An apology to Mrs. Gifreda

My tulips were particularly lovely this year.

      Mrs. Gifreda lived at the end of our street, at the corner of Carteret Court and Whitehall. She had a beautiful lawn, thick like a green hairbrush, without weed or brown patch or blemish. I have a vague memory of Mrs. Gifreda crawling across this verdant carpet, deploying garden tools. Maybe a hat of some sort, tied with  a scarf. I don't believe I ever stepped on her lawn, not once in 20 years of walking past. We weren't afraid of her. We were in awe.

     That's it. I'm sure she had a first name, but never knew it, and Prof. Google is no help finding anything more now, beyond serving up a single matchbook for Gifreda Shoes, "The footwear of successful men." Perhaps she was a relation — how many Gifredas could there be in a small town? Maybe a reader in Berea, Ohio knows, but I doubt it. My sense is she was a solitary person — no husband, no family I can recall, which doesn't mean they didn't exist. A child is not a reliable witness.

    I asked my sister Debbie, older by three years, if she had any recollections of Mrs. Gifreda, and her memory mirrors mine:

   "Just how the only time I ever saw her was on her hands and knees on her lawn," she replied. "She was clearly obsessed with her lawn."   

     A common failing. Or maybe the failing was ours — the natural mistake of assuming that the visible part of other people's lives are all that's there. Maybe Mrs. Gifreda was a former WAC, with five grown kids. Maybe she baked pies and played the mandolin. We have no idea.

     While I am not obsessed with my lawn, yet, I am concerned, and people walking past my house might have seen me, on my knees, trying to get ahead of the springtime, digging up weeds, pulling the Creeping Charlie, planting grass seed — a very satisfying experience. And sometimes, if I am out there, salaaming as if in prayer, applying my energies lawnward, someone will pass by, one of the unknown persons who increasingly populate our neighborhood. 

   I do wonder how I appear to them. Weird old lawn guy. I know my house, with its piebald siding and homemade spire, sometimes frightens local children. "The Boo Radley House" is how one frank neighbor described it, referring to the enigmatic bogeyman/hero of "To Kill a Mockingbird." I bet they don't think that Mr. Lawncare has written nine books and might even write a 10th, once he gets this spurge out of his yard.

    Fastidiousness in grass nurture might not be the best thing to be remembered for. But it isn't the worst either and, despite not knowing her, I like to imagine that Mrs. Gifreda would be pleased that her diligence has taken on a life of its own, far beyond her own mortal passing. And if she actually wouldn't be pleased at seeing her life reduced to a single quality — who would? — well, my sincere apologies. 

    Correction: Through a production error, the caption of the photo atop today's blog might imply to some readers that I was somehow involved with planting the gorgeous bed of tulips depicted. While my tulips indeed did look lovely this year, those are not my tulips; they belong to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Reminding me of my favorite movie bits: Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau is checking into a hotel in a German seaside town. There is a dog resting by the clerk. "Does your dog bite?" he asks, reaching out to pet the beast. "No," the pipe-smoking clerk says simply. Clouseau reaches toward the dog's head. "Nice doggie," he says, as the beast leaps up, snarling and bites him. "I thought you said your dog did not bite!" Clouseau complains. "That is not my dog," the clerk replies.

These were the tulips in the box in front of our house.

Imaginary hells easier to escape than real ones.

A scene from "Dante: Inferno to Paradise," a film by Ric Burns.

