You Know You Grew up in Sterling/Rock Falls If......

Cutter's Log - Stardate 1102.70.80
Current Song - That Girl (Stevie Wonder)

There is this Facebook group called "You Know You Grew up in Sterling/Rock Falls If......" which has recieved lots and lots of posts and new members in the past couple of days. Something that could literally slow down Facebook data transfer.

I started posting on it yesterday. About 75% of the memories are of places that either are not around anymore, or I remember and are not around anymore. There are not that many people in the group, which now has over 2,000 members, that are my age. I can only think of one right at my age, and a few just a few years older than I am. So the seven of us have memories that can't really be duplicated by the other couple of thousand or so.

I have lived in Sterling and Rock Falls all of my 25 years on this Earth, and never moved out. This is something that I'm actually proud of. I didn't take the easy way out, by taking the first train out of town right after high school commencement - like several of my classmates have. My first house was an upstairs apartment across the alley from the former Young's Bakery (another store in RF lore). We then moved to a yellow house on East 11th Street in Sterling (on the same block as the Synagogue). Then back to 3rd Avenue in Rock Falls, and then to my present location at 17th Avenue in Sterling - where I've been for the past 14 years. I've been to six schools in a span of 10 years.

Many people "back then" truthfully looked at Sterling and Rock Falls as two seperate cities. Sterling people had little memories of Rock Falls, and vice-versa. Since I spent time in both towns, I look at the whole area as a giant town. This is something that, in a good 20 years, others growing up after me will see. We grew up after the football cease-fire of 1994. Then the two schools became divided even more with the athletic conference setups, which happened after I left high school. I think students from both sides of the river have been getting along more and more.

Currently, there is debate over what to do with the riverfronts of both towns. Those that are making the decisions (the older people) have grown up back in a time when the two towns were "seperate" and wanted nothing to do with each other. Put these decisions in the hands of the current 20- or 30-somethings and perhaps we can come up with an agreement as to how to make this happen. Most of the holdup is over filtering out which city gets what.

Why is there bitterness? My personal story, which I have written on here many times, is unique and not equal to others. However, this is what I can only guess: When we were young, the thought of "hating" the city on the other side of the river did not exist. In other words, it was not born with us. Perhaps it was the parents (both of whom went to the school that their child will have went to) that began to instill this rivalry in them. If it was not the parents, it certainly had to be the high school athletic coaches. I think the backlash over Sterling losing to Rock Falls was far greater than Rock Falls losing to Sterling.

When our economy started to turn bad, with the downfall of NWSW, I think the two cities began to utilize one another more. The kids in my generation began hanging out together. Such things like ICQ, MSN Messenger, MySpace and Facebook really started to bridge the gaps between us DURING high school, and not 15 years afterward. We would interact more within little league baseball and softball. This is the future of the Sterling/Rock Falls area, and with apologies to those 20 years older than me, this is what it's gonna be.

Indeed, the economic downturn has caused a lot of the places mentioned in the S/RF Facebook Group to shutter. As for my generation, we have very little memories of these things.

Before I go on any further, what do I mean by "my generation"? Three years either way of myself: high school graduation classes of 2001-2008. In other words, you graduated from high school during the George W. Bush presidency. In talking with people from my generation, early memory retention doesn't seem to be all that great. Mine, however, is great and has been called so by my peers.


What do we remember of Sterling/Rock Falls prior to 1994? We will be the last generation to remember ...

*Emil's, Eberley's, George Furniture, when KFC was downtown, the Lincoln Tavern and the Kastle. But we remember them more for being destroyed.

*(Not early history, but worth noting) My high school graduating class (2005) was the last to remember the head coaching tenure of Coach Gaumer, before Coach King came in and ushered in the current feel of Sterling HS football we know today. When I graduated, I was the last remnant of the 4-5 varsity team that was outscored 99-0 our final two games of the season. Our logo during our freshman year was actually a warrior head, and not a dreamcatcher with an "S" on it.

*When Route 40 was Route 88.

