McHenry County Blog

Here's what I saw on the north side of the old Cub Food store from a ladder at about 2:30. Click to enlarge any image.

The old Cub Food building was packed with volunteers early Sunday afternoon.

View of the south side of the Cub Food store.

The Haitian flag hung near line number 50.

Enough rice and other ingredients had been packed Saturday to provide 440,000 meals to those living in Haiti.

There were fifty packing stations set up.

They seemed all full at 1:30.

But there were not enough volunteers for the rest of the day to meet the million meal goal.

"Thumbs up," this boy signals.

Young volunteers enjoyed the packing end of the line.  Not putting them in the box though.  That was too high for them.

How vigorous were the young folks with their packet pounding? Notice that the camera was not fast enough to stop the action of his hand.

They enjoyed the pounding the meal flat so it would fit into the box.

The contents of the meal was bunched at the bottom of the bag after it was sealed. Pounding it not only flattened the contents, it tested the strength of the seal.

Flattening the meals was a  job any kid could do.

There were no calls for "Clean up on Aisle 15," but some of the ingredients were spilled on the floor.

Accidents did happen.  Bags did break.

This little girl seemed to be writing a message to the children of Haiti.

She also put the boxes over her head once in a while.  Not to matter.  She had on a hair net.

Here's a mother and son team. The Mom sealed the plastic packets and the son flattened them.

This proves there was a job for any age group.

Bill Moll, an usher at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake, was packing the boxes next to my line.

I recognized Bill Moll packing boxes next to my station number 50.

Volunteers at the front of the line mesured amounts of variouis ingredients and funneled them into bags.

One of the advantages of being at the end of the production line was that one did not have to wear plastic gloves.

It wasn't just kids who caught me taking photos.

The arms and hands of Christ were all over the room.

Another "front of the line."

There were so many lines.

The weigh stations took a lot of patience.

In the middle of each line were stations where people weighed the bags and either took some of the contents out or added enough to make the desired weight.

From 5-7 Crystal Lake City Councilman Brett Hopkins and I were the bag sealers at our table.

Next on the line were us bag sealers.

The cymbal that was hit every 10,000 meals.

Every time another 10,000 meals were packed someone banged on a cymbal and announced the new total.

If you want to know what the ingredients are, you'll have to take a look at yesterday's article. One bag was placed on each colored square. When all were filled, they were loaded into a box and sealed with tape.

Just in case you didn’t read yesterday’s article, here’s what the bags looked like before they were flattened.

Among the tables still making meals when I left at 7 were two with people identifying themselves as members of the Mormon Church.

Sunday by 7 PM upwards of 780,000 were ready for the truck.

An announcement was made was made that 16 million means had already been shipped to Haiti.

The joint project in McHenry County between the Salvation Army and Numana was all over but the clean-up.

When my son and I got to Cary we discovered people who had been at the Crystal Lake demonstration, 550 strong according to Libertarian Party Chair Dave Brady of Wonder Lake.

This was the third McHenry County TEA Party I visited April 15th. The second was on Route 62 in Algonquin.

We parked at Kelli’s Cuckoo’s Nest across from the Metra station. She offered free pizza to protesters. (All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.)

When I recognized some protest signs and asked what had happened in Crystal Lake, I was told that the Crystal Lake Police closed down the demonstration at one.

Apparently, Crystal Lake requires a permit and an insurance policy if more than 50 people are going to demonstrate and organizer Jim Thompson said his demonstration would be from noon to one.

So, a number of people just drove down the road to Cary.

There Cary Coffee Shop proprietor John Bobrytzke didn’t contact city government.

His location, across Main Street from the train station, didn’t attract many demonstrators. That was because people figured out that more motorists could see their signs from Route 14.

But Bobrytzke is the reason the demonstrators were there.

He stepped out in front and the rest of us followed him to bring the message to homebound commuters in Cary.

And, it’s a superb location for a protest, because not only motorists, but those taking the train could see their signs.

I’m sure the Metra engineers were not blowing their horns because of the signs, but, then again, I don’t ever remember hearing a train horn blast in Cary before.

Again, big trucks blowing their air horns brought a thrill to my body. Above you see a Crystal Lake-based W. Smith Cartage gasoline truck “blowing”around the corner past the old village hall.

Sometimes when the trucks and cars were not blowing their horns enough for one sign carrier, she pulled out a tiny air horn to make some noise.

Not that it was silent for long stretches.

This man was the chief horn honking cheer leader. He was so persistent.

And, when the folks on the street couldn’t get a honk, there were people like this lady with open windows giving the sign holders a “thumbs up.”

How far did people come?

This man, a sign shop owner from West Frankfort, IL, came up to Palatine to help out a buddy and they both came up to Cary for the demonstration.

I found an anti-U.S. Senator Dick Durbin sign in Cary.

Every once in a while another horn-blaring semi would breeze through town. Here’s one from Custom Companies.

As in Crystal Lake, a police presence was evident. In Cary, they weren’t in cars. They were standing in full view of the demonstrators. Pretty easy duty.

“Term Limits” were the answer to one man.

Another man had the simple message of

A bit longer, but quite understandable message was

Her friend’s says

One of the woman who drove down from the Crystal Lake event was pro-life leader Irene Napier. Her sign said,

Next to her on the Southeast corner of the intersection I saw the above.

There was one of the few non-homemade signs nearby.

A family of four was on the north side of the street. Two flag wavers and two sign carriers.

They could see this scene across the street if they looked. I like the sign held by the little girl saying,

A longer view of that side of the street showed this.

It was crowded in front of the little park with a pond next to the old Cary Village Hall.

There were two misplaced Obama supporters standing on the traffic island next to the railroad crossing. They were electricians whom I suppose were not working on tax payment day.