would notice that I haven’t been trimming the hedges or that my Christmas lights are still shamelessly clinging to the gutter (I’m getting to it).

Really, do I care that the guy across the street is endorsing Edith Nesbitt for village council? Isn’t that the same neighbor who brought the Quinoa salad to the block party last year and proceeded to get drunk and lecture all of us about how turning vegan has been amazing for his sex life?

And you want me to vote for his candidate? Really? I may not know the hot-button local issues but I do know whom I’m not voting for. Quinoa, quin-no.

I have a theory on local elections. C all it the ‘This Old Election Theory.’  My theory states that a candidate’s position on any given issue is not nearly as influential or important to a perspective voter as the condition of the house that his or her yard sign occupies. Shallow yes, but completely true.

Don’t believe me? During our last mayoral election I was a new homeowner in town and given all the overtime I was working down at AIG, I didn’t have much time to research the candidates.

However, while scanning everyone’s front lawns at night while walking the dogs, one thing became obvious. The majority of homes that featured Krajewski signs needed exterior work. Not all, but most. I saw neglected rose bushes, peeling paint and the carcasses of old lawn ornaments.

By contrast, the homes that featured Sandack signs were either relatively new or had tasteful additions and well-maintained front lawns — and not an old TV antenna in sight.

Based upon my observations, it seemed this was an election pitting ‘old school’ Downers Grove against a more recent homeowner who desired a change from the status quo.

I didn’t follow the election, but I knew what the outcome was going to be. It was right there in the signs, or should I say crumbling behind them.

Based upon my theory, I have some advice for all of the candidates this election season. Your signs don’t tell me much, but the houses behind them do.

If I were running for a local office I would skip the cable access debates and meet-and-greets in the church basement (the coffee is always awful). Instead, I would use that time covertly sneaking around town under cover of darkness and inspecting the homes that featured my campaign signs.

Bring a tub of spackle and a Philip’s screwdriver — and perhaps some bail money for when the neighbors catch you in the hedges fixing the shutters at 2 a.m.

Good luck to all April 7th! (it is April 7th, right??)

Meat has been a resident in Downers Grove since 2004. Contrary to the above he has never worked for AIG, but instead works the nightshift as a loading dock foreman for a rubber tubing company in Stone Park. He has 2 kids and 2 dogs and thus lives in the house of crumbs and fur. His wife is very patient with him .