Eastlight offers Fun at the Ol' Trailer Park

When you walk into the auditorium at East Peoria High School this weekend, there will be no doubt which musical you are going to see. Otherwise, you might wonder what kind of temporary classrooms they use these days.

That’s because there are two house trailers on the stage. On purpose.

It is the set of “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” which opens Friday at Eastlight Theatre and kicks off Eastlight’s 2014 season. It seems Steve Cordle, technical director at Eastlight, wanted the real thing rather than fake trailers for the production that runs through April 26, including a matinee on Easter Sunday.

“Steve took two real trailers, took the outer shell off of each of them, then cut them down to size to fit over a wooden superstructure he built. He also wired them so we have lights on them. We have the real thing on our stage, just smaller than normal,” said Mike Reams, who is director of the show.

The smaller of the trailers spins on a turntable to show the interior and the other pulls apart at the back for the same purpose.

The setting is a trailer park in Florida that backs up to a privacy fence with sorry-looking palm trees on the other side. Throw in accents that border on the hillbilly, costumes any redneck would love and a story line and lyrics to match and you have a stereotypical show about life in a trailer park.

Asked about the show’s redeeming qualities, it took a while for Reams to stop laughing. “Really, it is a funny, funny show. The purpose of it is to just have a good time when you see it. Yes, it does parody just about every kind of stereotype about trailer park living but it does have a heart to it. The characters aren’t all just caricatures,” he said.

“It’s a lighthearted story built around people who happen to live in a trailer park.”

“The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” written by David Nehls and Betsy Kelso, has been described as South Park meets Desperate Housewives. The New Yorker called it “more fun than a chair-throwing Jerry Springer show set to music.”

It explores the lives of a few tenants of Armadillo Acres Trailer Park and includes a few strippers, an agoraphobic woman and her philandering husband, and an undershirt wearing redneck who loves to drive around and collect road kill  ̶  on his front bumper.

The stripper is Pippi, portrayed by Jillian Risinger. A Morton native who recently returned after living for a while in New York, Risinger is making her Eastlight Theatre debut. Pippi is on the run from her boyfriend and is holed up at Armadillo Acres. There becomes the love interest of Norbert, portrayed by local community theatre veteran Jarod Hazzard.

Norbert is the husband of Jeannie, portrayed by Courtney York, who has appeared in other shows at Eastlight. Jeannie won’t leave the trailer because of her agoraphobia, making it tough for her to fight for her man.

Austin Gruber portrays Duke while a trio of other women of the park, who sing several songs in Greek chorus fashion, are portrayed by Barb Couri (Betty), Carolyn Briggs-Gaul (Lin), and Susan Knoboch (Pickles).

Reams said the music, directed by Connie Tumminelli and performed by a four-piece band, is catchy, the kind of tunes people will be humming. “It’s a fun score. It isn’t real heavy or difficult,” he said.

Reams didn’t submit “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” but rather was asked by Cordle to direct it. “I was actually interested in auditioning for it, but after Steve asked me to direct I took another look at it and decided to do it. It’s kinda my kind of show, a musical with a small cast. I like smaller casts when I direct because there is more comradery in the cast and it’s easier to work one-on-one with everybody.”

It also lent itself to a shorter rehearsal schedule, he said.

Reams has directed a dozen or more shows through the years, including hits like “The Drowsy Chaperone” at Peoria Players and “Dames at Sea” at Corn Stock Theatre. He also has performed in countless shows, musicals and non-musicals, throughout the area.

This show, he said, has been one of the more enjoyable he’s done as a director. “This really has been a lot of fun to direct. All of them have been fun in their own way, but this one keeps me laughing,” he said.

“The Great American Trailer Park Musical” is for mature audiences. The show start at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and on April 23, 24, 25 and 26. The matinee on East Sunday started at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $19 and can be purchased online at www.eastlighttheatre.com.

Frizzi: Amber Waves of Dave

When I was a kid in Indiana, I stumbled across a show one Saturday afternoon on an Indianapolis TV station. The show was called “Clover Power” and it was one of those local shows that focused on the community. It featured kids and their hobbies. This particular show was one where members of 4-H, an organization for youngsters to hone their farming skills, were proudly showing off their prized livestock to the TV audience.