     Dante Alighieri was in charge of widening roads in Florence at the end of the 13th century. I wish more people knew that. His masterpiece "Commedia" — the "Divine" part was tagged on much later — is so dominant in the public mind that the more practical aspects of his life are overlooked. He was a soldier, too.
     WTTW is trying to wave the flag for Dante, airing a two-part, four-hour film, "Dante: Inferno to Paradise." Several readers, knowing of my fondness for the dour Florentine poet, urged me to watch.
     Hmm ... I'm tempted to invoke Samuel Johnson's line about women delivering sermons and dogs walking on their hind legs: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."      My general takeaway is, as with the Dante video game, anything that puts him on the radar is good.
     That said, I don't understand why the big budget CGI movie magic put behind flogging every minor character in the Marvel universe can't be spared for a story that has stayed firmly in the public eye for over 700 years.
     The production values are adequate on "Dante: Inferno to Paradise" in the way this past season the Lyric Opera diluted the grandeur of ancient Egypt into a stained green wall and three florescent lights. A generous audience can overlook it; but why should we have to?
     The trouble with Dante's book is that it is written with such verisimilitude that it's easy to think of him as a guy who went to hell and took notes. The WTTW movie slides into this trench, with a sulfurous, ooo-scary mood that reminded me of "Dark Shadows," the 1960s vampire soap opera.
     Given how few readers will run to watch the movie — I haven't finished watching and probably never will — I wouldn't take up your time had not one specific date been mentioned in the program.
     For those unfamiliar, the Commedia is the story of Dante's journey through hell, up purgatory's mountain and into heaven, accompanied by the Roman poet Virgil, at the behest of Beatrice, his celestial love.

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Matzo brei: The treat that comes but once a year.

Matzo brei prepared properly, aka hard, on the left, and that other way, to the right.

     The electric company ended Passover early this year. Well, at least in one tweet yesterday, claiming the holiday ended Monday night — 24 hours ahead of when the holiday actually ends. Eight days. It's a wonder the lights stay on at all. 

     A forgivable lapse — though one they did not correct themselves, even when I politely pointed the error out to them. Few corporations do; they tend to blunder on instead. 

     Not a failing that can be written off to ComEd being a gentile company — Jews have a way of rushing their own holidays, whether convening sundown at mid-afternoon on Yom Kippur. Or returning to bread a few days before Passover officially ends. Tuesday night. One misses bread. 
    Myself, I actually need that full eight days, for a reason I've never seen committed to print, so this might be a first. The full eight days are required to get your matzo brei in. 

    Allow me to explain. Matzo brei is a traditional dish of eggs and matzo — not to be confused with egg matzo, which is matzo baked with egg in it. Matzo brei — also called "egg matzo" — is a breakfast dish.   It isn't intrinsically heavy, but is so good, you tend to eat a lot. I do, anyway. So while you are tempted the first few mornings of Passover, the idea is dismissed — everyone's too full from the night before (there are two Seders, on consecutive nights; don't ask why; it's complicated) and, besides, there are all those leftovers to eat.
     But — and this is a rule of my own — you only eat matzo brei during Passover, because otherwise the foodstuff would escape into the rest of the year and a) lose its specialness and b) you'd eat it continually, the way I do Bays Raisin and Cinnamon English Muffins. (although, they never lose their specialness, because they're so super special, and since I haven't had any the week of Passover, when I do, Wednesday morning — pay attention, ComEd! — they'll be doubly extra special). 
      Suddenly Tuesday and Wednesday — impossible, due to the Seders the night before — slip into Thursday and Friday. The matzo brei doesn't get eaten then because preparing it is a production and after the ordeal of preparing for the Seder one craves normal, eat-and-run life. The canyon floor was rushing up. Finally Sunday we dove in and had our matzo brei.
     Although — and this is why I'm writing this — this year my wife and I parted ways when it came to matzo brei preparation. Matzo brei is prepared by wetting matzo in water, mixing it with scrambled eggs then frying it. And my wife likes hers well-soaked in water, so it's soft. Which I suppose is fitting under strict literal interpretation: matzo brei translates out as "matzo porridge." 
    Me, I like the matzo just kissed by the water, so it's hard, or hardish. A quick rinse, then broken into the eggs, stirred a bit, then into the hot pan.
     In past years, we've compromised by eating matzo brei twice — one made her way, aka  wrong. And once my way, preserving the dish's delightful tactile firmness. But this year we decided just to each prepare our own meal. Which struck me as slightly dubious, like couples having separate bank accounts or taking separate vacations. We're sort of joined at the hip, my wife and I, and preparing separate meals, not our style.  Generally.

