Divvy Diary: Why did the rooster cross the Loop?

     This could have been written without the Divvy aspect, but people seem to have an endless appetite for anything involving the bikes, and I was riding one Tuesday when I met this man and his bird. Plus, I suppose, there wasn't a whole lot to say of interest, beyond the fact that I saw a rooster strolling down Randolph Street on a very cold February day in Chicago. 

     Once upon a time, I dreaded appointments at the University of Chicago. That meant driving the better part of an hour on the Edens, finding a parking meter for a couple hours downtown, doing a bit of work at the office, then jumping onto Lake Shore Drive, trying to avoid a ticket driving the ridiculously slow posted speed to Hyde Park, then trying to find a spot there , knowing I’d have to reverse the process.

      Now I take the Metra Electric. It costs $3. The prospect alone is enough to make me happy. Then Divvy showed up in July, with a station at the Merchandise Mart, right outside my office door, and a station on Michigan Avenue steps from the Millennium Park Metra Station entrance. To be tucking in at the Quadrangle Club at noon, I need to take the 11:30 Metra Electric, and to get that, rather than walk 20 minutes, I can Divvy for six. My joy is compounded.

 

   On Tuesday, I return from Hyde Park, weighed down with books from Powell’s on 57th Street (I limit myself to three so I don’t buy 30, and build an extra 20 minutes browsing time into any campus visit). At the station, I notice that someone in Metra sees to it, mirabile dictu, that there are real fresh flowers in a vase on the men’s room sink — purple daisies, yellow lilies and carnations. Kudos from the press; with such details is a glorious city made.

     Outside, I yank a bike from its dock, walk it across Randolph, hop on and am pedaling west, about to turn north onto State when I see something that, in 30 years of wandering the Loop, I have never seen before: a rooster. An orange rooster. Just standing at the corner, as if waiting for a bus. I pull onto the sidewalk, set the kickstand, and take a few pictures, doing my reporter thing. The rooster did not seem to belong to anyone, but a crowd had gathered.
     “I’m from the city. I’m not used to live animals on State Street,” exuded Erick Russell, a passerby. “I didn’t know roosters were so pretty,” said another pedestrian.
     On the ground was a piece of cardboard, a sign, and I figured its owner must have stepped away. It occurred to me that, this being downtown Chicago, leaving a $1,200 bike unattended with my REI bag bungied into the front carrier, was an unwise practice. So I rolled it three yards away to another Divvy station right there, slammed the bike in and grabbed the bag, only to realize I had managed to trap the strap in the station’s docking mechanism (Practical Divvy tip: Remove personal items from front rack before docking your bike).
     In the time it took me to fish out my fob, the imagined scenario formed clearly in mind: The strap of the bag remaining jammed the mechanism, the bike refusing to budge. The panicked call to Divvy. The 20-minute wait for the van to arrive. The grinning mechanic, a young man in a jumpsuit, greasy hair falling in his face, using exotic tools taken from a case, a crowd gathering, while I stand helplessly by, the rooster pecking derisively at my ankle.
     “We had another elderly gentleman get his suspenders caught in the docking port once,” the Divvy repairman would drawl, concentrating on the mechanism. “Somebody called the police instead of us. Poor guy had his pants half off by the time we got there. Can’t figure out how he did it, or why he was on a bike. These old people,” a quick glance in my direction, “don’t know when it’s time to give up the trappings of youth.”
     In the real world, I pulled the bike out, freed the strap, jammed the bike back in and turned to meet Jose, the owner of the rooster, whose name is Garfield, after the park where they live.
     “I found him in the park,” said Jose, who declined to give his last name but said he is 48. His breath was perfumed with a scent I will call eau de booze. “I’ve had him since he was a baby.” He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.
     Jose had a battered black rolling bag and explained how when the bird becomes cold, he stashes him in the bag to warm up. They sleep together in the park, which is a problem because the rooster, which is 7 months old, is not housebroken, evidence of which Jose indignantly showed me on his jeans. He has been homeless for five years, since being injured, he said, and he turned, lifted his shirt and displayed a long scar down his spine.
     The rooster definitely drew a crowd, and made me think of beggars in Paris, who often pair with cats, knowing that humans feel pity toward animals far more readily than they open their hearts to other humans. I gave a buck toward the upkeep of the bird, wished them both well, freed the bike I rode in on and was on my way again.