As a teen-aged boy from Pittsburgh who was rurally challenged, I had no interest in these tykes or their animals. What had me glued to the TV was the show’s host. He was a skinny, gap-toothed guy who was interviewing the kids with thinly veiled, sarcastic and hilarious questions.

“What a wiseacre,” I thought. How could he get away with this? The kids didn’t catch on; they were smiling and proud as punch to show off their blue ribbon winning cow or pig on TV. I thought for sure one of their parents would hit the guy. But none did. I figured  they were so proud to have their kids on TV that they didn’t catch on to what the host was actually saying.

Me? I was laughing my rump off!

And I learned a lesson: People will put up with virtually anything just to be on TV.

Thus was my introduction to one David Letterman, who recently announced his retirement after more than 30 years on late night television.

Dave’s current project, The Late Show with David Letterman, has been on the air for 22 years. Letterman jumped to CBS after his former network, NBC, chose Jay Leno over him to replace Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. NBC was banking on a Jay-Dave double shot. However, Letterman believed he had earned The Tonight Show after successfully following Carson for 10 years with Late Night With David Letterman. It also didn’t help that Dave often made fun of his employers, General Electric, while Jay played it good and safe.

Even though Leno led Letterman in the ratings for most of those years, Dave still had a strong following from his Late Night days. To me, it seemed that those who tuned into Leno did so to watch his guests while those who tuned into Dave did so to watch Dave.

While The Late Show has had many great moments, it was relatively tame compared with the hipness and edginess of Late Night. For my money, Dave did his best work when he was on NBC.

With Late Night, Letterman reinvented late night TV. Since Carson was his boss, Letterman could not do the conventional talk show format. That was Carson’s. Dave couldn’t even book the usual show-biz guests that Carson would normally book. So, Letterman created the most innovative talk show since Steve Allen.

In short, Late Night was not a talk show. It was a parody of a talk show.

Letterman was a product of Indianapolis’ Broad Ripple suburb. He was the middle child and only son of a florist and a church secretary. He graduated from Ball State University in nearby Muncie in 1969. He was fired from the campus radio station because he introduced the Claude Debussy’s classical number Clair deLune with "You remember the de Lune sisters. There was Clair, and there was Mabel."

After a stint as a radio talk show host, Dave went to work at WLWI, Channel 13. Along with Clover Power, he hosted a Saturday night show called Freeze Dried Movies. Along with playing campy “B” movies, Dave would turn his desk into a boat and reenact a scene from the movie Godzilla by using plastic toy dinosaurs. At the end of the show, he’d blow up a cardboard replica of the TV station.

Letterman was also the weekend weatherman. During the weather, he would inject off-the-wall comments, which would annoy farmers and others who would be interested in the actual weather forecasts. Some examples were his description of hail “the size of canned hams.” He congratulated a hurricane for being upgraded from a tropical storm and gave exaggerated weather reports for fake cities.

Letterman’s comedy bit was simply this: He would use his Midwestern homespun charm and his boyish toothy grin to insult people and honk them off.

And Dave, who would parody comics who constantly relied on the “F-Bomb” for laughs, would emphasize his comedy with wholesome phrases like, “Well, Gosh darn it to Heck!” Which he could get away with on TV and was 10 times funnier than cursing.

Encouraged by his first wife and his college buddies, Dave packed his rusty red pickup truck and moved to Los Angeles. He was part of the onslaught of young comedians like Jay Leno, Robin Williams and Paul Mooney who performed stand-up comedy at Mitzi Shore’s club, The Comedy Store. Letterman and Leno became good friends. Both wrote for comedian Jimmie “J.J.” Walker and his 1970s sitcom, Good Times.

Letterman also appeared on various TV and game shows, such as Mork and Mindy and Password, and was cast on the 1977 summer series The Starland Vocal Band.Show. He was a regular on Mary Tyler Moore’s ill-fated variety show, Mary, which also featured actors Michael Keaton and Swoozie Kurtz of the TV show Mike and Molly.

