I ran across the above photograph of my sister Susan and mother Mary in a photo album that belonged to my late brother-in-law George. It was taken outside the Trail Room restaurant in the Marshall Field's department store at Park Forest Plaza back in the early 1970s. I really liked Park Forest, a planned community built in 1948, south of Chicago, catering to GIs returning from World War II. The Park Forest Plaza was an outdoor shopping center in the middle of town, with lots of green space, and was a very pleasant place to hang out. I especially liked the Marshall Field's department store located there, one of that chain's first suburban stores. Sadly, that shopping center closed in 1996. They supposedly turned the place into a "regular downtown," but when I visited back in 2010, it was not very impressive. Hopefully, it is a more vibrant place now, but I have my doubts. The Trail Room, by the way, was very popular with senior citizens, and functioned as a kind of meeting place for them, sorely missed when it closed. Things are always changing, but sadly, for the most part, not for the better.
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