The Pink Elephant

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Dad, mom and I drove down to St. Louis to spend the weekend with Brett and Megan. On the way there, close to the Missouri border, I saw some wild vintage memorabilia next to I-55. You know me and my love of kitsch!! On the way back, I begged to make a quick stop to check it all out and my parents indulged me. In the town of Livingston, there's a huge antique shop in what used to be the high school in town. I don't know if the town just doesn't have a high school anymore, or if they've built a newer building, but I thought it was a pretty good use for such a large building! Pink Elephant Antiques had a lot of interesting stuff on the lawn - of course, the namesake pink elephant, but also an UFO, a couple giants, and other fun stuff.
The antique store filled the large gymnasium of the old school, and there was a lot of cool vintage stuff throughout.
We drove down Route 66 for awhile and stopped in Mt. Olive, Illinois after following some signs for Mother Jones final resting spot. "Mother Jones," Mary Harris Jones, was born in Cork, Ireland, on May 1, 1830 and died on November 30, 1930, seven months after her one-hundredth birthday. During her life, she was a union organizer and pretty much a general troublemaker. She was once called "the most dangerous woman in America" by the West Virginia District Attorney, after being arrested in 1902 for ignoring an injunction banning meetings by striking miners. She is buried in Mt. Olive (although she died in Silver Spring Maryland) because of the Virden Illinois Mine Wars of 1898 to 1900. According to Rosemary Feurer, On October 12, 1898, Illinois miners at Virden, Illinois, confronted armed guards in a battle that became one of the bloodiest class conflicts in American history.

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