For three weeks in April, while delivering "Adagio" to Peoria, I scanned the riverbanks for interesting or unusual homes. I collected a number of these photo images into a "river bluff homes" folder. Perhaps a bit macabre, Menard is nonetheless a remarkable "home" to more than 3,100 inmates, many on death row. John Wayne Gacy spent his final days there before being lethally injected for multiple murder convictions. Charles Manson has been at home in Menard for some thirty years.

Slogging against a 5mph current, I had more time than I wanted to absorb the haunting image of this state "penitentiary", built by inmate labor in 1878. I felt oddly self-conscious, wondering whether any of the inmates had windowed cells whereby they could see me passing on the river. Would they be jealous, envious, embittered at the sight of my flagrant exercise of freedom? Perhaps the more hardened souls could notice me with indifference. I felt almost embarrassed at the stark contrast of our lives: freedom versus lockdown.

The sobering reminder of these condemned and forgotten souls was very slow to fade. The renewed sense of my own freedom and opportunity lingers yet today. Nothing I can do for those unfortunates. Plenty I can do to make sure I don't end up in the same predicament.

I don't really look forward to going by Menard again in August. Maybe it will be a rainy summer and the Caboose will have to be trucked past that part of the Mississippi due to excessive current. Que sera, sera .