'You mean, Lincoln's under there?'

From the Chicago Tribune:

'You mean, Lincoln's under there?'
SOME THINGS ABOUT CLASS TRIPS TO SPRINGFIELD NEVER CHANGE.

By Noah Isackson. Noah Isackson is a frequent contributor to the Magazine
Published June 22, 2003

The Mel-O-Cream doughnut shop in Springfield is crowded with customers when four charter buses filled with 8th graders stop at the intersection outside. Seconds pass while the buses wait for the light to change and most of the 35 students in the first bus, Bus #1, are staring into Mel-O-Cream. Some say the shop's name over and over again. Others wave at the customers inside.

Given how quiet and country the neighborhood is, the buses are far too shiny and huge to blend in. But the Mel-O-Cream customers don't seem to be making a fuss. If there's one thing a Springfield local can count on, it's adolescent tourists. So no one even waves at the kids.

"No, most folks wouldn't do that," explains Faye Grigsby, an employee of Mel-O-Cream. "People may say 'Oh, look at that pretty bus' or 'Did you see that big bus?' We look. Maybe it's because we're always wishing we're going somewhere."

Last year, 110,000 Illinois schoolchildren took a class trip to Springfield, a tranquil town that just happens to be the state capital. On this recent morning, 146 kids from the Bryan Middle School in Elmhurst were becoming part of a popular and enduring Illinois tradition, one that has become an adolescent rite of passage.

The Bryan kids had left their school parking lot at 5:45 a.m. and made fairly good time, arriving in Springfield proper around 9 a.m. Along the way, the mostly 13-and-14-year-olds on Bus #1 feasted on nacho chips and, for the most part, said very little about the purpose of the trip--to learn about state government and politics. Their teachers must have expected as much because each student had been given a worksheet to get them thinking about what was ahead. But, at this particular moment, the kids were pondering Mel-O-Cream.

"Do people have Southern accents down here?" asks a half-standing Rachel Porzel from a front row of Bus #1. "Southern accents are really cool. I want a Southern accent."

When the buses pull away from the intersection, Porzel grasps the back of the seat in front of her to keep her balance. By way of answering her question, a teacher reminds Porzel that she is still in Illinois; Porzell, satisfied, returns to her laptop computer. Porzel had been watching the Austin Powers sequel "Goldmember" and occasionally pausing the flick to show friends a collection of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" photos that she stored on the device.

Later, Porzel explains that she "had" to bring her laptop and her friends nearby agree with her. "What else are we supposed to do?" she asks.

Indeed, this is a gadget-obsessed generation. Bus #1 is filled with the electronic buzz and hum of DVDs, CDs, stereos and laptops. Headphones are fashion accessories, sported like baseball caps and hair bands. Of course, even in 2003, some things about 8th-grade field trips remain the same--boys on one side, girls on the other, snacking on Cheez Whiz, making flatulence jokes and braiding hair, for example--but the rest might surprise an outsider. Old-fashioned pastimes like singing, flirting, and screaming are hard to spot on Bus #1. Anything social or stereotypically 8th grade happens between DVD movie scenes and hip-hop tunes by the likes of Eminem, 50 Cent, or the soundtrack from the "American Idol" television show (a program that's as critically important to these kids as dances, sports and eating). One student does read "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie. Much to the credit of this well-mannered bunch, no one appears to tease him.

Some schools buzz into town for a day and get out. Others, like Bryan Middle School, with its $95-per-person, two-day excursion, offer teenagers an adventure. The Bryan itinerary lists nine stops for each of the four buses over two days: the Executive Mansion, the Old State Capitol, the Law offices of Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois Museum, Lincoln's Tomb, the Illinois Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, the Dana Thomas House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the new State Capitol, and New Salem, the swath of country land where we're told that Lincoln "became a man."

But that's only a fraction of what's going on here. Lessons in government and politics aside, these kids are a month from 8th-grade graduation and a summer away from the historic milestone called high school. For the next few weeks, at least, Bryan's Class of 2003 is an older, cooler bunch than the other kids from their school. Today, they're traveling together without parents. Tonight, there's a dance at their hotel.

"I don't want to be there yet," says Kelly DiFrancesca, as the bus winds through downtown Springfield and draws closer to the first stop, the Governor's Mansion. DiFrancesca hops from her seat, yanks off her headphones and walks up the aisle toward Joe Fowler, a 29-year-old science and math teacher and undisputed leader of this trip.

"Mr. Fowler, can we stay on the bus the whole time?" she asks.

Fowler, wise and savvy in the art of 8th-grader management, responds with a slight grin. This is Fowler's 6th trip to Springfield, and the 4th that he organized. "How about having a seat?" he says.

Fowler has sandy blond hair, broad shoulders and wire-rim glasses. He owns a season pass to Disneyworld and his response to almost everything trip-related ends with "not a problem." Earlier, when the four-bus convoy was barreling through rural Illinois, Fowler compared his job as Mr. Springfield to planning a wedding: "You spend a year planning for two days," he said. "Except you wake up when it's over and start all over again."