A conversation on matters racial

    What is racism? It isn't just knee jerk hatred of some group, but an entire framework of perception or, rather, misperception. Not just ignorance, but a forced skewing of the world, a filtering, to keep the despised category viewed negatively. Thus, for instance, Holocaust denial. Since the ultimate atrocity runs the risk of casting Jews in a poignant light, as victims of an incredible wrong, perhaps even deserving of sympathy, it's easier to wave it away — never happened, another Jewish lie — than try to grasp its implications.
     Racism leads to a fixed gaze at the negative qualities of the feared minority, and a dismissal of positive qualities. We saw that in the "English only" crowd which complained about a beautiful Coke commercial that ran during the Super Bowl Sunday, and featured immigrants enjoying regular activities while singing "America the Beautiful" in a variety of languages, which is anathema to those locked in their own white bread box. It boggles my mind that anyone would be so ignorant and twisted and oblivious as to object. But they did. 
     Yesterday's post, and column in the Sun-Times, was about one of the more puzzling realities in our society. Why is there so much poverty and dysfunction in African-American urban society, when other groups, even foreign-born blacks, come to this country, adjust, and thrive? What holds African-Americans back? The column touched upon an experiment that seems to demonstrate that impulse control, key for making the sacrifices that helps a person, or group, accomplish goals, is more difficult when you believe the game is rigged. That seemed a hint at what is going on here.
     Most of my email was from people intrigued with the subject. Then there was this  reaction from a reader, who we will call only by his first name, Richard, since he seems to be an attorney, and therefore perhaps litigious:

It keeps getting harder to explain the failure of African Americans to succeed when other "groups" do so well. The current rationale apparently is that after 40 years of affirmative action, a trillion dollars spent on the War on Poverty and African Americans in all sorts of successful positions including POTUS, that as a group, African Americans haven't yet understood that the path to success is open to them. The 70% out of wedlock birth rate, school drop out rates and high numbers of blacks in jail are cited as things preventing success as if the blacks themselves had no role in creating those roadblocks in the path to success. Here is another theory. Blacks are held back because government is still treating them as if they can never succeed on their own. No one is coddling Asians, Indian Americans, Cubans etc. (BTW take the "America has been tough on blacks" element out of the discussion - where in the world, including Africa are blacks as a group successful by American standards?) If politicians want to fix this problem, quit making failure by blacks so expected and so comfortable.

   The key words in the above are "coddling" and "comfortable."  Richard seems to be arguing that African-Americans have it especially easy in this country. Affirmative Action -- an attempt to get blacks into colleges and jobs, is the reason there's a high incarceration rate among African American men.
    How to respond? The safe thing to do would be not to. "Thank you for writing," and leave it at that. But I'm always tempted to probe this mindset, and I write back to anyone who is halfway civil. He was civil, or trying to be. I replied:

 You think African-Americans are coddled in this country? Thanks for writing.   NS         

    He answered:

           I think they are treated like children. 

    Again, I was tempted to end the conversation. But he at least was talking. I thought a moment, then wrote:

That all depends on how you treat your children. Welfare was corrosive, but in  case you haven't noticed, Bill Clinton got rid of welfare. Anyone who thinks that black Americans have it cushy and thus deserve whatever they get a) doesn't know what life is like outside of their cocoon b) already has hatred in their heart and is trying to rationalize it by blaming the victims. Thanks for writing.

     Richard was not about to back down. He replied:

So a person who thinks lowered expectations for blacks is holding them back - not an inability to see there is a path to success for them in America - is either a) ignorant or b) racist? Pretty standard response when argument fails.

