Route 66 - Springfield Illinois

You've made it to Springfield, Richard, capital of Illinois and sixth most populated town in the state. Like Chicago, Springfield's early history is intertwined with the fortunes of travelling fur trappers and traders. By the time a young Abraham Lincoln moved here in 1837, Springfield was an established town.

Lincoln met his wife, Mary, in Springfield, and practised law there for 24 years, also taking a healthy interest in politics - a good pursuit for a future president. He was elected to office in November 1860, although was singularly unpopular in slave states; in fact, he only won two of 996 counties in the South that year.

A two-term president, Lincoln can also be credited with founding Thanksgiving as a national holiday in America. Before, it had been a small holiday in New England, but he fixed it as the final Thursday in November; something we can be certain retail employers don't thank him for today, with Black Friday falling the following day.

Although buried in Springfield, Lincoln is perhaps best known for being murdered in a theatre. John Wilkes Booth, his assassin, was a well-known actor and a vocal racist; Lincoln promoting equal voting rights for freed slaves didn't go down well, and when watching Our American Cousin in Ford's Theatre in April 1865, he was shot in the back of the head at point blank range. African-Americans, whose rights Lincoln championed, openly wept at their president's death.

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Fighting

22^nd November 2015

Dear Sister Margaret,

My hope is that my last load of recyclables found you easily. I often forget how heavy the bags can be and I still question if I should save them. I wash out my cans and bottles for you out of habit I guess. I have no problem with bringing them down once or twice a month, but I doubt management would be happy about an ex-employee coming by in that regard.  

In related news I learned on Thursday that the company will be fighting my unemployment benefits, likely with some forged documents, and I will not know the outcome until the following week. This may be delayed by thanksgiving or I may get bad news for my holiday.  Either way I spend the day alone and in contemplation.

I have filed a complaint of retaliation with Labor Enforcement and they may rule my termination retaliatory in nature. I can’t say how that will help me. Perhaps they will need to give me my job back or pay out a settlement. To be honest, I don’t know if I want to be back there dealing with all that mess again, but we all do what we do, and life gets on with itself.

Further along, three of the kittens have been homed, and I still have two maybes. If I had room for another cat I’d keep one, but I can’t afford the pets I have. Doing the right thing has never profited me but good men die hard.

The last thing I have to talk about is, well, I don’t like asking for favors, but if you could remind Raf to read the script I gave him I would appreciate it greatly. He promised me his opinion and has been sitting on the thing for months. It’s not that I think he can help me with it or anything like that, but he did make a promise.

My life is so full of broken promises that I’ve learned not to let things like that go. It would be great if he knew who or how to get the thing made, but I don’t think he does.

I hope you are doing better than I,

Richard Leland Neal