Fowler will start arranging next year's trip soon after he gets back to Elmhurst. School trips to Springfield--especially in the spring, the capital's most crowded season--require tremendous planning and organization, because hundreds of schools are vying for the same things: the most reasonable hotel, lifeguards for the swimming pool, tour reservations, buses and drivers and decent meals, to name just a handful. At the Springfield Illinois Convention and Visitors Bureau, the state-run office that arranges and assists in the planning of every Illinois class trip, staffers know Joe Fowler by name.

Rain trickles down Bus #1's windows as Fowler and two colleagues, Naomi Poltrock and Shannon Muehinickel, ready the group for their first tour. Because the group has just enjoyed a 3-hour bus ride, the trio's task is equivalent to halting recess and immediately launching an algebra lesson. In the rain, no less. Teenage whining ensues. One boy pretends to sleep; another says he forgot his raincoat. The girls want to know how many hours before the dance.

Fowler begins damage control, launching into a pep talk reminiscent of what you'd hear in a pre-game locker room: "This is where we step up," he says. "Remember that you are all representing your school out there. Guys, when we're inside, lose the hats. Everyone, let's lose the gum. And let's go with our inside voices. All right? Let's go."

A sports metaphor seems all the more appropriate because the kids of Bus #1 are soon to demonstrate greater enjoyment of the second half of Bryan vs. Springfield than the first.

Their tour of the currently only-partially occupied Executive Mansion is a fizzle. As they walk around the Mansion, an elegant country estate surrounded by gardens, the teenagers are a study in blank, disinterested stares.

At 10 a.m., they arrive at the Old State Capitol, a dark, imposing brownstone that the kids compare to a haunted house. There, the first stop is a sunlit room where a sofa from Abraham Lincoln's funeral train car is displayed along with old desks, old chairs, old tables and old lamps--all legislative relics from the 1800s. The guide gives a several-minute overview of Lincoln's career as a legislator and asks the Bryan group if they have any questions. The kids quickly look up and away, as if a bird had suddenly swooped into the room. The only sound: sneakers on creaky floorboards.

At the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices, where the man who would become the 16th president worked as a Springfield attorney, the timing of a short film on Lincoln's legal career couldn't be worse: an hour before lunch, and seven hours after many of these kids started their day. Heads droop and eyes close as soon as the tour guide flicks off the lights.

Halftime: lunch. The kids of Bus #1 tear into their sack lunches (their only non-catered meal for two days) and are finished devouring them in less than 10 minutes. Noticeably energized, the teenagers racewalk their way to the Illinois State Museum, a massive, utilitarian building near the Capitol. Once inside, one student compares the ambience to that of a hospital.

Ascending a steep escalator, the group enters a "Peoples of the Past" exhibit, a dark hall lined with showcases filled with Native American moccasins, ceramics, baskets, axes, and pipes. Around the corner are minimally clad mannequins of Native Americans fishing, cooking and looking stoic on the Midwestern prairie. Another school group sees the nearly naked bodies and bursts out laughing, but Bus #1 remains collected and cool. A short walk away is a room filled with dioramas of colonial homes and shops, as well as a few interactive kiosks that light up and display such things as the ledger of a 39-year-old farmer from 1872. The Bryan kids pounce on these exhibits in avid groups of three, four and five. Given the simplicity of the displays, the enthusiasm is a bit bewildering until a freckled Molly McHugh puts the museum in the proper teenage perspective: "It's hands on," she says. "You get to touch stuff. And, if it doesn't interest you, you can leave."

Somewhat later, Bus #1, still redolent of nacho chips, is closing in on Lincoln's Tomb, entering a landscaped park of trees, rolling hills and well-kept fields. Just outside the burial site, Fowler launches into his second pep talk of the day: "Listen up," he says. "We are entering a burial ground. This is a time to really step up. Guys, let's remove the hats. Let's keep our voices to a whisper."

The Bryan kids are silent until the bus, having rolled along a winding drive, clears a patch of high trees, bringing Lincoln's 117-foot-high tomb into view. It is here that the teenagers make the connection between the presidential tomb and a cemetery, a place where some have never been.

"You mean, he's under there?" asks Rachel Porzel, pulling her hands inside her sweatshirt.

"Uh huh," says classmate Jackie Daa.

"I'm not going in there," says Porzel. "No way."

Bus #1 now disgorges the students onto the concrete pathway that will lead them to the Tomb, the final resting place for Lincoln and his family. Spooked as she is, Porzel is still among them, surrounded by a pack of friends who seem just as uncomfortable. They walk with arms folded across their chests, hands holding their sides, until they are at the base of the monument.

"Oh, sick," says Porzel.

