Flashback Friday

Shangri-La is a supposedly fictional place described in a book and later a movie, by James Hilton.  I can't recall if either gave it an actual locale but it was a valley with mountains all around and was the place of a lamasery.  It was a Himalayan utopia - a permanently happy place, isolated from the rest of a cruel and sinister world.  

My Shangri-La is in Burgess, nestled somewhere within corn fields and Routes 94 & 67. It may be on Google maps now, and mores the pity.  It needs to be undiscovered.  It is inhabited by High Lama Marvin and his Porter, Wing man and Black Belt Master, Richard.   

I can't claim that I discovered it on my own.  The current Mrs. Blythe is friends with Marvin's wife, and I was simply a passenger.  But like the protagonist in the book and movie, I have often felt the allure of Burgess and if circumstances were different in life, I would have chosen the bucolic setting of my little Mercer County Shangri-La rather than the sinister city of Galesburg.  

This set of pictures is something I stumbled on while visiting Aledo and driving by Burgess one evening.  Yes, they actually do campfires and play their guitars outside.  It's like a senior Woodstock.  You won't see this very often anywhere else except renaissance fairs, street musicians, or other panhandling type activity.  They offered me a seat, a beer and I was witness to a pretty neat concert of sorts by the 9-fingered maestro and High Lama.  

At one time Burgess was one of the biggest things around Mercer County, but time passed it by and business and commerce went elsewhere.  There is also a book floating around somewhere with some history of the place.  Burgess was home of the Sugar Shack, and countless evenings at the bar, at the swimming pool, on Janine's great deck.  It was where the Green Monster was but is no longer.  There was also an alien spaceship that buzzed by or maybe crashed nearby.   Made the papers they say.  It was where your blogger, while stuffing a cigar in the Master's mail box one lazy Sunday of riding was questioned/interrogated by Neighborhood Watch Gib as to why a shirtless, tattooed biker would need to be in these parts.  

If by chance you ever get lost and magically find a small oasis rising from the cornfields, go ahead and stop to recharge your batteries and gain a different perspective on life.  Odds are the bar will be open with a fully stocked fridge, maybe some snacks, and Lawrence Welk or football on TV.  If you stay the night you may end up with the best breakfast you have ever experienced.  And if you are really lucky, Marvin may grab his guitar from the corner and serenade you into thinking you are in heaven.  It probably is.

Now don't go rushing to Google maps or gas up the car trying to find it.  I've probably said too much.  It exists, but you can't find it from where you are.  There is no way to get there.  It exists mostly in your imagination.  It must remain a secret. Burgess-La is a state of mind, not a place.  And it must remain untouched.  There are other heavens. of course:  BFE, a dead-end road near Wataga, a car show, a lazy day of fishing, a warm coo of a grandkid on your neck as you hold them tight.  But Burgess-La is a state of mind that makes magic.