ANOTHER SLICE OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA

I recently taught a class at the Illinois State Rifle Range in Kankakee, Illinois. Set in the “breadbasket of the nation” farmlands surrounding that small city, it’s a great range and getting greater, with substantial construction going on as I write this.  More ranges, and also a spacious classroom are being built. However, there’s not yet a classroom on the range per se, so we rented the nearest hall for that part of the program.  This year and last, that was the Lions Club in Bonfield, IL.

With a listed population of 364, there isn’t exactly a “downtown Bonfield.”  They used to have a café there.  The village restaurant is where the locals gather to talk about everything from crops to local politics to solving the problems of the world and hey, how are the grandkids? When the café closed its doors, the Lions stepped in to fill the gap.

They configured part of their meeting hall to a separate-able coffee shop, specifically a coffee-and-continental-breakfast shop.  Menu prices look as if they came back from the past in a time machine. Think “donation,” not “bill.”  I learned that the coffee shop is not run for profit.  They just ask enough to cover expenses.  The Lions Club is one of our great civic groups, and their purpose in opening their club for this purpose was to serve the community.  To maintain a gathering place for the citizens.

For the four ten-hour days of a MAG-40 immersion course, the ladies of the Lions did noble service feeding the thirty-some students and seven staff that MAG and its host entity, MTG, brought in.  They fed us splendidly, and we collectively groveled in gratitude.

I discovered that, at least in this chapter of the Lions, the ladies who fed us so well are not to be called Lionesses.  Apparently, that element of the Lions Club is falling by the wayside and the women are, in most chapters, Lions like the men.

The Lions Club is one of our greatest civic groups, particularly important to the smaller and more rural communities.  They embody all the best values of America.  Our time there was sort of a Norman Rockwell moment.

Have I mentioned lately that I love this country?

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