Geneva a big winner with 'Ellen' exposure

I hope Geneva city officials, the chamber of commerce, and anybody else involved in promoting Geneva send a "thank you" note to Cathie Fischer.

She's the Geneva woman who nominated Geneva for the "Wish You Were Here" contest on the "The Ellen DeGeneres" talk show. And although the town didn't place first, it still won big.

DeGeneres sent the show's DJ, Stryker, to Geneva's Christmas Walk Friday. The results aired in a five-minute segment on Tuesday's show, seen in more than 240 television markets, including 18 international. It was on Channel 5 WMAQ here.

Geneva couldn't have paid for better, more flattering exposure.

"God, this looks like it was amazing," said DeGeneres as she introduced the segment profiling Geneva, the first runner-up in the contest to have her come visit a town (Flagstaff, Ariz., won).

After sharing eggnog with the Fischers at their home, they whisked Stryker off to Third Street.

There, he made candy canes with the crew at Graham's Chocolates; sampled a freshly roasted chestnut; shopped at the Little Traveler; tapped a Swedish pepparkakor ginger cookie with Santa Lucia; and saw the lights come on the Great Tree at the old Kane County courthouse.

"It's like a Charles Dickens novel around here," marveled Stryker, who has hosted shows on MTV, is a radio DJ and co-hosts "Loveline," a syndicated sex advice radio show.

He managed to get in a dig at talk show host Oprah Winfrey while visiting the Little Traveler. There was a sign over some teas proclaiming them as "Oprah's Favorite." He scrawled "Ellen's Fav Tea, Ellen #1" on another card and taped it over the first sign.

"That town does not look real. I'm jealous, I'm jealous," said DeGeneres after seeing Stryker's whirlwind visit.

Fischer and her husband, Dusty, were flown out to the show's taping in California Monday, where they got to meet DeGeneres.

If you missed the show, you can see the segment on the show's Web site, www.ellen.warnerbros.com. Go to the "galleries" button and look for it in the video gallery. It's called "Picture Perfect." And indeed, the snow-covered city looked just that.

Attention, leaf-rakers

City public works employees still hope to pick up fallen leaves from your curbside. Really.

The city had scheduled extra leaf pickup beginning Nov. 26, because leaves fell kind of late this year. The city is divided into three zones, B, C and A. Zone B, which was first up this year, got its extra pickup, but crews only managed to get through about half of zone C and none of zone A. The trucks that are used for vacuuming up leaves are the same trucks that are used to plow snow.

"We can't even find the leaves at this point," Dan Dinges, public works director, said. But if weather warms up and the snow melts away, the workers intend to get back out there.

Those of you who pushed the leaves off your yards and into the streets aren't doing yourselves any favors. Dinges told the city council Monday that those leaves are often thrown back up onto the yard by the plow blades. Leaves in the streets also clog storm sewer inlets, which could cause flooding when all this snow and ice melts.

By the way, the zones are rotated every year, in an effort to be fair.