Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 197

i1 INSIDE SECTION 2 McHeniy County overnight 2 Metro State 6 Almanac 8 Obituaries 7, 8, 9 Weather 10 News from McHENRY COUNTY with reports from around the region i I i i I tJ Thursday, July 22, 1999 HE I lad II fall 111 1 1 I I i a i Eric Zorn Shopping centers aren't just for shopping anymore as malls aim to keep everyone in the family entertained. County to buy 78 acres for $725,000 Site near Prairie Grove close to Stickney Run Readers' Utopia: More organ donors, fewer syllables sssr arUii wTrrnrv ji mm wn ffmf ti mr'faf -A t.i.iBv,..,,-,' aijft MMmnm r-, -tumtmm mmn mi' min Jean Callary of DeKalb and David McKirnan of Chicago are people after my own heart and yours. Both recently submitted a provocative proposal to the Idea Oven, this column's occasional suggestion box for the still-not-quite-baked notions of the world. Their idea: negative check-off organ donation. As it stands now, if you'd like to donate your organs upon your death, you must sign a special section on your driver's license and have that signature witnessed.

The underlying presumption is that, barring specific instructions to the contrary, you and your survivors will want to hang onto those organs and bury or burn them along with you. But Callary and McKirnan are among those who believe that reversing that presumptionallowing hospitals and trauma centers to harvest usable organs unless By Donna Santi Special to the Tribune The McHenry County Conservation District intends to pay $725,000 for 78 acres near Prairie Grove and the Fox River, expanding its land holdings in the area to more than 530 acres. After an executive session last week, the board of trustees voted to enter into a contract to buy the land, at the northeast, corner of Barreville and Nish Roads, about 2 miles north of Illinois Highway 176. Closing is expected by the board's next, meeting on Aug. 5.

Known as the Wigginton parcel, the sellers are two families who have the land in a bank trust. They have owned it for more than 30 years. The district has had an eye on the acreage since the mid- to late-1970s, said Craig Hubert, executive director of the Conservation District. But district officials were previously unsuccessful in getting the owners to negotiate. Condemnation proceedings were begun by the district in June 1998, and the parties recently agreed to terms out-of-court, said Roger Stelle, Conservation District attorney.

The new acquisition is about 10 percent wetland. Its biggest attractions are its woodlands and gently rolling hills, said Ken Koehler, MCCD board president The land contains a geologically significant kame, or hill, formed by the movement of glaciers. "The land has some nice physical features. The kame makes it an interesting property to hold. If we let it go to development, that feature likely would be destroyed," Koehler said.

Another selling point was the See Land, Page 2 the deceased has previously signed the back of his driver's license to prevent such procurementwould dramatically prolong the lives of at least some of the 4,000 Americans who now die 'All English letters have one quick syllable, except for this one Tribune photo by Bonnie Trafelet Doug Byers, 6, of Sarasota, catches a nap atop a Orchard Shopping Center in Skokie. While his older brothers giant dragon's head in the children's climbing area at Old kept an eye on Doug, mom went shopping. Making the most of the mall County's rejection of plant won't deter others Centers add fun to lure people, keep them there By Card Karuhn Tribune Staff Writer On a recent rainy day, Sandra and Phil Terna and their four children, ages 7 months to 8 years, spent five hours shopping and all they had to show for it was a coffee mug. So what did they do all day at Woodfield Shopping Center? They browsed. Two of their oldest children scaled a 20-foot-tall climbing wall They checked out a virtual-reality arcade, played in the toy stores and ate lunch next to live parrots and exotic fish.

They would have gone to the movies, but "Tarzan" was not playing there. "It was fun to have a wander around," said Sandra Terna, whose family was visaing from Ft Walton Beach, Fla. That's exactly what more and more shopping centers have in mind. Because they are competing against the Internet, mail-order catalogs and other merchandise venues, malls are trying to find new ways to lure customers. Once customers arrive, the centers want to offer things to do besides shop because most people hit a shopping saturation point sooner or later.

To that end, shopping centers have been adding more restaurants, movie theaters, play areas for children (and dads) and retailers offering some form of entertainment such as arcades. For parents, the theory is, if children have a place to play, they'll be less bored and the adults can continue shopping. For couples, shopping can be followed by dinner and a movie. Malls also are trying to hit every demographicsenior citizens in the morning, parents in the afternoon, corporate executives at lunch, teens after school, and couples after work and in the evening. See Malls, Page 2 every year awaiting transplants.

Callary suggests this wording for the negative option: "No, I do not wish to be an organ donor. I can't take much with me, but by golly 1 can take my heart and my liver and my kidneys and all that other stuff that will be completely useless to me after my death but might save the life of someone else." Jasper Pipestone of Oak Park wants us all to agree to rename the letter "dub." He writes, "All English letters have one quick syllable, except for this one deviant In the time it takes to sputter 'W you could have said three other letters. This is grossly inefficient, an impediment to fast communication and with everything www.com these days, the change is more urgent than ever." I see only two problems with Pipestone's pip. One is that, without "double-yoo," the meter of the Alphabet Song (Humiliating confession: I still sing it in my head when trying to remember if, say, comes before hits a hitch. Two is that "George Dub Bush" sounds like "George The Bush," which is unfairly silly.

