I'm the name from the billboard vandalism

AND THIS IS A LITERACY PSA

Yesterday morning I was shaken awake at 10 a.m. from a long night of playing Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005). My phone was ringing. It was receiving texts. It was full of direct messages (DMs). Everyone in the city, and several from outside of it, were asking me if I saw it. My stomach dropped. In my line of work, “it” could mean anything. Luckily, many included a photo for clarification.

My response was practically the same across the board, “haha, damn, that’s wild.” I chuckled at the spelling. I couldn’t tell if it was a Freudian slip or a fifth grade education. Lots of people mired in painful cognitive dissonance have the word “file” on the mind lately. I guess the same is true of “pedophile.”

Anyway, as I told the legendary Doug Jenkins from the Big Z, I can promise everyone I am not a pedophile. Outside of a few fake profiles, no one of any repute believed these allegations. They are unfounded. In fact, a lot of people immediately swept in to my aid, saying they should have added the word “hunter” at the end of their message.

That bothered me. It didn’t bother me as much as being called a pedofile, but it bothered me. See, I don’t hunt.

Things find their ways to me. In every major local issue in which I played a pivotal role, I was merely telling folks what was already well-known for years. In fact, most of the time, I offered myself as a vessel for someone else’s story. I don’t go hunting. I listen.

A lot of people here feel like they don’t have power. We have built a world in which we don’t have to care about the plights of our neighbors until someone screams it in our faces. Then we build more and more obstacles between us and that person who screams it. When you have to be screamed at, you don’t hear the meek voices who have been saying the same thing. They can’t ask for help without feeling like an inconvenience, because their stories are inconvenient.

Convenience is a 24/7 shop that preys on the naivety of children. Inconvenience is being told you should do something about it. I like to scream it into faces. I like to demand we act by the morals we hold dear. If we can’t, we should move out of the way. And, if we’re forced to move out of the way, we should ask ourselves what kept us brave enough to stand in the way of truth, but too much of a coward to lead it to power?

Almost two centuries ago, Elijah Lovejoy — in whose honor this publication is named — stood in our city and demanded we took action. He wanted to end the obvious cruelty of slavery. Alton took action by throwing his press into the river and eventually killing him. I must do better for him if the best I can do is catch ire from a dumbass who can’t spell pedophile.

He spoke for those who this city refused to hear. I can only hope I’m doing the same. Like I said, if I have heard about it, it’s probably been well-known for years.

Which brings me to gratitude and community. This is Jesse Weller, the partner of Paula Jameson, who runs Enjoy Grafton. They worked with my dear friend Andrew Weishaupt and the City of Alton’s Public Works Department to cover it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t honored by them doing this in the rain on a Saturday morning, but I said I didn’t care if it wasn’t covered.

I was wrong not to care. I was being selfish. I didn’t care that someone said that about me, but I didn’t even consider what it did to our community. Currently, F1 Powerboat races are occurring at the riverfront. People from all over the nation are in town to watch them. They are likely going to drive our Great River Road to Grafton to enjoy the scenery. When they head into Alton, they will see that sign disrespected.

As I told Doug and the Big Z, I hated to see our community represented like that. I’m proud of Alton. I know the darkness, the pain, and the major issues we are all facing as a city. Trust me. I know them all too well. However, I am still proud of us. We work together, we reach across barriers, we embrace our diversity, and we air our grievances freely. There is a lot to love about our weird little river city, and I don’t want the first thing someone sees as they enter it from one of the nation’s most beautiful drives a prime example of some downright disrespectful illiteracy.

While I know the Alton Police Department won’t likely discover who did it, regardless of how much they want to, I hope they do. I mean, yeah, it would give me some peace of mind to know who did it. I have a long list of enemies — potentially including the band Puddle of Mudd. Knowing who did it would at least pinpoint which one.

More importantly, though, our tax dollars shouldn’t have had to have been spent on this. SOMEONE HAS TO FIX THE ROADS! THE ROADS! FIX THE ROADS! Sorry, I was temporarily possessed by the average Facebook commenter with a second-grade knowledge of basic civics, and backspace doesn’t work. I hope they catch who did this so they have to refund our money from their own pockets.

Sometimes, dear readers, I forget that community doesn’t mean long nights of deep research and therapy sessions dedicated to how not to take on too much grief from a child’s death while still experiencing my own feelings of it. It also means allowing people to help. It means not trying to seem so nonchalant about something that you forget it affects more than just you. What happens to me affects more than just me, and I would be a better man to remember that.

Like this sign, I can only hope my name represents the Alton I love and the city for which I will always fight positively. I want to show the world that this city will rally around the meek until they inherit their rightful plots of earth and rightful ability to speak of their experiences. I love being associated with the good parts of this place by people who I view likewise.

I can’t look at the native plant beds and not think of fun nights with Christine Favilla and Sara McGibany that taught me the feminist power machine churning all the wonderful street festivals and regionally known farmers market. I can’t go through Alton’s so-called “Mexico” neighborhood and not recall learning its history and meeting its residents with Josh Young. I can’t pass by the old (but not the first) Riverbend Billiards building on a Sunday and not see people congregated without thinking of Pastor Peter Hough’s loving smile.

We will not always get along. I will even hate your takes and block your ass on Facebook for being an asshole, but when it comes to this city, I hope we can all agree that we can work together for a better world.