Letterman achieved his dream when he appeared on The Tonight Show. Carson would have Dave on regularly and then as a guest host. I remember laughing at the joke where Dave describes feeding his dogs food that was advertised as 100% beef with no additives and fillers. Since dogs drink from the toilet and root through garbage, who cares what they eat?

Here’s another Dave joke on dog food:

“I’m looking at the can and it says on there, ‘for the dog that suffers constipation.’ The way I look at it, if your dog is constipated, why mess with a good thing?”

NBC liked Letterman so much they offered him a show of his own. Problem was, it was in the morning. Late night on NBC was booked with Carson and Tom Snyder’s The Tomorrow Show. There was nowhere to put Letterman but in a time slot normally used for game shows, soap operas and normal talk shows. The show tanked after 90 episodes, running from June 23 to Oct. 24, 1980.

To this day I think the morning show was the funniest of Dave’s three shows. I was in college at the time and would hurry home from class to watch it. For some reason the NBC affiliate in Terre Haute, IN would delay the show by an hour. So, I would watch the show on the NBC affiliate in Champaign, then watch it again on the Terre Haute station. I did absolutely no homework during this 180 minutes of fine television viewing.

The David Letterman Show - Live was created by Letterman and his companion, head writer and comedian Merrill Markoe. It featured comics Valeri Bromfield, Rich Hall and Edie McClurg, who also appeared on NBC’s short lived The Richard Pryor Show. Veteran newscaster Edwin Newman would update the actual news on the live show with the audience reacting to the stories by either laughing or groaning.

One of Dave’s interviews was with Steve Martin, who was wheeled out on a bed clutching a beer because he just didn’t feel like getting out of bed that morning. Another was celebrating the 50^th anniversary of an elderly couple with rose pedals and sparklers. The sparklers set fire to the rose pedals. The crew came on stage with fire extinguishers spraying the feet of the confused partiers. All of which was aired live.

Many of Letterman’s and Markoe’s skits, like The Top-10 List, Small Town News, Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks, originated on that show. Although the show received two Emmy Awards, it was cancelled and replaced by another game show.

NBC retained Letterman under contract with the hope it could find another time slot for him. It later cancelled Snyder’s show and replaced it with Late Night With David Letterman. Markoe was named head writer.

Late Night debuted Feb. 1, 1982 in the time slot directly after Carson. The show opened with Letterman escorted onto the stage by The Rainbow Grille Peacock Girls, a third- rate group of dancers adorned with feathers that kept falling off their costumes. One of Dave’s first quips on Late Night’s was, “You know spring is just around the corner in New York City when the Peacock Girls start to moult.”

Bill Murray was Dave’s first guest. He entertained the audience by doing jumping jacks as the house band played the Olivia Newton-John song, Let’s Get Physical. Murray would also appear as the first guest on The Late Show.

The house band was led by music director Paul Shaffer, who was a band member on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Shaffer could be seen as the piano player in Bill Murray’s Nick the Lounge Singer skit as well as appearing as Don Kirshner, in a parody of the show, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Shaffer worked on Gilda Radner’s Broadway show and would also appear on keyboards as Paul “Shiv” Schaffer on the John Belushi/Dan Ackroyd album, The Blues Brothers – Briefcase Full of Blues.

Consisting mainly of Shaffer, bassist Will Lee, guitarist Sid McGinnis and drummer Anton Fig, Letterman’s house band, known then as The World’s Most Dangerous Band, has remained relatively intact over the years. I remember a co-worker going to see Fig when he was in Bloomington a few years back. When asked about Shaffer, Fig was said to have replied that Shaffer was a musical genius. There is nothing about music, especially pop music, that he doesn’t know about.

While Carson maintained momentum with his target audience, Late Night, also produced by Carson Productions, was becoming a cult classic. The show was gaining an audience of young college students who would and could stay up late to watch Dave and his irreverent antics. I was among them. In later years, when VCRs became more affordable, I would tape many of Letterman shows to watch over and over.

