Emerson Hough

i am amazed at what i am still able to find about emerson hough. while trying to find an article that identified hough as a co-founder of the izaak walton league i found another honor bestowed on him. a street named for him. the ike's chapter in newton is named for him, and in one cross-reference i found emerson hough drive. i recognized the name of the resident on that street, it was the parents of a classmate. and i knew they lived in lambs grove, a 'suburb' of newton. its main claim to fame is having one of newton's schools there, thomas jefferson elementary. according to the wikipedia article i found it gave the town's population as 200. some are likely surprised to hear how a town of about 15,000 would have a suburb. i felt the same way when i saw biographies of filmmaker michael moore. it listed him as being from davison, mich., a suburb of flint, instead of flint itself.
didn't go to lambs grove much, aside from going to t.j. school a few times like for a chorus concert in junior high. some think i still look and act like a choirboy, it depends on who you ask. others think i am the complete opposite, a hothead. it likely also depends on my mood and the environment. students from rival schools liked to call the school 'town junkyard'. one time in college i did make a pizza delivery there as well, to that same classmate. her mom said the change i gave was cold, it was after all winter in iowa. so on my next visit to my hometown it means getting a picture of that street sign as well.
i did find other pictures of hough honors, some are higher quality than others. the ones from my visit two weeks ago for the fundraiser are good, like the school and the 'fort' playground. the one of the ike's chapter is good, from 2007, when i was back for my most recent class reunion. a reunion was being held there, but not mine, which was at the country club. i also have one of the school and the boyhood home marker, from 2005, i think i was back for a cookout with family at woodland park. but i was trying to get the house in the picture, so it is hard to read the marker itself. i was pleased to find how the boyhood home marker is considered a landmark in town, there were plenty of hits online when i entered those key words. but no pictures of it were easily found. it's odd how attitudes change about things over time. but it's true how some things mean more to us when it's no longer 'old hat' to see it. i was largely unaware of the boyhood home marker when living there, maybe since i went to another grade school in town. i knew there was a big rock in front of a house near my cub scout pack leader, and he happened to live near the home and the school. this was why we sometimes had cub scout meetings at the school. my greatest recall was of things like the pack leader's son, who was also a little league teammate, pretending to be a lion tamer at a circus. and i was one of the lions. we went by initials for the lion names, having 'double a, double l, and jc'. it may have been the same one when we had a sign up saying 'happy birthday to us', meaning the anniversary of the cub scouts organization.
also notable was finds i made when looking up 'far from the madding crowd', hough's first published article. found out there was a book, and many movies, of the same name. the book was written a few years before hough's 1882 article, by thomas hardy if i'm not mistaken. i know it as the name of a bookstore in west des moines,ia., where i bought my copy of 'gilbert grape' after it gained notoriety from media attention that an iowa school had banned it. likely made the book even more popular than ever, got me to read it. and get the movie version as well. i had lived in that section of west des moines for a year and a half, called valley junction, after college. but i don't think the bookstore was there then. it has been a while since i've lived there though. it's a nice historic section of town, plenty of antique shops there, and a farmers market in front of my apartment building every thursday. i lived right over the businesses on that street, hence the number was 224 1/2. also liked the words 'valley junction' spelled out in red brick in the wall
at the end of the block, and on the other side of the cross street.
work was a little easier for me today, maybe since it was friday. there were concerns about traffic problems due to a protest downtown, late in the afternoon. but it was over before my workday was done. looked outside the window and saw mountie cops, which are popular for crowd control. a colleague told my boss about it, something about protests at a state government agency in our building, and trade with israel.
i once made an observation in a writing that was in a national publication saying 'lincoln is everywhere'. well i find that if you're willing to look, emerson hough is everywhere, or at least his influences are. praise to the internet, it is a wonderful search tool!