     But I only eat the stuff once a year, and want matzo brei the way God intended, aka, my way. As did my wife.  Although we did not  — Israelis and Palestinians take note — kill each other over it. We made accommodations to our divergent claims on reality.
     We didn't consult beforehand — my wife just set out two cast iron pans — and I noticed differences. I used three pieces of matzo while she used six, which took me aback. When I inquired, she said she planned on having extra to take to work Monday, another practice I'd never consider —you don't reheat matzo brei, but consume it all, immediately after being prepared. She used vegetable oil. And I used butter because, as Napoleon said, if you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna.  One doesn't skimp on a meal you eat once a year. With lots of sugar. Though she uses salt. Which is also wrong. 

      We each did sample one anothers preparation — I found hers soft.  She tried mine and did not remark upon it. Being polite, no doubt. Frankly, she could have spat it into a napkin. I didn't care. This is my annual matzo brei.
      As we ate, we discussed that. She mentioned that we could, you know, enjoy matzo brei at other times of the year. "We have turkey when it isn't Thanksgiving," she argued. Yes, well, that's turkey, and this is matzo brei. Once a year. No more. To do otherwise would be crazy.

Three matzos + two eggs = one plate of delicious matzo brei as God intended.

Into the ward of memory

 

     One day the hiring hall agent that is Fate will read your name off a card. He'll shake the card in your direction, smirking, while you desperately look around for somebody else to take it. But nobody will, so the job falls to you.
     We put off moving my father downstairs to the locked memory ward as long as we could. Not that it mattered much to him. My father doesn't care what couch he sits on.
     But my mother cares. Very much. She met him when she was 18 and a freshman at Ohio State. Now she is 87. Do the math. They married in 1956. She wants him on the sofa next to her.
     They'd lived together for two years at a senior residence facility in Buffalo Grove. He had been having ... umm ... issues. Behavior that no dynamic lifestyle community is going to tolerate in the general population. Memory care ward level stuff. They pressed, we delayed.
     But there was another episode, and suddenly the ground was gone from under us. They were moving him whether we agreed or not.
     Or more accurately, I was moving him. Now was the time. My brother and my wife provide continual, crucial help. But not today. Today Fate handed me the card.
     Time to walk my father's downstairs to his new home. I checked with the staff to determine their role. Just do it, they said. I returned to their room 216. He was on the couch, watching TV with my mother. Time for the earth to shift.
     "Lets go, dad," I said, helping him stand up and setting his walker before him. I'd take a few steps, his pillow under my arm. then pause, waiting for him to catch up. "How you doing, Dad?" I'd call back, turning to check on his progress. We went downstairs. I pressed a doorbell. They saw us through the narrow window and buzzed us in.
     The dementia patients were together, having snacks when their new associate arrived. Quesadilla or yogurt? I went to put his pillow in his room and returned. My father was talking to the people around him.
     "You don't get older in Boulder," he was telling them. His standard quip. He thinks he's still in Colorado. Rhyme is the last thing to go. Along with obscenity.
     Leaving him with his snack, I went back to my mother, sitting in her wheelchair, alone in her room.
     "Hug me," she said when I walked in. I did, leaning over.
     "No one to talk with ..." she sang softly. "All by myself."
     "No one to walk with," I joined in. "But I'm happy on the shelf."
     My mother sang with the USO. Flew to Europe on an Army Super Constellation with the Coca Cola Radio Nanigans when she was 16 to entertain the troops. I know 1950s hit songs by heart the way a child raised in France knows French.
     "Ain't misbehavin', I'm saving my love for yooouuuu ..." we crooned together.

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The whole world is watching ... us

     Actually, I have sympathy for those protesting against the war in Gaza. They see the images of suffering, the children, the hunger, the death. How could you not be moved? How could you blame anyone for raising their voice? For trying to do something.

