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This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Henry David Thoreau advised the readers of Walden to be tolerant of those who live outside the norm. "Perhaps they hear a different drummer," he said.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Take out a pencil and a piece of paper. A short quiz will do more than just my words to increase your respect for Tom Burns of Galena, Illinois.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Between St. Paul, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri, the Upper Mississippi River once planted a hundred towns beneath the bluffs to do its bidding: to cut wood for steamboats, to assemble log rafts of white pine going downstream to mills, to receive immigrants the river sent up stream to the farmlands of Iowa and Minnesota, to build and repair boats.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

What follows is a word to the wise. Whenever I drive up Brady Street hill in Davenport, Iowa, to the top of the bluffs, and cross Duck Creek, I am remined of that Sunday school song about the wise man and the foolish man. I once knew it by heart. You remember that the foolish man built his house upon the sand, while the wise man built on rock. When the "rains came down and the floods came up," the foolish man's house went "smash."

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

In those quiet moments of reflection, sitting in your kitchen as the sun rises and the coffee finishes perking, what memories of a lifetime come back strong? Sam Van Sant's story gives us a clue.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

What follows is the story of how Christmas came to the Illinois prairie in 1869, courtesy of a war in Europe.