So, wake the kids and phone the neighbors. Here is my Top-10 List, times two!

$11)    The Late Night Monkey-Cam: Dave straps a portable camera on the back of a monkey and lets it run loose though the studio.

$12)    Elevator Races: Dave would invite guests to race each other in elevators from the 6^th floor studio to the main floor. Sportscaster Bob Costas provided the play by play.

$13)    The Velcro Suit: Dave dresses in a suit of Velcro, jumps on a trampoline and sticks to a wall.

$14)    The Alka-Seltzer Suit: Similar to the Velcro suit, Dave wears a suit of several Alka-Seltzer tablets and is dunked fizzing into a vat of water.

$15)    The Today Show Incident: While Today Show correspondents are doing the show live and outside in Rockefeller Center, Dave sticks his head out the window and interrupts the show by shouting through a megaphone that he is not wearing any pants. The stunt visibly annoyed host Bryant Gumbel.

$16)    Just Stores: Dave visits stores with names like “Just Lamps” and asks the owners if they carry anything other than lamps.

$17)    Amber Waves of Dave: Dave has a farmer mow the name “DAVE” into his field of wheat so it could be seen from the air.

$18)    The Fake Morning Show: Since many viewers taped Late Night and watched it at breakfast, Dave creates a fake morning show format, complete with a perky co-host. Monty Python’s Michael Palin demonstrates how to stuff sausages and a confused Carol Channing is interviewed.

$19)    The Rotating Show: Viewers see the show rotate 360 degrees during the hour.

$110)The NBC Bookmobile: Kathleen, the NBC librarian, is brought out by Gus, the forklift driver. Dave checks out Kathleen’s books.

$111) Kamarr, the Discount Magician: One of Dave’s frequent guests was a campy magician from the “cruise ship, resort hotel and birthday party circuit.”

$112) Live at Five: Dave enjoyed crashing a live show on the local NBC station, broadcasting from the studio across the hall.

$113) The Five Story Tower: Dave tests the laws of gravity by dropping various items from the top of a tower. These include bowling galls, watermelons, televisions , etc.

$114) Road Trip: Dave interrupts the show to take members of his staff on impromptu road trips that would make Ernie Kovacs proud.

$115) The Official General Electric Corporate Handshake: When GE became NBC’s parent company, Dave went to their offices to welcome them with a fruit basket. He was told by GE staff that authorization was not given for GE to receive the fruit basket. Dave decided to go on in, was stopped by security and he and his welcoming committee were ordered out of the building. Dave showed America what he believed to be The Official General Electric Corporate Handshake. The security guard starts to shake Dave’s hand but pulls it quickly away.

$116) The Kaufman-Lawler Bout: Comedian Andy Kaufman gets into a fight on the show with pro wrestler Jerry Lawler in front of a shocked Letterman. Years later, after Kaufman’s death, Lawler and Kaufman’s manager and close friend Bob Zmuda admit that the fight was staged.

$117) Crispin Glover: Known for playing Marty McFly’s dad in the Back to the Future films, Glover got a bit excitable during an interview and, after challenging Dave to arm wrestle, almost kicked Dave in the head. Dave walked off stage, telling the audience that he was going to check on the Top 10.

$118) Do’s and Don’ts with Frank and Fred: An adult spoof of the cartoon, Goofus and Gallant from the magazine “Highlight’s for Children,” Fred would always do the right thing while Frank chose the other path.

$119) Nastassja Kinski’s Hair Don’t: Actor Nastassja Kinski appeared on Late Night with her hair in an extremely tall bee-hive. She became flustered when Dave told her that her hair looked like “a barn owl.”

$120) Cher: The singer had been the butt of many of Dave’s jokes. While a guest on Late Night, Cher said she didn’t want to do the show because she thought Dave was an ---hole.

And one more, because it’s Dave.

$121) Dave Letterman’s Old Fashioned Christmas: Dave, his “wife”, Audrey Daniels Letterman and “The Letterman Family” make homemade Christmas gifts. The Doodletown Pipers entertain the audience. Teri Garr tells how she spent Easter at Elvis Presley’s house. In a parody of David Bowie singing a Christmas song with Bing Crosby, Dave sings The Christmas Song with Ted Nugent.