A dozen or so yards from the entrance is a guide with a black bullhorn mounted on a tripod. Wearing a dark suit, dark tie, dark sunglasses and a dark sun hat with tan trim, the guide resembles nothing so much as a bank executive who has left work early to catch a baseball game.

Through the bullhorn, the guide recounts the days after Lincoln was assassinated and the procession of the president's body by rail across the country. Then, having sufficiently terrified the teenagers, he encourages them to walk inside the tomb and take pictures, after first rubbing the nose of a bronze Lincoln statue for good luck.

Bus #1's tour of the tomb lasts less than 5 minutes, or the time it takes 35 kids to fast-walk through the dim, chilly corridors of the tomb, all lined with bronze statues of the president. Daa is one of the few students who actually stops at the red marble burial chamber of Lincoln and his family. "Whoa," she says as her classmates hasten past her. "That's where they are?"

No one responds and the room is eerily silent save for rhythmic footsteps on a marble floor.

The next morning, an informal survey of Bus #1's passengers reveals that their average bedtime was 1 a.m. The kids look tired and grateful for the fact that only the Capitol and New Salem remain on the agenda. But this will be the day that Springfield makes a noticeable impression on Bus #1, surmounting the kids' impatience with history taught by tour guides describing dusty historic sites.

Unlike the Old Capitol, the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices and the other stops of Day One, the Capitol and New Salem are places where things are actually happening.

The group is fairly perky by the time they arrive on the Capitol grounds, remove their headphones and exit the bus. Walking down a long corridor toward Gov. Rod Blagojevich's second-floor office, several girls remember a day last year when they thought Blagojevich was "stalking" them. Translation: they were hanging out in the suburbs and everywhere they went happened to be a stop on Blagojevich's campaign sweep. Outside the governor's office, where a guide informs them that the staff is in a meeting, the girls practice pronouncing the governor's name and mime the way they would shake his hand if they should ever meet him.

The Capitol is also the first site that renders the Bus #1 riders speechless for more than 10 seconds. Standing beneath the Capitol Dome, hundreds of feet below its multicolored carvings, bronze sculptures and reliefs, the teenagers stare upwards--mouths agape--until a guide asks them to move along so they can see the Senate chamber. A few boys ignore the man and continue staring.

"If you spin around in circles, you get really dizzy," says Doug McCurdy. Five friends quickly take his advice, then scramble to rejoin the group for the visit to the Senate and House chambers. Again, the building's architecture dazzles them, especially the decor of the House, a room dominated by brilliant crystal chandeliers.

"I'm going to be a House of Representatives guy because the Senate room does not float my boat," says Matt Lasky.

The day progresses and Bus #1 is now heading south on Highway 97, through farm fields and the tiny town of Athens--where there's an American flag on almost every lamp post--en route to New Salem. Along the way, the passengers maintain almost-perfect silence out of empathy for one of their number who is suffering through a migraine. Her eyes are puffy from crying.

New Salem is an old frontier town where Lincoln lived through early adulthood and the state has restored the site to look just like it did 200 years ago, right down to the spinning wheels, log cabins and "frontiersmen" who pretend to live in them. The site obeys the Molly McHugh Theory, ie. that when it comes to learning, kids prefer to make their own decisions. Surrounded by a dense forest, and divided by miles of gravel footpaths, the site encourages visitors to walk around and take in whatever interests them.

The highlight is a stop inside a "Blab School," where children learn as they did in the early 1800s--by repeating lessons over and over again. "Class" begins when a gray-haired teacher tells the students it's the first day of school, September 2, 1832 and smacks a long stick down on a table. The teacher directs a dozen kids from Bus #1 through a multiplication lesson: "Twice two is four, trace it on the floor. Twice four is eight, the boys are always late. Twice three is six, we're always playing tricks." It's a scene embarrassingly reminiscent of primary school, but the Bus #1 group is happy to go along with it.

Fowler is there, too, his back straight, his feet on the floor, just like the schoolmaster recommends. After several more rounds of rhyming, class is dismissed by the teacher, who does it by slamming his stick on the floor. Outside the school, the Bus #1 group again walks the gravel paths through Lincoln-era shops, homes and stables. They answer questions on their assigned New Salem worksheet, looking for answers on postings outside the country cabins.

Around noon, back in their own time, the entire Bryan Class of 2003 is on the road again. Students are talking about Friday night sleepovers. Teachers are hoping to make it back to Elmhurst before Rush Hour. Bus #1 retraces its steps by winding through the tiny town of Athens--with its dozens of American flags--and then cruising through the outskirts of Springfield, where no one so much as points at the once-intriguing Mel-O-Cream.

Fowler's first order of business is to call a caterer on his cell phone to say thanks for dropping off nearly 200 box lunches at the New Salem parking lot. Then the occupants of Bus #1 ask Fowler to put a movie, "Kindergarten Cop," into the charter bus' VCR. Heading home, the volume is loud enough to drown out the engine.