BY: JEFF SMYTH     One of the drawbacks of living in a rural community is that our town is never included in national “Places to Live” surveys. You know the kind, “Best Place to People Watch,” “Best Places for Romantic Getaways” or “Best Places to Have Escaped.”     True, in many surveys Pinckneyville wouldn’t qualify for inclusion, and that’s fair. For example, a town like ours that celebrates the yard sale as a source of cultural pride should never be considered for a “Best Places to Live” ranking.  Conversely, this truism shouldn’t put us on the “Most Depressing Places to Live” list, either.     That aside, there is one ranking in which Pinckneyville not only deserves to be included,…

The peaches are ripe and juicy, the sweet corn thick and tasty and tomatoes bursting with flavor at Lightfoot Farms on Ill. 127 south of Vergennes. Margaret Lightfoot said that after two spotty years in which freezing tempartures and then hail hurt the crop, this year's yield couldn't be better.

Flowers are abloom, butterflies are fluttering and the landscape is bursting with the brilliant colors of summer. Share your seasonal pictures with the Post. Click on the Post It icon to get started. Click on the picture to view the gallery.

Area fireworks displays, dates and times: Anna: Dusk, Sunday, July 4, Anna City Park Benton: Dusk, Sunday, July 4, Rend Lake Dam and Visitors Center, near Benton Carbondale: 9 p.m. Sunday, July 4, Southern Illinois University Abe Martin Field Carterville: Dusk, Saturday, July 3, Cannon Park Carterville: 9 p.m. Saturday July 3 and Sunday, July 4, Walker’s Bluff, north on Reed Station Road Christopher: Dusk, Sunday, July 4, Dennison Park Du Quoin: Dusk, Saturday, July 3, Du Quoin State FairgroundsGoreville: 9 p.m. Sunday, July 4, city park Harrisburg: Dusk, Sunday, July 4, Saline County Fairgrounds Herrin: Dusk, Sunday, July 4, city park Lake of Egypt: Dusk, Saturday, July 3, Elks Park Marion: Dusk, Saturday, July 3, Marion Knights of Columbus…

               BY JEFF SMYTH                    Nature can be one bad mother. She’s an ungrateful wench, too. Despite all I’ve done for her, she has it in for me and has released her armies to prove it. This is war both on my possessions and now, I fear, my sanity, too.                  It didn’t used to be this way. For years I fought for her. I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with elders from the Havasupai Tribe demanding Glen Canyon Dam be torn down so that the torrents of Colorado River water released by its operators would stop scouring the Grand Canyon. I sat with monkey-wrenchers, tripping hippies and eco-warriors in a grassy communal gathering at an Earth First “Round River Rendezvous” calling for halt…

The Perry County Fair was a bustling place Tuesday with horse race the 4H livestock auction and the queen pageant. Click on image to view the picture gallery.

Whether its James Lueker restoring a 1969 Ford F150 pickup with his son Jamie and grandsons Cody and Brandon, or fathers and sons working together like Mike and Jordan Jenkel as painters, Roger and Will Denton at the hardware store of Joe and Danny Brand as electricians, special bonds are created. The Post celebrates them and all fathers and sons, as well as fathers and daughters. Send us a picture with you and your dad and we will post it here.