Because Carson didn’t want Dave to interview certain mainstream stars, Dave’s guests would border on the eccentric. Such guests would include Brother Theodore, a monologist who claimed to perform “stand-up tragedy.” There was also Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a diminutive sex therapist who, on one episode, recommended women use cucumbers for something other than a salad topping. Then there was NFL Hall of Fame defensive tackle Art Donovan, who told stories of the old days when he played football without a helmet.

Dave’s guests were among the young, edgy and hip. Comedians such as Paula Poundstone, Elayne Boosler, Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks, Jeff Altman, Super Dave Osborne, Jake Johannsen, Bobcat Goldthwait , Richard Lewis, Ray Romano, Craig Ferguson, Billy Connolly and Margaret Smith were mainstays. Musical guests included Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Marshall Crenshaw and Warren Zevon. Late Night literally resuscitated the career of blues singer Bonnie Raitt.

One recurring guest was actor Teri Garr. She was on so frequently it sparked a rumor that she and Dave were actually married. One night, in a show where Dave interviews Garr in his office, he talks her into taking a shower on the air.

Another frequent quest was actor Bonnie Hunt, whose sense of humor was very similar to Letterman’s. His production company, Worldwide Pants, produced her sitcom, The Bonnie Hunt Show. Letterman and Rob Burnett, a former head writer and executive producer of Late Show, were executive producers.

No guest received more exposure on Late Night than Jay Leno. Considered one of the top stand-up comedians in his day, Leno was a frequent guest. For me, the highlight of Late Night was when Jay Leno was on the show. Leno was so well liked from his appearances with Dave that he was named permanent guest host on The Tonight Show, appearing on Tuesday nights. The rest, as they say, is television history.

Much like on Steve Allen’s version of The Tonight Show, Dave had his own cast of characters. One was staff writer Chris Elliott, The son of Bob Elliott of the comedy team, Bob and Ray, Elliott would appear as several offbeat characters, like The Panicky Guy, The Guy Under The Stairs and Marlon Brando. The latter consisted of Elliott speaking incoherently and performing The Banana Dance to the tune of The Alley Cat. Elliott would later appear as a cast member on Saturday Night Live as would his daughter, Abby. Father Bob appeared in a SNL Christmas episode during the 1978-1979 season

Perhaps the oddest of Dave’s friends was Larry “Bud” Melman. Portrayed by actor Calvert DeForest, he was a short bespectacled actor who appeared in various skits. He would promote “Toast on a Stick,” hand out hot towels to travelers at a bus terminal and be wheeled out in a giant suit to the tune of Smoke on the Water. One spot had him interview “the man in the street,” only he would move away the mike while the person was still speaking.

The best Melman skit came when Dave sent him on a worldwide goodwill tour. Melman would call in during the show to report on his day. He would complain and beg Dave to let him come home.

When Letterman debuted The Late Show in 1993, Melman opened the show by appearing in the CBS eye logo pupil, proclaiming “This is CBS.” From then on, he would have to be referred to by his actual name. NBC would not let The Late Show use the name, Larry “Bud” Melman because they claimed it, along with other Late Night gags, as “intellectual property”.

When Johnny Carson announced he would retire in 1992, Letterman felt he had outgrown his original time slot and desperately wanted The Tonight Show. While Carson stayed neutral publically, he favored Dave over Jay. Carson symbolically passed the late night torch to Letterman when he appeared on The Late Show on May 13, 1994, while the show was out in Los Angeles. Dave announced that Johnny Carson would bring out The Top-10 List. “Johnny” turned out to be Calvert DeForest. After discovering that the card didn’t contain The Top-10 List, Dave asked “Johnny” to bring out the real list. Out came the real Johnny Carson to a thunderous standing ovation that got louder as Johnny sat behind Dave’s desk. It was Carson’s final appearance on television.

