The revolution is in your heart

A response to the NPR report on Tuesday

By Jim Youngquist

[November 13, 2013]  Kelly McEvers' article about Lincoln struck like a big bomb. Emails were flying back and forth, and Facebook was alive with comments asking how she could do this to her hometown. Most were concerned about how she only portrayed Lincoln's seedy side, about how she said everything was in decline, and how could she simply miss all the good things that were happening here. Seth Goodman said that if she came back and spent another week here, he could show her all the positive things that were happening in her former hometown.

We cannot know McEvers' motivation for this article. But if we carefully trace the trajectory of her shot across our bow, we can see that she wasn't aiming at Lincoln or its citizens. Her critiques weren't for our ears or to cause damage here. She isn't saying we did anything wrong or could help what she sees happening here. The shot she fired was aimed far from our local citizens and politicians, and even beyond our state politics. McEvers fired her shot at Washington, D.C., and used her hometown of Lincoln to criticize the policies of our national government and how this has affected the Midwest. The result, however, is that we feel like her victims.

Perhaps she had really done us a great favor. We have seldom felt that the Washington bureaucracy was paying any attention to us at all. Now we are in the national news, and the reality that there are real needs here has finally come to light.

WHAT SHE GOT WRONG

• Lincoln isn't a boarded-up town, and the Depot doesn't have any boards on the windows or the doors. It has been locked up for about five years, but it isn't falling down or boarded up. The Depot seems frozen in time, awaiting a new purpose, a renaissance if you will, and new owners.

• Perhaps it was a piece of creative journalism or the catch of the century, but no one can seem to remember seeing anyone sleeping on the benches around the Depot since Harold the bicycle man left Lincoln. It is not a commonplace experience to see any homeless citizens lying on park benches catching z's. That is not to say there are not homeless people here, but most of Lincoln's homeless go from couch to couch in someone else's home rather than spending their days and nights in the great outdoors. Lincoln's social services network is alive and well and serving the needs of our community.

• McEvers wrote that she met up with a former schoolmate who said that every member of his family now had a gun and was trained to use that gun for protection because these were dangerous times. Perhaps a number of Logan County citizens legally own firearms, but there is no current movement to arm the populace because of any paranoia that we are all in danger and what you have might be taken from you unless you can protect it with deadly force. The fact is that the law just changed in Illinois, allowing trained citizens the right to conceal carry. This is a good advancement in self-protection, bringing Illinois on par with most of the rest of the nation.

• McEvers seemed to be making a point that there was a drug bust during her stay in Lincoln. The Midwest is awash in drugs, like every other area in the U.S. She pointed out that the recipient of the marijuana was to be a 14-year-old male. This doesn't mean that every 14-year-old Lincoln male is now receiving drugs and selling them. McEvers seems to be inferring drama where none really exists. What she really saw is how good Ken Greenslate is for this community and how good he is at his job. Law enforcement and drug enforcement is at work here in Lincoln.

• McEvers cites that Lincoln is just another example of the long, slow decline of Midwestern small towns. She quotes, the escalator is broken, but it isn't an escalator or an elevator, but rather a pendulum. And the pendulum in Lincoln swings back and forth. We experience growth, and change, and decline and change, and so forth. Right now the census is down about a thousand citizens, but small Midwestern towns experience drops in population when major upheavals happen. Lincoln lost that thousand citizens when then-Gov. Ryan closed down Lincoln Developmental Center because of some petty political rivalry, and then he went to prison. The former developmental center awaits a new use and a revival. The real story: People follow jobs and money.

• McEvers touched on the fact that the middle class is in decline in America and in the Midwest, that people may be going back to work, but it is at lower wage jobs. What she failed to get right is that although national economists say that making $16-$18 an hour is barely making a living wage, in our local economy $16-$18 an hour is really a pretty good wage. The median household income in Illinois in the last census was $56,576 (and the national median household wage was $52,762), usually with two wage earners. At the lower $16 per hour, that is a full-time income of $33,280 per year. If there are two wage earners working full time in a household here in Lincoln, they exceed the median income cited in the last census. It takes less to live in Lincoln, Ill., than it does in Peoria, Chicago or New York City, which is where the so-called national economists certainly must be thinking about.

WHAT SHE GOT RIGHT

• What McEvers seemed to be saying is that she cares about what is happening in her hometown and wants people nationwide to know that she cares. What she failed to notice and write in her article is that we care, too.

Facebook was alive with comments from citizens of Logan County who care. We are a people who stand up and work hard to make things happen and make things improve. We are proud and patient and hardworking and kind. We work hard for the revival of our community economically and strive to bring about a renaissance in every sense.

Rather than criticize, we invite McEvers to visit again. The next time, as Seth Goodman says, we will surely help her see all the good stuff.

[By JIM YOUNGQUIST]

Article by Kelly McEvers: Dwindling Middle Class Has Repercussions For Small Towns