Stop dragging your wife and move to Rockford

The front page of today’s paper says MarketWatch put Rockford on a list of “surprisingly cool towns.” Gosh, thanks MarketWatch! Your backhanded compliment tells me you are surprisingly cool, too.

Speaking of compliments, kudos to Ken DeCoster for this surprisingly cool journalism! I love how his story leads with “Proximity to Chicago and Milwaukee…” as the number one reason the forest city is so fabulous. It’s good to know that what’s cool about Rockford isn’t Rockford itself, but that it is on the way to actual cool places.

It’s really the story that just keeps giving because DeCoster interviewed Marc Strandquist, a 59-year-old Rockford native who works for a “private equity firm in the Chicago area. That’s right: DeCoster interviewed a middle-aged white guy who doesn’t actually work in Rockford for perspective! How surprisingly cool!

As DeCoster writes it, “…proximity to O’Hare International Airport” was what sold Strandquist and his wife on moving to Rockford during the pandemic.

I think the most surprisingly cool part of the story is when Strandquist is quoted in the story as saying, “I’ve dragged my wife everywhere” when they were looking for a place to live. Gosh, I hope she didn’t put up too much of a fight!

Another reason Rockford made the “surprisingly cool” cut is because you can buy a house here for less than $150,000. DeCoster also interviewed Conor Brown for this story. Brown is the CEO of Rockford Area Realtors and said Rockford has “always been a city that has been cool and creative.” How surprisingly cool to hear an unbiased comment about the city where Brown buys and sells houses for a living!

Rockford is a small city with a population of about 150,000 people. I would never call it “surprisingly cool.” I’d just call it cool. Great people, including my family, live here plus there are outstanding options for education, anti-racism, spiritual growth and science. I love writing in Rockford and can honestly say I am in a constant state of inspiration here. I love the land, I know where to get a good latte and should someone need me, I am accessible. I may not have much love for the story I read in today’s paper, but I do love it here.

Thanks for reading my unsurprisingly uncool blog. -Connie