Despite his retirement, Carson couldn’t stop writing jokes. Not wanting them to go to waste, Johnny asked his former executive producer, Peter Lassally, who was then the senior vice president of Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants, if Dave could use some of the jokes in his monologue. When Johnny died in 2005, Letterman revealed in his tribute to Carson, that all of the jokes in his monologue that night were indeed written by Johnny.

As a continuing tribute, The Late Show performs Carson’s famous bit, Stump the Band.

As much as Letterman has been praised for his innovative and eccentric humor, very little is said about Merrill Markoe, who was the head writer on Late Night and had a 10-year personal relationship with Letterman. Like the comic, Rodney Dangerfield, Merrill Markoe gets no respect. It’s safe to say Letterman would not have been as successful as he was on national TV if it wasn’t for Markoe. In fact, Markoe’s comedic influence is still being felt on the other late night talk shows, The Late Show included.

Markoe was also a comedy pioneer, becoming a head writer of a network TV show, even at a time when there were very few female comedy writers. Even with Late Night, she was the only female writer in “the boy’s club”.

Markoe broke up with Letterman in 1988 and left Late Night at about the same time. According to her website bio, “Merrill Markoe felt that she had plumbed the depths of her ability to invent off-beat, comedic ideas for acerbic witty white hosts in suits. Haunted by the fear that the creation of Stupid Pet Tricks was going to be the only thing that would appear in her obituary should she die right then, Merrill Markoe decided to abandon the talk show game entirely unless she herself had something she needed to plug.”

Years later, Markoe would occasionally appear on The Late Show plugging her latest novel. Now an accomplished novelist and humorist, Markoe also writes an occasional article for Time Magazine.

Years ago, when Heddy (wife) and I went to New York City, one of the first spots we went to was The Ed Sullivan Theater. We were going to try to get tickets to The Late Show. Instead, we saw a sign on the door saying, “We’re sorry, but The Late Show with David Letterman is in hiatus.” It felt like the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation, where The Griswolds finally arrive at Wally World after the cross-country trip through Hell, only to discover that it was closed for repairs.

We did go over to Rupert Gee’s store, Hello Deli, which frequently appears on The Late Show. We interrupted a reporter interviewing Rupert. He stopped the interview to ask if he could help me. “Yes”, I said, probably in Dave’s dumb guy voice, “I’d like some gum.”

A friend of mine did get to see one of Dave’s show. He did verify that Dave kept the studio as cold as a meat locker.

David Letterman’s television legacy is secure. He is the longest-serving late night talk show host n American television history, having been at a desk for 31 years, He surpassed his idol, Johnny Carson last year. His alma mater, Ball State University, has named their communication and media building after him. He is a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and was the first recipient of the Comedy Awards’ Johnny Carson Award for Comedic Excellence. Letterman has been nominated for TV’s Emmys 52 times. He’s won two Daytime Emmys and four Prime Time Emmys. Add to that four American Comedy Awards and you have quite the list of accomplishments.

The late night talk show format was created by NBC executive Pat Weaver, whose daughter is the actor Sigourney Weaver. Steve Allen, the first host of The Tonight Show, made late night zany. His successor, Jack Paar, made it cerebral. Johnny Carson took the format to a whole new level. Letterman made it hilariously irreverent.

Dave’s current contemporaries, Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, have spent their whole adult life watching him and, to a man, credit him for his influence. The grasshoppers have learned well from the Master.

Letterman has just celebrated his 67^th birthday. His son, Harry, turns 12 in November. Harry’s namesake is his grandfather, Harry Joe Letterman, the florist who, according to his son, could tell jokes and be the life of the party. Joe Letterman died of a heart attack in 1973 at the age of 57. Dave was 25 at the time. He would be 52 when he himself was rushed into emergency heart bypass surgery. In typical Dave fashion, he lobbied to get the I-465 bypass that surrounds his home town of Indianapolis to be officially named, The David Letterman Bypass.

Announcing his retirement on The Late Show, Letterman explained how he told his son the news.