     Besides, they're students, mostly. They have the energy, and time on their hands. Why not set up tents and conduct a kind of ongoing public temper tantrum, holding their breath until world events reorder themselves to their liking? Live deeply.
     Yes, they are young. The young get worked up, carried away. In damning the war, they also damn Israel — should never have been founded in the first place! — and Zionists and even Jews who sometimes are Zionists, at least when they're not contorting themselves, trying to outdo the Palestinians in taking a one-sided, 0 or 1, right v. wrong view of the situation. 

     Rather than blame Benjamin Netanyahu — I'd be in agreement, if not right beside them — they decry the existence of the country itself, and demand "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." The "...of Jews" part is unvoiced. Which means, they aren't against genocide, per se, but simply prefer the world stick to the traditional victims. They aren't radicals, but conservatives, playing an old game. Although that part gets said out loud more and more. Juden raus. Worked for great-granddaddy, works for us. Forgetting that a nation's existence isn't a global referendum or campus popularity contest — if it were, the United States would have blinked off the world map long ago. 

     Here's what I feel obligated to point out: the main change being demanded by all theses springtimes protests is not that Hamas accept a cease-fire — odd that they never ask that, maybe because they know Hamas doesn't give a fuck what they think — but that the universities they attend must divest from investing in companies involved with Israel. A rather long-term solution to an immediate crisis — kind of like holding hands around a house that's burning down and demanding that deeper wells be dug. Maybe that would help, down the road. But right now...

    And in truth, divesting wouldn't even help down the road. As always with the young, they wildly exaggerate their own place in an indifferent world. 

     Being adults, let's do the math, shall we? In 2023, the cumulative total of American university endowments was $839 billion. And the stock market is worth $50 trillion. Making the investments held by U.S. colleges about 1.6 percent of the total U.S. financial markets. So if every single American university immediately pulled every single dime of their investments from companies involved with Israel or the Israeli military, it would affect the economic health of Israel not much, and the war in Gaza even less. The change they demand is like leveling a fine of $100, payable in 2047.

     Not that protests are without merit. They do pressure Joe Biden to in turn pressure the Israelis to wrap this up already. Which is probably a good thing since destroying Hamas doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. At least it's an open question whether Israel is killing Hamas fighters faster than its recruiting new ones. Meanwhile, all those innocents are still suffering and dying. Though speaking of suffering the protests risk running into the summer, undercutting the Dems, and helping to elect Donald Trump, who is Benjamin Netanyahu's best buddy and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem simply as a big Fuck You to Palestinians. It's odd to demand other people consider the consequences of what they're doing while at the same moment ignoring the consequences of what you're doing. But that's people for you.

    Besides, they aren't protesting for the Palestinians, but for themselves. The protests are engaging street theater, allowing a number of college students to feel they are working the treadles and warps of current events, weaving the fabric of history. That has to put a spring in their step. Plus their classes are about done, though you have to wonder, watching certain students coping with the fallout of their murderous rhetoric, what their job prospects are going to look like when they flash their Northwestern resumes at white shoe law firms. "The summer of 2023 I was interning at the Children's Legal Center. Then summer 2024 I stood in Deering Meadow chanting 'Death to Jews'..." The internet is forever.

    Until then, it's a sideshow, a distraction. Almost ironic. The public is sort of thick, and it could be argued that the protests draw attention away from the war they're supposed to be ending. Counter-intuitive things happen, and it's somehow fitting that kids in Evanston and Morningside Heights and Los Angeles would find a way to make this all about them, and the suffering they endure at the hands of police. Am I wrong to reserve my sympathy for the children of Gaza?

Flashback 2008: Fading into oblivion, Jackson not interested in being an elder statesman

Still Life of Fruit and Nuts, by Giuseppe Ruoppolo (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Rev. Jesse Jackson was in the news this week, as his putative replacement took a powder. I was tempted to pile on, but Jackson, to me, is something of a pitiable figure by this point. I've had my say over the years. One moment that stayed with me is when he showed up at the editorial board to make his case for getting the credit for Barack Obama.

