Bargains galore in downtown Naperville

Sandwiched between weekends of the Naperville Exchange Club's Ribfest at Knoch Park and the 49th annual Naperville Woman's Club Fine Art Fair at Naper Settlement, is the start of the Sizzlin' Summer Sidewalk Sale in downtown Naperville.

Three days of sales begin Thursday where you'll find bargains galore set up outdoors and indoors as well as under tents from 9 a.m. until dusk through Saturday.

Those three events just go to show you how one thing leads to the other in a city of traditions - local connections where it's fun to pay attention.

For instance, I ran into Exchange Club member Walter Johnson at Ribfest. When I saw Johnson, who is also vice president for resource development at the Heritage YMCA, I flashed back to a recent column when I left off the "s" on Tom Miers' name at the mention that he was leading the Y's Strong Kids Campaign. When I apologized to Miers for the omission some time ago, he shrugged it off, noting it was more important to surpass the campaign goal of $500,000, which he did.

During the judging for the Best Ribs and Best Sauce Saturday, I answered a few questions for a new reporter on the Naperville beat. When the 20-year-old found out Ribfest started the same year she was born, in 1988, she wondered how it could be the 21st event.

Unlike birth days that are considered a zero year, I explained, many events begin counting the first.

I wish I'd thought it through before my Mother's Day column in May. Of all times, I miscalculated by one year short the number of times I've celebrated Mother's Day as a mom. In 1979, our first child was just 2 months old, so 2008 was my 30th Mother's Day, even though our daughter is 29.

Picture this one

My 10-year-old camera met its demise Friday. I left the world of dinosaurs to become a digital camera owner. For several years, certain family and friends have chided my old-fashioned ways as that trusted camera captured the focus of my life for a decade. I rarely left home without it. It recorded our three children's teen and college years. It traveled with me all around Naperville, the U.S. and to Europe.

And in a "meant-to-be" connection, two years ago, the camera was lost from under my chair in a downtown Naperville restaurant. I missed it for three days, hoping I'd left it someplace else. Then someone dumped it in a window well near the Naperville border. Luckily for me, the homeowner turned it into the police and an officer returned it to me.

How could this pack rat possibly discard a camera with such sentimental value before its time?

More good luck

When I went to interview someone Tuesday for a column, the homeowner welcomed me with a big smile, humming "I'm Looking over a Four-Leaf Clover," alluding to last week's column.

And to answer my wonder if any child has found a four-leaf clover in Naperville recently, another reader chimed in.

"My 15-year-old son found one on Sunday evening," wrote Nancy Coyne. "He wasn't looking for one. He was out running to reach his cross country goals and sat down on the hill at the corner of 95th and Naperville/Plainfield. He told us that while he was doing his stretches he just saw it."

Coyne said her son put the four-leaf clover in his pocket. By the time he got home, it was so shredded that he threw it away.

"Funny how sometimes when you look very hard for something, you might come up empty-handed, but when you aren't looking it can be right in front of you," wrote Coyne.

Isn't that the truth!

Thursday morning, while walking our dog, Karl hurriedly led me along the sidewalk in Buttonwood Park. My eye caught a clover standing tall in the parkway.

At first, I thought I was imagining four leaves. But it had four leaves!

Back home, I placed it between two pieces of newsprint and pressed it under "clover" in a dictionary. Maybe I'll remember where I to find this one.

And perhaps with a little luck, we'll have some showers today, followed by glorious sunshine for the sidewalk sales and the NWC Fine Art Fair.

Stephanie Penick writes about Naperville on Tuesdays in Neighbor. Contact her at spennydh@aol.com.