When will economy perk up in Elgin?
Erin Calandriello: I have been covering local layoffs for the past two years. Supposedly, our economy is picking up. The Yankees winning the World Series Wednesday night apparently is another indicator that America will come out of its financial rut.

Unearthing facts about our area's history
Steven Ross Johnson: Little-known fact: At one time, wild rice grew around the Chicago River. Chances are that any rice grown from that area these days would make it to the plates of only the bravest diners (me not being one of them), but it does reveal a little bit about what earlier life was like in northern Illinois.

Of flu, mittens and planners
Dave Gathman: When the idea was approved by the Hampshire and Burlington village boards last month, it sounded pretty alarmist. Because Burlington has no police force of its own, the villages agreed that Hampshire cops would be made available to provide an armed escort for delivery of H1N1 flu vaccine to Burlington destinations.

Holidays before the goodbyes
Holiday dinners in my family tend to be a little chaotic. With kids, dogs and plenty of football games to watch, we're hardly a quiet crowd and our get-together on Saturday was no exception.

All in the family with Elgin City Council
If you channel-surf onto last week's Elgin City Council committee of the whole meeting, you have to stay tuned for a moment of unusually high drama between council members Robert Gilliam and Richard Dunne.

Taking time for local schools
One of the things I've always admired about Chicago-area folk is their willingness to pitch in during times of crisis. Don't believe me? Think back to the last time we got a foot or more of snow.

More haunted tales about Elgin
Erin Calandriello: My grandma, Bea, and my great-grandmother, Valerie, were supposed to board the Eastland ship in Chicago in July 1915. It was set to sail up the Chicago River to Michigan City. The Western Electric Co. was taking its employees and their families on a day cruise and picnic.

Speed limit studies limited
Dave Gathman: At the village board's request, the Illinois Department of Transportation has agreed study whether it would be allowable to lower the speed limits on Route 72 in front of Tuscany Woods subdivision, from 55 mph down to 45.

Time for dose of common sense
Julia Doyle: Growing up in a large family meant sharing a lot of things — bedrooms, clothes, bathrooms, toys and germs. With three older sisters plus nephews and nieces who started arriving when I was 5 years old, it wasn't uncommon for the same cold or flu bug to cycle through the household — sometimes more than once. Add to that the day care my mom ran out of our house for several years, and our home was a virtual petri dish.

A mysterious note about Stegall home fix-up grant
Upon cleaning off the cyclonic mess that was my desk last week, I discovered a note sent a while ago, not directly to me but to this office. Printed out in a small font on a carefully torn sheet of paper, it looked like it would belong in a really big fortune cookie or in a bottle headed out to sea.

This debate needs civility
You can tell it's fall in Geneva by the sea of white crosses temporarily adorning the St. Peter Catholic Church front lawn. Each cross is intended to represent one of the more than 3,000 abortions that take place in this country every day.

Elusive parking space a lesson in value at ECC
After I digest my Thanksgiving Day meal, Black Friday awaits me at 5 a.m.

End of the road for Mill debate
I wrote last time about confusion over whether Hampshire has a Mill Street or a Mill Avenue, and a South Street or a South Avenue. The testimony of three experts -- some veteran Hampshire residents -- is in, and the verdict is in.

Time for some monster mashin'
How can I just sit at home drinking pumpkin beer and crunching taffy apples when a legendary horror punk band and a death metal outfit are coming to West Dundee this very week and a mortician is bringing his party to Elgin for the first time on Halloween night?

An urgent call for back-up
I'm pretty tech-savvy, but in the last year and a half, I feel like maybe technology is revolting against me. In the last 18 months, I've replaced a TV, a computer, two DVD players, an iPod and a microwave. My new laptop also needed its keyboard replaced after only a year. And that's just at home.

Why not stage buses at nearby school?
Jeff Ward: One of my favorite things about this journalistic endeavor is proffering an opinion on issues like the recent case involving an Elgin beauty school suing a student for Internet defamation. But as interesting as those national test cases are, I find the lesser-known local court battles to be far more intriguing.

Don't ban pit bulls, residents plead
I can still remember my first puppy, Annie. I was 5 years old, and my parents and I were driving in the Clark Griswold-esque wooden paneled station wagon past the Amoco gas station on Cumberland Avenue in Chicago.

Museum’s collection includes killers' birds
At the time, it was dubbed "the crime of the century." The gruesome murder of a 14-year-old boy in 1924 at the hands of Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb became forever embedded in the minds of generations to follow as one of the most heinous acts in history.

On the road to confusion
Does Hampshire have a Mill Street or a Mill Avenue? I began to wonder when I was editing a recent story by correspondent Jeanie Mayer. She had listed the address of the Getz's Auto Body building as 196 Mill Ave. It seemed to my ear that I had always heard that largely industrial thoroughfare as being Mill Street.

Haunts not scary, just bittersweet
Mike Danahey: Musician Joe Cullen recently took a trip back to a his old haunt in Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood, a small bar that he says played a big role in the wave of interest in traditional Irish music that rolled across the United States in the 1990s.

Putting the brakes on DUIs
Julia Doyle: It's an image that will forever be stuck in my head. A photo of a woman's shoe jammed into the floorboard of a battered Oldsmobile. The car was totaled, but the driver never took her foot off the gas pedal.

Rauschenberger worthy of another shot
I know you all think I'm a liberal Democrat, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, over the past year, it's become clear why the Democratic Party symbol is a jackass. Despite having the reins of power handed to them on a silver platter — at both the state and federal level — they can't manage to accomplish a freaking thing.