OPENING SHOT

     "Nuts," like "balls," is one of those words whose acceptability shifts dramatically depending on the context — perfectly fine when referring to dense, oily fruits (yes, nuts are actually fruit) such as almonds or pecans, but much squishier, so to speak, when used as the vulgar slang for testicles, as the Rev. Jesse Jackson did, into an open microphone on Fox News.
     "I want to cut his nuts out," the minister said, referring to Barack Obama.

FORGIVE ME FOR WHAT I WILL SAY . . .

     In a rare switch, the usually edgy Sun-Times dashed the word in its Thursday edition, 

"n - - -" as if it were an obscenity, while the more staid Tribune unblinkingly ran the cheery little term, and on its front page, no less.
     Such confusion is natural, since threatening castration blazes new territory in political discourse — I was intrigued by the use of the adverb "out," which seems more suited to talking about removing an embedded object, such as a heart. "Off" seems to be preferable when discussing something so pendulous.
    This kerfuffle was probably inevitable. It seemed odd and out-of-character when Jackson made the rounds a few weeks back, head bowed, quietly lobbying for recognition of his role in the historic ascension of Obama. An ego as massive as Jackson's could not remain in a humble supporting role for long.
     Of course he'd slip and grab at the curtains. Dreams die hard and dreams of power die even harder. The old guard seldom quietly departs, and it was too much to hope that Jackson could age gracefully into an elder statesman for the black community. Rather, he seems set on becoming the crazy uncle in the attic, the guy you can't introduce to your friends, because he has evil thoughts and a dirty mouth.
     The other noteworthy thing about Jackson's humiliating gaffe came about because Fox was the only news outlet in possession of the tape of his crude remarks, and held onto it to hype Bill O'Reilly's blabfest in the evening.
     This led to the unusual situation of the apology preceding the insult, as Jackson, savvy enough to know what was coming, leapt to say he was sorry even before the offensive words became public.
     This breaks his previous apology record, where news of his out-of-wedlock child was followed almost immediately by his plea for forgiveness and an announcement that he had gone into seclusion for several minutes of soul-searching and was now ready to resume his place as guardian of the nation's conscience.
     Perhaps this will be the start of a trend, as politicians gaze into the future, imagine what slurs they will utter or excesses they will commit, and apologize for them ahead of time.

    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 11, 2008

Trumpet story post mortem

 
     As someone who loves his job, I don't keep scrupulous tabs on my hours. The penumbra between working and not working is so gradual and hazy, that doing so would be impossible. Am I on the clock lying in bed in the darkness, thinking about the lede to a story? Sitting in Orchestra Hall listening to a symphony? Life and work are like two ballroom dancers, in tight embrace, gliding across a polished floor. Best not to try to pry them apart.
     Technically, I'm scheduled Monday through Friday. But every Sunday morning I'm prepping Monday's column. Not that I'm complaining. Monday afternoon might find me working in the garden. Both the Sun-Times and I seem satisfied with the arrangement.
     I'm expected to turn in three columns a week, to run Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Before the blog, I used to smile, inwardly, when somebody said they read me "every day," thinking, "What are you doing the other four days — hallucinating?" But now of course there is this blog, where that is possible.

