Don Quixote for Halloween?

Halloween is coming next week, and it looks like I’ll be playing the role of Don Quixote, without the costume. I’m off jousting at windmills again, so that means everything else in my life gets put on hold, including this blog, so be grateful for that.

I’m part of a fight to save this prairie …

If you take a closer look, you see these important visitors to the prairie …

Bees! Much-needed pollinators are all over this prairie. But our local Park District wants to remove it for … wait for it … an 18 hole disc (frisbee) golf course! Yay?

I can’t sit idly by. A team of neighbors went into action and we are preparing to do battle with the Park District. I think we have a good chance to win and save these beautiful acres of pristine Illinois prairie. My quixotic jousting at the Park District windmill starts next week during Halloween week.

That got me started thinking about my life’s accomplishments. Well, there would be the prairie. Oh, and this!

Sure, it doesn’t look like much, but that’s only because it isn’t. It only took suing the town we call home for violations of environmental laws to get it. I’ll explain.

That road was supposed to be a full road connecting a new development with my existing neighborhood at the time. Traffic would have increased significantly for my neighborhood, and we did not have sidewalks or street lights. It was a safety issue. The result of the lawsuit was a road with limited access for emergency vehicles only. Oh, and this …

That is the new sewage treatment plant that was built to correct the environmental violations. The city rejected my request to name it the Jim Flanigan Memorial Shit Processing Domes.

I rested on my laurels for 20 or so years to raise my family (why are they still not raised completely?), but recently was involved with getting a walkway next to a road greatly widened for pedestrian and cyclist safety.

Really, that’s all well and good, but is that all there is? At my age, I had hoped to have many more accomplishments on my resume with buzzwords like “cured cancer,” “solved world hunger,” and “resolved personal angst.” Alas, they do not exist. Oh well, hand me that jousting pole thingy. This blog will have to wait. I’m off to the joust. Except, I don’t own a horse. Can someone please give me a push?