Marc Wallace of Edison Park suggests that members of victims' families administer the death penalty, not disinterested executioners: "None of this using the awesome power of the state to set up a cold administrative apparatus while they sit idly by," he writes. "And no guns or injections or other easy outs either. With direct manual killing the family member can feel the full satisfaction of life draining out of another human being. Just like whoever killed their loved one." Many idea bakers are high on the idea of standardization. 1.

Joe Linder of Hampshire wants automobile manufacturers to place the gas cap on the driver's 'side of the car. 2. Monroe Roth of Chicago adds that "for safety's sake," carmakers should install inside door handles in exactly the same place and have them operate in exactly the same way in all vehicles so "there would be no time lost looking for a way to open the door in case of an emergency." 3. Jeff Winter of Skokie wants American lock companies to get together and decide once and for all which way a key should turn to unlock a lock and which way it should turn to lock it The oft-quoted Dave Graf of Chicago proposes that U.S. Postal Service officials get into the business of making and selling personalized postage stamps.

"Since these would be vanity stamps, they could get away with charging several times the face value," he observes. Dr. Mark Greenwald of Chicago sug Sara Solheim (above) scales the climbing wall at the Erehwon store, where she works in the Woodfield Shopping Center. Alexandra Appino-Tabone, 7, (left) and her sister, Alayna, 3, get a look at Jabba the Hut and other "Star Wars" characters created from sand at the Spring Hill Mall. Tribune photos by George Thompson 1 Sliver of moon brightens Michigan Avenue By Mark R.

Madler Special to the Tribune The defeat of a plan for a peak-use electric-generating plant by the McHenry County Board is not likely to deter others, industry officials said Wednesday. Several firms have been looking for sites in the county, where open land and easy access to natural gas lines and the Commonwealth Edison power distribution grid provide a perfect setting for the lucrative generating plants. In fact another company that has proposed a plant near the one rejected by the board a rural area south of Wood: stock intends to continue trying to get approval The County Board voted 15-8 Tuesday night against a proposal by Indeck Energy Services Inc. to construct a 300-megawatt, gas-powered generator on 22 acres at Illinois Highway 176, west of Illinois Highway 47 and east of Dean Street. The plant proposed by Reliant Energy of Houston, a 500-megawatt, natural-gas-powered generator, would be on 125 acres on the east side of Illinois Highway 47 where it intersects with westbound Illinois Highway 176.

Reliant officials have said that their plant disguised as a large barn with two smokestacks concealed in silos, is significantly different from the Indeck proposal. Although several board members said they were reluctant to approve Indeck because it put a heavy industrial use in an agri- See Plant, Page" 5 gests that we move Groundhog Day up to March 2, when spring really might be just around the corner. Per Greenwald, "No sensible person believes that winter will end soon after Feb. 2 under any circumstances." Jim Strickler of Chicago suggests that I 7... M.tef By Jeremy Manier Tribune Staff Writer More than 1,000 people at the foot of Tribune Tower listened with rapt attention Wednesday as Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, described the lunar landscape that he and fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong had set eyes on exactly 30 years and 1 day before.

"The words I used were 'magnificent Aldrin said. "I couldn't think of two words that described better the magnificence of the accomplishment we'd been part of, and the utter desolation of that rare scenery." Aldrin came to Chicago to unveil a chunk of that scenery, in the form of a 3.4 billion-year-old moon rock, now on display in a bulletproof case at the base of Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave. The Tribune Co. exhibit marks the first time the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has lent such a sample to a private corporation rather than a museum, school or planetariumaccording to NASA officials.

The dedication ceremony also contained a note of wistfulness for the daring spirit that led to Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon's surface. Some of Aldrin's remarks echoed those he gave at the 30th anniversary ceremonies for Apollo 11 in Washington on Tuesday, when Aldrin, Armstrong and crewmate Michael Collins all expressed disappointment that America has not set its sights on sending humans back to the moon or beyond since the end of the Apollo missions in 1972. But the signs of lasting public See Moon, Page 5 professional sports leagues impose a special tax on players' salaries that would then be spent on "loyalty bonuses" for players who remain with their teams at contract renewal time. Such an incentive would boost team stability and discourage players from hopping around from city to city. Or and this is my idea if a player becomes a free agent and changes teams, he has to leave a kidney behind.

Send your ovenworthy ideas to or call them in to 847-671-8060. Tribune photo by Chns Walker Apollo 1 1 astronaut Buzz Aldrin acknowledges the crowd Wednesday after unveiling a moon rock "exhibit at Tribune Tower..