Libertyville Provides Backdrop for Writer’s Memoir

Writer and Minnesota Public Radio essayist Peter Smith, who moved to Libertyville when he was four from Chicago’s south side, recently released his new book A Cavalcade of Lesser Horrors, where he depicts his life’s “hiccups” including glimpses of Libertyville’s mid-twentieth century mainstreet.

“Libertyville back then was such a wonderful place because it was still a small farm town in a lot of ways, and it hadn’t disappeared into the megalopolis if you will,” Smith said. “It was a commuter community and it was a farm town, so it was this wonderful hybrid of all of these things.”

Memories of Wilson's Drug Store

Smith’s stories of Libertyville often center around the soda fountain at Wilson’s Drug Store, where he worked in high school.

“All the kids who were in high school but maybe too young to drive came drifting in after school from the Brainerd Building or the high school and they’d be stacked like two or three deep at the table, being a complete nuisance to Mr. Wilson,” Smith said. “After the high school kids left, then some of the older folks would kind of drift in and have an ice cream sundae after supper. It was just really fun.”

Smith’s father was a Chicago reporter, writing for the Chicago Daily News, Channel 2 News, and the Chicago Sun Times. His mother worked as a librarian at , and later as a volunteer at . Smith cautions that though his recollection of Libertyville is positive, his book is not heavy on nostalgia.

Not everything is in sepia tones

“(Libertyville) was growing. And stuff was happening. We were all growing I guess,” he said. “It’s got a lot of stuff in there that’s not all sweetness in life. It’s not all sepia tones.”

His book developed between other writing projects, as a way to keep his skills sharp. He began trying to capture moments in his life he came to call “lesser horrors.”

“I think that for a writer, if you really want to write well, you have to be very observant and kind of sensitive to stuff,” he said. “And one of the things that I think writers are sensitive to are these little hiccups and electric calamities that kind of happen as you go through life.

“You know how at night when you go to sleep and all of a sudden you think of something that somebody said to you in tenth grade, or some moment that just happened years ago, and it’s over, it’s resolved. But there it is, and you’re thinking about it again,” he said. “Those are the lesser horrors in this book.”

Libertyville; great for obeserving life

Smith says that some of the stories, while not always fond, can be funny and wry in narration years later. As a place for a writer to come of age, Smith says Libertyville was a great environment for collecting these stories.

“I knew I was going to be a writer from the time I was in seventh grade at Highland School,” he said. “Libertyville was the perfect place to observe people in the act of being human. Like working at the drug store, you got to know the people and kind of participate as you only can in a small town situation in just living with them.”

A Cavalcade of Lesser Horrors is Smith’s second book. His first book, A Porch Sofa Almanac is a collection of his MPR essays depicting life in Minnesota. Smith blogs at: PeterSmithWrites.blogspot.com

Through October, Patch will feature Smith's essay on Libertyville every Monday.