“I was goofing around with Harry, and I said to Harry, ‘What if I retire?’ (He said), ‘Why would you retire?’ And I said, ‘Well, because then I would be able to spend more time with the family,’” Letterman said, “and Harry looked at me and said, ‘Which part of the family?’”

What will Dave do in retirement? Much like Carson, Letterman is a very private person and seldom appears in public. Perhaps he’ll permanently move his family to his ranch in Montana. Maybe like the Frank Zappa song, Dave will be a dental floss tycoon.

Perhaps he and his son Harry will hop into the same rusty red pickup truck that Dave drove out to LA from Indiana years ago, and drive to the “Ol’ Fishin’ Hole.” I can see father and son walking down an old dirt path, fishing rods over each shoulder, the theme from The Andy Griffith Show whistling in the background. Or they may be playing Dave’s favorite song, Everlong by The Foo Fighters. Enjoy your hiatus, Dave. You’ve certainly earned it.

Personally, Heddy and I will miss David Letterman terribly. He is my all time favorite comedian. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And in the future, if I need a Dave fix, well, let’s just say that I thank the comedy stars in the heavens for YouTube.

Winter wreaked havoc on Q1 home sales

It came as no surprise that home sales in the Peoria area were off significantly during the first quarter, said officials from the Peoria Area Association of Realtors.

One of the wettest and coldest winters in central Illinois history, which also extended further into spring than normal, left sales down 18.7 percent from the first quarter of 2013, the association said on Tuesday.

But there are signs that recovery won’t take long, said PAAR President Tonya Burris, and the organization believes there are forces in play that will bring higher sales in the warmer months.

“We’re never happy to see the numbers go down and the first quarter is usually slower anyway,” Burris said. “This year the polar vortex visited us frequently in the first quarter and many buyers and sellers stayed home. Not only were there fewer buyers shopping for homes resulting in lower sales and extended days on the market but not as many people listed homes to sell, so our listings and homes inventory are also down.

“The good news is that we are beginning to see a lift in our numbers for March.”

There were 763 houses sold during the first quarter, compared with 938 a year earlier. Days on the market increased 17.2 percent, from 87 days to 102 days, an indication of fewer people looking.

Still, the median price was up slightly, from $103,950 in the first quarter 2013 to $105,000, which Burris said indicates potential buyers who were waiting to see how low prices would drop are now getting into the market. “I think a lot of people were sitting on the fence because they saw prices were falling the last couple years and they wanted to see how low they’d go. Now that prices are slowing starting to come back up, those people are coming into the market,” she said.

“Now, every time we have a nice day we have buyers out there. We’re getting multiple offers on some properties,” Burris said. She added that one agent recently sold two houses sight unseen to people transferring into the Peoria area for work.

Burris said she’s feeling good about the immediate future. “I think consumer confidence is really starting to turn around. People have had pent-up demand and they are starting to spend money in other areas, as well. I think the housing market will follow,” she said.

Listing activity is increasing, as well. It was down more than 20 percent in in the first quarter and inventory of available houses were off. But there were 598 new listings in March, a 61 percent increase over February listings, and inventory was at 2,045 houses at the end of March, compared with 1,995 a month earlier.

Another reason for confidence, Burris said, is that loans are available at still-affordable rates. Earlier in the month, Gov. Pat Quinn announced a new home loan program called Welcome Home Illinois that is designed for first-time home buyers. It provides $7,500 in down-payment assistance with interest rates as low as 3.75 percent for FHA, VA and RD loans and $4.5 percent for conventional 30-year mortgages.

This program, PAAR said, is meant to address a significant reduction in home purchases by first-time buyers, largely the result of lending restrictions wrought by the housing downturn a few years ago that included a demand for high down payments.

“We believe the Welcome Home Illinois program will give the entire home market a boost. Buyers who want to move up must first be able to sell their starter homes and this program helps first-time homebuyers qualify for a loan to buy those homes,” Burris said. “Therefore, we feel that as pent-up demand is released, and if inventory levels stay low, this year has the potential to turn into a seller’s market.”

