Roadside Illinois 1

Every state, particularly Kansas IMHO, has a lot of superlatives to claim for quirky roadside attractions -- think biggest ball of twine, biggest hole, biggest farm machinery, biggest barb wire museum etc.

Illinois, and my nearby Chicagoland suburbs, has its own to brag about, too.

The husband first alerted me to the Leaning of Tower of Pisa copy, and he drove me to it yesterday en route to the Museum of Science and Industry. And was I bowled over by it.

It is in the city/village of Niles. And it is a beautiful replica of the real thing. Along the driveway, there is also a telephone booth (sans phone) with the Italian "Telefono" sign. Hilarious.

I present to you, the Leaning Tower of Niles, essentially a water tower. And it stands in the grounds of the Niles YMCA, aptly named Leaning Tower YMCA.

The worst of times has not even hit yet

and I'm sick, sick to the depths of my stomach that I will have these horrific stories to tell future generations of my generation's bad economic times, layoffs.

Today, I found out via facebook.com that a friend, an ex-colleague got her pink slip in Augusta, Ga., and it makes me sad for her. Her mother passed away years ago, her father is ill and couldn't contribute much to the family (as far as I could tell, I never dared pry). She has a brother but he has his own family to care for. She learned the newspaper trade by chance, it's not something she chose. And while she's not the star copy editor, she has held her own very well. I won't know the reason why she's one of the 15 picked this time to be deemed not valuable. I know very well though that she must be questioning her self worth compared to so and so.

My husband did not survive the 2nd round of layoffs in Knight Ridder many years ago, and I was dismissed early about 2 years ago by a Morris company. And those were not pleasant. While crying is generally more acceptable for girls, for men, it's still taboo.

I never want to relive those moments again, but in these bad economic times, when downsizing is so rampant, one can never tell when the bad news were to come from the top.

I was hired into this job with a 5% reduction in salary at the time of offer. Then another cut came 6 months later when we were all offer a furlough day in exchange for 8 fewer hours pay a month.

When is this madness going to end?