AMBOY – Doug Bybee has been a lot of places, done a lot of things, and seen a lot of scenes.
Born at the Amboy Hospital on July 29, 1941, he has stories of small town living and action adventures a young kid may have outside of city lights.
Moving to Dixon at 15, he has teenage tales in a city bigger than Amboy, but not the biggest in the state.
He played basketball for Loyola University of Chicago before being kicked off of the team, which won the NCAA Championship in 1963, and the school for breaking every rule he could creating myths and legend in the Illinois epicenter.
Bybee had different jobs, but two have hung on for long hauls as he worked in information technology (IT) until he retired at 63 and, writing, to tell stories.
“I fell into the IT business and made my living in the field,” said Bybee, who has lived in Springfield for the last 51 years after becoming a resident because of an IT position. “I’ve been everything from the head of IT at a small university to a state agency to losing money in the private sector to everything else. I had articles published in some computer magazines. That’s how it really started. I had helped develop and provided input into a floppy disc into one of the first vanity presses. I actually have a couple of books published that I didn’t want published.”
When he retired, he didn’t know what to do except take his writing to another level as he had approximately 100 columns published in the State Journal Register and the Illinois Times from 2005-2013.
When his 82nd birthday was approaching in July 2023, he had a mission to transform those newspaper stories into a book.
“I really enjoyed writing for the newspapers, but mainly because of the emails I received from the readers,” Bybee said. “I had fun arguing with them back and forth. It’s hard to put my writing in a genre. It’s odd and sarcastic.
“I thought on my 82nd birthday, I would pull 82 stories that I enjoyed and put them in a book. It was an idea to put it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and see what I want to do with it. Actually, without any advertisement and it’s kind of hard to find, I’ve sold more than I thought I’d sell. There are 82 columns slash stories that were published in newspapers, I own them, and I put them together for this book.
“My plan was to publish it on my 82nd birthday but that didn’t work out. I’m still 82 and had it published when I was 82. It’s something for an old, retired guy to do. I think some of these stories are quite good and worth reading. Others, maybe I’m the only one who enjoys, but there are some stories people should read.”
The book, “82”, which Bybee says has no serious content, was published in September 2023 containing stories of 700-800 words each.
Although 11 of them are based on his time in Amboy, the town is never named.
However, for the time period, readers will recognize the scenes of the stories.
“I wouldn’t call it a memoir. I call it 82 years of observing. Period. It fits in four topic areas. One is called, back in the day, which would be some Amboy stuff when I was a kid,” said Bybee, whose father, Ray “Razzmatazz” Bybee, ran The Store in Amboy in the 1940s and 1950s. “Another one is, politics and government, which is satire. Another one I call, park bench, because it’s time floating between reality and fantasy sitting on a park bench. The other one is about being old and aging.
“There is always a certain good feeling about people reading your words and thoughts and enjoying them.”
“82” can be found and purchased on Amazon after searching for 82 in the book search.
