Opinion

Like nothing else our community has done in the recent years, the soon-to-be-installed Looking For Lincoln storyboards will tell visitors the fascinating story of Vandalia’s intersection with Abraham Lincoln.

When the key turned in the door of the Vandalia Statehouse on Sunday evening, the state said it would be the last time the facility would be open to the public for the foreseeable future.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich had slashed the funding, and that was that.

But state officials don't know the people of Vandalia – though they should be getting an idea of the character of the residents by now. Remember the effort to save the Vandalia Correctional Center? Remember the effort to build the first phase of the Kaskaskia College campus?

With the Christmas season in Vandalia successfully kicked off by Vandalia Main Street's recent Olde Tyme Christmas celebration, it's now time to make the arrival of the season official. That will be accomplished when Santa Claus comes to town in this Saturday's Rotary Christmas Parade.

The 10 a.m. event, sponsored by the Vandalia Rotary Club, begins near the Fayette County Courthouse and proceeds east on Gallatin Street to Fourth Street, where Santa will exit his sleigh and visit with children in the Lincoln Park gazebo.

My chemo buddy at the Fayette County Hospital outpatient clinic the past couple of weeks has been Carl Benning of St. Paul, down on the German Prairie in Wilberton Township.

I have never lived in St. Paul, but part of my heart is there, because my mother’s people, the Sasse and Kruenegel families, settled there about 1865, migrating with the Dodge County, Wis., German Lutherans. These settlers founded the St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church.