Community Calendar

The Whiteside Forum will host Captain Marc Adami on Sunday January 29 where he will spin some sea stories of adventure on the high seas in his presentation “My Life at Sea: Pirates, Icebergs, Blowouts and other Disasters.” The presentation will begin at 2:00 pm in the Community Room of the Odell Public Library at 307 S. Madison St., Morrison, IL and is free and open to the public.

Mr. Adami is a retired Master Mariner, a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and spent 28 years in the offshore oil industry working on exploration drilling rigs, drill ships, emergency fire fighting/dive support, and well testing vessels around the world.

Audience participation and questions are encouraged during and after the presentation. For more information about the Whiteside Forum or this event please text Marc Adami at 815-718-5347 or email marcadami53@gmail.com.

The Whiteside Forum, established in 1985, is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit community group which sponsors presentations and discussions of issues of importance and interest to the public. Issues chosen for conferences have an international dimension as well as local interest and importance. The organization is supported entirely by individual, special and business contributions and all events are free and open to the public.

On Thursday February 2 at noon, Carolyn Law will present “Listen to Your Heirlooms: Your Family’s Treasured Objects Have More to Say Than Meets the Eye.”

This presentation, hosted at the Ellwood House Museum, will introduce some basic principles and techniques of material culture research in the context of family heirlooms. Law will discuss strategies for investigating, recording, and preserving the meaning of family heirlooms using 21st-century resources.

Attendees are invited to bring an item of their own for discussion.

Carolyn Law is owner of Carolyn Law Antiques LLC in Sycamore, Illinois. She is a certified personal property appraiser and antiques researcher specializing in decorative arts and sterling silver. She is found on the web at CarolynLawAntiques.com.

“Listen to Your Heirlooms” is part of “Brown Bag Lunch/Local Lore,” a free lecture series offered in collaboration by the Ellwood House Museum and DeKalb County History Center. To register, visit Ellwoodhouse.org/lectures.

Brown Bag Lunch/Local Lore is funded in part by the Mary E. Stevens Concert and Lecture Fund.
Ellwood House Museum is located at 420 Linden Place in DeKalb. Parking is available on-site.

Why do people flirt? Flirting is more complex than we might imagine, and it’s characterized by ambiguity. Some people flirt just for fun, others to explore a romantic relationship, and still others to increase their own sense of self-worth.

At this STEM Café, hear from communication scientist David Henningsen about the scientific research on flirting. Learn about the six motivations people principally have when flirting and how the nature of flirting creates the potential for miscommunication.

Northern Illinois University STEM Cafés are part of NIU STEAM and are designed to increase public awareness of the critical role that STEM fields play in our everyday lives. They are offered in partnership with the NIU Alumni Association and made possible with support from Thermo Fisher Scientific and Bayer Fund.

Pull up a sandbag and swing the lantern! The phrase, initially of British military origin, refers to the lamps hung from a ship’s beams that would swing while the ship was out at sea. This expression has come to be synonymous with the telling of tales (mostly true, some tall tales) in maritime culture.

Join singer, songwriter, and storyteller Dave Martin on an exploration of the vast wonder of the world’s oceans and Great Lakes. Casting off, listeners will be regaled with legendary incidents that have occurred on the high seas near and afar, and become acquainted with colorful characters that have forged the flinty character of sea-going people. In this program, audience members meet a real pirate of the Caribbean, end up in a precarious position with the captain of a Boston Whaler off Nantucket, and experience the legendary fury of a ‘November Witch’ on the Great Lakes; a storm that occurred in 1913, and is referred to by Great Lakes mariners and historians as the ‘White Hurricane.’

Dispatched from the Third Coast, Dave Martin entertains and delights with his keen sense for stories and wry presentation sensibility.

This event is free and open to all. No registration is required. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the DeKalb Public Library.

For additional information, please contact Samantha at samanthah@dkpl.org or at (815) 756-9568 ext. 1701.