The Illinois Day celebration was a big success as more than 400 people attended the event at the Community Center this past Saturday.

And what a bunch of friendly people!

From what I could see, there were more Cub fans than White Sox, several were wearing Black Hawks jerseys and there was an abundance of Bears shirts and caps.

And we even had a former governor in attendance. Jim Edgar, who served in that capacity from 1991 to 1999, now lives in Fountain Hills for three months each year.

More than 550 Chicago dogs were served.

We haven’t heard how much money we made for the museum, but Executive Director Tony Basche said he had nothing but compliments on the day’s activities.

“Oh we did have some people complain that the band was too loud, Basche said. “But they all seemed to enjoy the music they played.”

The next event is the second annual WisconsinFest, scheduled for March 15. This is the event that spawned these state recognition day celebrations.

We had a number of attendees tour the museum after leaving the party. That was one of the goals we had in holding these state day celebrations and that was to create more awareness for the museum.

I did hear that there was general agreement around the room that everyone was glad they were in Fountain Hills that day and away from the sub-zero temperatures back in their home state.

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Speaking of the weather, Diane left New Jersey just in time. She went back on Jan. 15 to see our new granddaughter.

She only left the house one time during her visit. It snowed one day she was there which she enjoyed. When she left on Monday, it was 50 degrees. Tuesday, the temperature dropped into the single digits, they had 12 inches of snow and hundreds of flights were canceled out of Newark International Airport.

Diane said she had a “relaxing” time, during her visit there. The new baby, Brielle, slept most of the time, two-year-old Brylee wanted to “cuddle with grandma” all the time and the two boys, five-year-old Brandon and four-year–old Brody were playing games on their tablets they got for Christmas.

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As I was making the rounds at the lIlinois Day celebration on Saturday, I had a lot of people ask where I grew up and how big was Phoenix then.

I was born in Oklahoma City. I was nine years old when our family moved to Phoenix on March 10, 1957. We rented a house near the fairgrounds on the corner of 21st Avenue and West Lewis. The population of the entire Valley was 156,000. That included Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, Glendale and Chandler.

You’d drive through open fields, mostly planted with onions between 27th Avenue and 51st Avenue on the west side. The subdivisions on the north side of Phoenix didn’t extend much farther than Missouri Avenue. Going north you would again drive through planted fields until you got to Sunnyslope.

On the east side, there was a gap between 48th street and Scottsdale. The first traffic signal in Scottsdale was activated in 1958 at the intersection of Indian School and Scottsdale Roads.

Oh, the memories.