Where can I find the actual story for The Ravine? I mean, I've heard the dramatic radio thing, but I'd like to read the story? If any knew, that would be great, thanks!

I don't know which 'radio thing' you heard, but the ravine is the location of several sections of Dandelion Wine. You might try that.

Bill Touponce

The title "The Ravine" has been used several times, but I'm sure the one of which you are thinking is "The Whole Town's Sleeping," which appears, untitled, in "Dandelion Wine," starting on page 158.

Now, for the REAL Ravine, you have to visit Waukegan, Illinois, where a section including the famous footbridge has been renamed "Ray Bradbury Park."

Pulpmariachi:

See what 'The Ravine' looks like from photos on my website.

Click on topic 'BRADBURY ' listed to the right, and click again on 'Gallery', at the bottom of a group shot. Select topic entitled, 'Waukegan Tour Pictures' listed on the left side, and you'll find photos of 'The Ravine' as it looks today.

For an older photo of 'The Ravine', click on topic "Bradbury", in the same Gallery section, and sort thru the pictures.

My website is: http://www.catchaway.com

[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 07-18-2004).]

I was almost afraid to go and look at the Ravine, but I find it to be a pleasant-looking locale. In my imagination the bridge was much longer and the depths beneath it quite unfathomable. After dark it's probably more uninviting . . .

Same here. Just about to wind up my every-few-years-or-so summer reading of "Dandelion Wine" and picture a much deeper, darker, etc. ravine.
Nard, very nice artwork! I'd like to post some of my own (one of my many non-marketable talents!), but don't quite know how to go about it.
Have to look into getting a website, I suppose...

Nard, if you haven't heard the early eighties band NEW MUSIK, by all means try them out. Your music is very reminiscent of their minimalist synth pop.
Keep up the good work, it's appreciated here.

Granted, the new wooden bridge is built in the same spot as the old one and the distance between bridge and water isn't much. I would like to put in a word, though, that photographs don't do much justice to the atmosphere of the place. The sides are extremely high and steep on one side and meandering through woods on the other, so heavily vegetated as to muffle sound. You don't have to be down there too long to feel anything could happen in a short time.

In addition, Ray takes the normal and makes it bizarre and otherworldly. He could make a Walmart seem like the gate of hell if he wanted to. A lot of the power of his work is how closely it ties to life, but a lot of it is how his imagination transcends the ordinary.

A large part of the reason why I visited Waukegan was to see how much was owed to Ray and how much to Waukegan. The town turned out to be a generally very ordinary, non-magical place, with the main exception of the ravine--which has an atmosphere all its own! Ray's special gift there was just in describing it particularly well--not in imagining or depicting it as something it is not.

And don't forget everything is seen through the eyes of a young boy most of the time. I had a very happy childhood in magnificent surroundings quite similar to Bradbury's mythical Greentown, but whenever I visit my old neighbourhood (more by accident than design) I almost cannot believe it's the same one - it looks so barren and dull now. Magic is in the eye of the beholder . . .