*The Merrill students of my generation will be the last to remember Lois Dady teaching music, and Ludy Eddinger as a strict substitute teacher. And when the lot where a parking lot is now was big enough for a soccer game (K-2 had lunch recess on the north playground, and 3-5 was on the south playground).

*The flood of 1993 on the Rock River, the last time the river got that high. I still remember driving in my parent's '78 Buick down to the Lower Dam to look at the damage.

*Safety Park, which they tore away in the early-to-mid 90s I believe.

*The International Harvester fire of 1993, a slightly smaller version of the 2004 Mill fire that most of us do remember.

*White Hen Pantry on Locust in Sterling and First Avenue in Rock Falls. Back when they were actually called White Hen. When it was an 8th grade hangout for my graduating class, we still called it White Hen.

*What Ken Nelson looked like. His face and white hair was on the local TV commercials up until around that point.

*When they were called A&W's, and not Big Bopper's. There was still car delivery at that time, where we had to push a red button from our cars to deliver our order.

*When Kilgour Park was nothing more than an open field with hoops and a tennis court.

*The old Dairy Queen on the west side of Sterling, before they rebuilt it. Walked there on a preschool fieldtrip.

*When Supervalue was on its tail end, prompting the call for a new west side supermarket. The end result was County Market.

*Running on the orange grocery bagging shelves at the old Aldi's!!

*What Avenue G bridge looked like before it was rebuilt, it had the thin rails. My mom once said there were many holes on that bridge that looked down toward the river.

*The Glafka's Tire City jingle that sounded like the old MoTown song "The Boy from New York City"

*When circuses were on the empty lot where the Randolph Hotel once stood (West 3rd and Avenue A).

*Jerry Warren's dealership next to the Coliseum.

*Video Discount and Sam Metzler Realty ... Sam is my great-granduncle.

*When that building on the NW corner of East 4th and 12th Avenue in Sterling was actually occupied.

*When there wasn't a stop sign at the intersection of East 5th Street and 13th Avenue in Sterling, next to the Nazerene Church.

*When East End Shell was a few blocks to the west of where it is now, and Billy used to work there.

*Sterling Furniture, Sears (with the dark blue lettering), Realty World, Carpet World, Stars and Stripes Video, Pelican Restaurant, Rax, Ken Nelson by the mall and Wolohan Lumber were on the Eastern business district. And the two farthest places out where the Builder's Discount and Farm and Fleet. And there was no stoplight at 2 and Polo Road.

*Kid Zone! Camelot Music, Woolworth's and its restaurant, Walgreen's, Stuarts, KayBee Toys, the ice cream place whose name I can't recall, and the yellow-colored penny deposit where it whirled like a tornado -- all of which were at Northland Mall. (More people younger than me will remember Blackhawk Arcade and Diamond Dave's).

*The aforementioned Young's Bakery in Rock Falls, corner of West 2nd and 3rd Avenue.

*A Citgo sign and a Sunoco sign at the corner of 1st Avenue and Dixon Avenue in Rock Falls.

*Dairy Dreem, where Adami Insurance is now!

*There was a small dirt path behind the Rock Falls Eagle food store, accessible from the end of Stanley Court and going toward West 10th Street. And how real bad that trail smelled!!

*The Igloo for ice cream and Honky's for ribs in the new Centennial Plaza in Rock Falls. We had Honky's for lunch as we were packing and moving back to Sterling from Rock Falls 14 years ago.

*The black and white Central National Bank logo, with the capital "C" on top of the "NB".

*We called Rheeling's "IGA" because that was the logo we as kids could recognize. That was the last of the true neighborhood supermarkets in Rock Falls. 5th Street Mini Mart was the last of the true neighborhood supermarkets in Sterling, and we could remember that, too. It had a Pepsi logo on top of the sign.

*Dr. Provow's and Dr. Lipinski's office (as well as others) on Dixon Avenue before it was torn down due to roof damage.

*Figuring out our bowling scores using a pencil and paper, while youth bowling on Saturday morning's at Rocket Lanes. Tony Deroste, Larry Thompson, and a guy named Jim were the guys that coordinated the bowling back then.

*Red Carpet Video on Route 30, before Video Village expanded and forced it out of business.

and that's all I can think of right now.