      Though sometimes circumstances dictate that I write one or two extra columns in the paper, reacting to breaking news events, and I don't mind those —it's good to be wanted. Though last Sunday's epic about trumpets was something of an exception, because involved so much work — what with driving to Elkhart and three trips downtown connecting with Conn Selmer and the CSO. I was ready to involve Schilke, another trumpet company in Chicago, and a guy who makes mouthpieces in the Fine Arts Building, when I realized I had gotten far beyond anything that could reasonably be put into a newspaper. The column got shifted to Sunday, because there is more real estate to fill, which was fine, but I didn't want to then disgorge an extra column too.
     The original plan was to miss Monday. But then I decided to break off the two Morgan Park High School students from their reduced role at the end and let them shine a bit in their own column. So that ran Monday. And Tuesday, batting out a blog post about the Seder, I fluttered my fingers over the keyboard and thought, "You know ... this is good ... maybe it should run in the paper." So we ran it Wednesday, and I'm glad, as a lot of readers seemed to really appreciate the column.
     But I did take Friday off, mostly to show I can. I d0n't want to be one of those guys who can't not work, can't step off the treadmill. Though it left me with the question of what to run here. My first thought was the picture above, a Conn Selmer worker checking the straightness of a length of tubing. And a few words to go with it. A whole lot of words, now that I look at it.  One does tend to go on. And on.
    There was something about the photo that appealed to me; the pose, obviously, something almost triumphant about his attitude, like the Bowman and the Spearman, the deco Native-Americans on horseback at Michigan and Ida B. Wells, with their straining bows. Maybe it was his goggles, or the red — his shirt, some kind of scoop device in the foreground, and that beam — cutting the industrial gray.

     There's something appealing about photos of people in protective gear — masks, gloves, helmets. They must appeal to the little boy in me. Like this stooped fellow with his blue balaclava and ear cups. When I see guys who have jobs like this, grinding burrs off trumpets eight hours a day, I remind myself once again to try to appreciate the job I have, one that takes me wherever I want to go, when I want to go there. Because sometimes I forget.

     There are difficulties. A story like the trumpet piece, you are so immersed, it can be hard to stop. I get used to working on them, and hate to just let the subject drop. As it is, I plan to circle back to the CSO. 

     I hadn't planned on stumbling across the voodoo hacks — Bud Herseth's silver bridge ending up as patches on the bell of Esteban Batallan's trumpet — but in giving space to that, I had to lose some cool details of the production process. I woke up Sunday morning thinking. "I didn't mention the Crisco." The factory lubricates one of the 490 steps to make a trumpet with Crisco oil, which I found charming, the out-of-place foodstuff in a manufacturing process, like discovering that deep at the stern of a diesel ship is a collar of lignum vitae, a dense, oily wood;  the shaft passes through it, from the engine room, outside the hull, connecting to the propellers.
     Nor did I mention the workers who go over the finished trumpets, circling dings and scratches in a red china marker so they can be buffed out — nobody wants to spend $3,000 for a trumpet that arrives with a ding or scratch in it. Imagine doing that all day.
     There were two interesting errors in the original story. At first I called the organ on stage at the CSO "a church organ," which prompted two readers to observe that church organs are found in churches. I changed that to "pipe organ." And originally I hyphenated Conn Selmer. I had asked Mark Dulin, the artists' rep, whether it is hyphenated or not, and he said it wasn't. But working for the company didn't necessarily make him the final word, and looking over the corporate material, the hyphen seemed to be used more often than it wasn't, so we went with it, because the crown in the logo seems to be a hyphen. Then after the story ran, the Conn Selmer folks asked if we could take it out and, since it's their company and they should be called what they want to be called, I laboriously plucked all those hyphens out.

      I've gone into the weeds, haven't I? Time to wrap this up. I need the day off.

      You might wonder why I take photos at all — with ace photographer Ashlee Rezin right there. Three reasons, I suppose. One: force of habit; the paper was without a photo staff for many years, I just got used to taking my own photos. Two: it's quicker to take a photo than jot down the details of a scene, and I use them in constructing my story; and Three: to use here. I don't want to seize the work of my photographer colleagues, and so take my own shot to illustrate my blog posts, though the pro shots are always better, and I often seek permission to use them. Nobody has ever said 'No.'

    Anyway, a bit of background, in case anyone's interested. If not, well, there's always tomorrow.

Jim Dwyer buffing trumpets at Conn Selmer.