Fun at the Lake
The Ham brothers
Anna takes in the view
Eddie and Anna
In true form, Ben stripped off his shorts and dove right in. He is fearless and nearly unstoppable. I did manage to keep him from 'going commando' as Eddie would say when he started to strip off his underwear. 
We took advantage of the great weather to get down to the Waukegan Municipal Beach and have some fun. I am delighted that the kids are now old enough that I think we can visit there often. Today we were lucky to have Eddie, one of my 16 year old nephews join us.
We often take Sunday drives down to the harbor and the beach. Mom likes to look for the giant ships that come to the harbor to offload the materials for cement and drywall. Of course the lovely ice cream shop at the Harbor is always a draw for Grandma and the kids.
My Dad spent 44 years working just blocks from this beach at Johnson Motors, which later became OMC, and later still went bankrupt. Some of the buildings still remain, but the Tool & Dye building was the first to be torn down. It is nice to see the area being revitalized, but it makes me a bit sad, like somehow there is less and less of my Dad around.
3 comments:
Great pics of the kids and poignant musings on what used to be down at Waukegan Harbor. I can't help feeling a little sad every time I pass the razed site of Mathon's. The footprint looks so small and all my memories tell me it was bigger. (akin to revisiting your grade school, I guess) keep up the posts!
You're going to the lakefront a lot more than we did!
I'm not sure Dad would miss OMC that much. I think he might ask to help tear it down...
The Mathon's site has been sanitized by grass; the footprint is only visible from personal reference. It just looks like a lonely parking lot. And it is smaller than I remember it as well, Sara. Fortunately Mathon's lives forever, well sort of, in the Ice Harvest.
I don't know what Dad would think of the tear down. I know it wasn't a fun place to be, but he had some pride in having worked there so long. Remember his Diamond Johnson Motors Ring? I do know that many families relied on jobs at the harbor that are long gone.
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