Burris discussed the continuing effects of last November’s tornado on the local housing markets. That tornado on Nov. 17 caused heavy damage in Pekin, East Peoria and particularly in Washington, destroying hundreds of homes and heavily damaging hundreds more.

In the aftermath many houses in the region that were on the market were removed so as to give families displaced by the tornado a place to stay. Now, as rebuilding occurs or those families have bought other homes, many houses will return to the market.

Home builders will be busy all spring and summer, Burris said, rebuilding and repairing homes. “Being forward-thinking, it is obvious that will bring more into the market and the economy,” she said.

Median prices  ̶  meaning that half the homes sold were higher and half were lower  ̶ declined through much of 2012 and 2013 before showing an increase in the first quarter. The average price has fluctuated more and was $135,311 in the first quarter, compared with $127,335 in the first quarter of 2013.

Burris said median prices are the truer reflection of the market because average prices tend to be skewed by such things as repossessions.

That the median price is starting to rise again, she added, “is a good sign for the economy.”   

John Lewis: Peace inspires positive change

By Kerri Rae Hinman

John Lewis has been arrested, beaten and nearly killed in the name of peace. But the Congressman from Georgia refuses to be bitter, for that would get in the way of loving his fellow man, his preferred way of living.

Quoting his good friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis said that “Hate is too big of a burden to bear.”

Adding he is a firm believer that peace is the only way to inspire change, Lewis said, “It is better to love. It is better to love everybody.”

Lewis was the keynote speaker at a ceremony to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The ceremony was before a large audience at Renaissance Coliseum on the campus of Bradley University. Other speakers included retired U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who served as emcee, and Lewis’s congressional colleagues, U.S. Reps. Aaron Schock, Cheri Bustos and Robin Kelly.

Lewis grew up in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery. He remembers as a child being inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to get in “good trouble” or “necessary trouble.”

“You need to speak up, speak out, and work together with others to bring about change to make it right”, he said.

Lewis became a leader in the Civic Rights movement, beginning while he was a student in college. He organized silent, non-violent sit-ins where people spat on him and fellow protesters, bullied them, and even beat them. Lewis was arrested for the first time in 1960 during a non-violent protest for “disturbing the peace.” He was arrested more than 40 times during the 1960s for his various non violent protests.

He is not bitter, he said, despite the fact his bus was fire-bombed at a Greyhound bus station in 1965, or despite nearly dying after being hit over the head with a wooden crate during the Selma to Montgomery march, which also was known as Bloody Sunday.

Lewis, who went through several campaigns before he was finally elected to the  Atlanta City Council in 1981 and then to congress in 1986, said the Civil Rights Act was significant in our country’s history.

 “We live in a different country and in a better country because people came together,” Lewis said of the signing of the Act. But he said work still remains to be done.

Lewis illustrated the importance of the world coming together to fight for the common good by telling the story of a house his aunt used to live in; a “shotgun house” that had holes and a tin roof. One afternoon while Lewis and his brothers, sisters and cousins were playing in the backyard together a storm blew up. The wind was blowing, lightning was flashing and the rain was beating down on the tin roof and his aunt was afraid the house would get blown away from its weak foundation.

“We never left the house. We must continue to hold each other,” he said. “Can’t we come together and just be human? Can’t we just get along to make everything strong? America is one family living in the same house, despite our differences. We need to learn to work together for the common good.”

Lewis said it doesn’t matter whether we’re black, white or Latino; straight or gay; Democrat or Republican. We all live in the same house and that should be the message as we celebrate and commemorate the passage and the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Several of the other speakers agreed how important it is today that our leaders from both parties in Washington, D.C, set their differences aside and work together to find common ground for the good of the people.

“Who am I to hold a grudge? Who are you to hold a grudge,” said Schock, who has become good friends with Lewis while in Congress.  “I have never been through the tests of John Lewis. And yet, he has forgiven them all and remains so positive about life and his opportunities”.

Bradley President, Joanne Glasser noted that Lewis has been known as “A conscience of the U.S. Congress.” He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, the highest honor granted to any civilian.

“We need to learn to treat each other better,” said Brad McMillian, head of the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service at Bradley.