Welcome! A pineapple, artfully imagined by a caricature of soft-spoken Bob Ross atop the holiday tree where an angel usually sits, is an invitation to enjoy the curated events as well as dining and shopping opportunities featured in this month’s edition. Life, liberty and the pursuit of hearty laughs and good news have been our aim in print for more than 20 years. Some of our biggest laughs have come when readers assert PN will never win a Pulitzer. Considering the challenges most of us have encountered the past two years, our hope is to find peace and a little prosperity in good humor.
As 2021 begins to wrap up, our PN editors, photographers, contributing columnists and sponsoring advertisers have wondered where time has gone since we last looked forward to the holidays.
With many memorable annual events and activities canceled that used to keep us out on the beat, we’ve often questioned whether we’ve used our indoor time wisely.
Certainly reading and keeping track of updates with information about the pandemic have broadened our small, independent business’ view in epidemic proportions. Many times with a plethora of opinions presented on electronic screens 24-7, we’ve wondered when and how we should trust the science.
Let us digress. Time flies.
My first job right out of college was in advertising in New York City. In a matter of time, I became a copywriter working on the trade account for Westclox, an American manufacturer of clocks, best known for alarm clocks.
Trade accounts typically are assigned to cub copywriters to get them started. Westclox offered adorable alarm clocks designed for youngsters that our team was to promote to retailers so they could stock them in time to sell for the holidays. During the summer we worked on ads with the aim to find the headline that might inspire purchase for consumers.
As is customary, most creative teams joke with clichés and familiar musings such as “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana” to get those trivial thoughts out of their minds before they get down to business.
And, of course, we were mindful of many quotes attributed to one of the greatest American thinkers and inventers of all time, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin had plenty to say during his 84-year lifetime that ended in 1790. “Do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.”
Reminiscing with time on our hands, about a year ago I was thumbing through my old portfolio with copies of ads that had run in the 1970s, and I wondered whatever happened to Westclox. And what to our wondering eyes should appear during an online search? Westclox was founded as the United Clock Company in Peru, Illinois, in 1885.
Big Ben alarm clocks (a name likely inspired by the clock tower in London) were first sold in 1909, followed by the Baby Ben in 1910.
The Westclox Museum now sits in the old Westclox factory building in Peru, located in LaSalle County, about 70 miles west of Naperville. Reportedly hundreds of clocks are displayed along with their history that dates back more than 136 years. Reviews online about the museum are inviting. We might visit when we have time.
Oh! How times they are changing!
Currently, we’re wound up to promote a movement that requires paying attention to what’s happening here while local budgets are presented and approved.
And that’s another story that will be followed online. Note the City Council will be approving the 2022 budget for $540 million on Dec. 7.
Be safe and sensible. Sing songs of the season. Since we were little kids, we were taught to wash our hands often—but not to wash away commonsense.
Nobody’s perfect. Nobody makes all the right moves. Simply consider the wise words spoken by Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol, symbolic of Ebenezer Scrooge’s change of heart as written by Charles Dickens: “God Bless Us Every One.”
And with cherished memories of the sweet sounds of Johnny Mathis, “Although it’s been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you.”
– Stephanie Penick, PN Publisher
Publisher’s Update / Iconic American painter Bob Ross in a Santa hat is portrayed painting bananas topped with a “welcoming” pineapple. Ross is a PN favorite, known for his soft-spoken accomplishments inside the historic home where “The Joy of Painting” was filmed in Muncie, Ind. Muncie is the childhood hometown of PN’s publisher.
The immersive Bob Ross Experience, featured for the past year at Minnetrista Museum, is a showcase of original paintings to inspire “visitors with Bob’s message of fearless creativity.” Minnetrista Museum and Gardens is just a little more than a four-hour drive from Naperville. And there’s no place like home for the holidays.