    Again, I try not to waste time engaging with people who cannot re-evaluate themselves, and who dismiss your sincere beliefs as the "standard response." But the inconsistencies in his reply, its general tone of Fox Newishness, and the fact he, sadly, speaks for multitudes, were overpowering. I wrote:

"I think they are treated like children" says nothing about expectations, lowered or otherwise. Are we arguing here? What is your argument? I don't see one. I've made my argument, you replied that blacks have it cushy. I said you're mistaken, and now you're claiming ... what?

      At which point Richard fell silent, either satisfied in his intellectual victory, or not willing to waste further time grappling with the Lunatic Left. I don't often print replies -- the comments section is for that -- but I wanted to preserve our exchange, just because it reveals a mode of thinking that is no doubt common. The high crime on Chicago's South and West Sides, the brokenness of our schools, the plague of drugs, are because society makes it too easy for those who fail. Their lives are a bed of ease, of free breakfast programs and blocks of surplus government cheese. If many black people don't do well, it's their own fault, and the society that shoved them into that box can sleep easily, knowing it has done all it can and its generosity was met with grinning abuse. All those after-school programs, the prenatal care — that's why we don't have more black fire fighters. We've made being in poverty in Englewood such a sweet deal, that nobody can stir themselves to try to escape it. I wouldn't think anybody in the world would believe that, just as I never imagined that the Coke commercial would send xenophobes howling to the ramparts. But it did, and obviously they do feel that way. The point of the column is that a roadblock to African-American success is that, no matter how they strive, society will often be arrayed against them, casting their successes as undeserved freebies, their sufferings as self-inflicted. I think Richard's perspective sheds light on the validity of that fear.

What marshmallows tell us about failure

     More than 40 years ago, a psychologist named Walter Mischel gave children a test that was very simple yet was to become one of the most famous experiments in psychology. 

     He offered the kids a choice: Enjoy a treat now — a cookie, a pretzel — or wait and have twice as much of the treat later. The experimenter left the child alone for 15 minutes with the goodie, often a marshmallow, and the test became commonly known as the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.

     Mischel and his colleagues then tracked the children over years, and what they discovered was that those who waited to get double the sweets did much better in life — in school, in the workplace — than those who broke down and ate the initial treat. 

     That makes sense, when you think about it, since delaying gratification is the ladder you need to get most anyplace worth getting to. It’s what lets you study instead of going out, lets you bypass the alcohol and drugs that might feel good now but extract their penalty down the road. It’s what lets you nibble your salad every day, knowing how good it’ll feel to be thin in six months.

     The study gets mentioned from time to time. Yale Law professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld in The New York Times at the end of January mentioned it again, in a thoughtful essay wondering why some groups in America do well and some don’t. 

     It isn’t a question of race, they argue. Indian-American families earn double the national average. Asian immigrants jam prestigious schools.
     They maintain that the combination of pride and insecurity that comes with being an immigrant is key: "Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry."
     Coming to a new place, you have a sense of pride, even superiority, in the people you left. Being in a society ready to ignore your kind or push you aside gives you an insecurity, a drive to prove them wrong.
     To these two qualities, the authors add a third: gratification control. (Their essay is adapted from their forthcoming book, "The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.")
     Toward the end of the article, the authors turn their attention toward something that has always puzzled me: why some ethnic groups overcome the odds and bigotry arrayed against them and do incredibly well, yet large communities of African Americans remain stuck in poverty. It isn't a simple matter of encountering racism — Haitian immigrants come to Miami and do far better than blacks already there. Yes, African Americans faced or are facing cruel and complex social pathology, which the authors list, in part, as including "slavery, systematic discrimination, schools that fail to teach, employers who won't promote, single motherhood and the fact that roughly a third of young black men in this country are in jail, awaiting trial or on probation or parole."
     And then they invoked the marshmallow experiment, writing:
     "If members of a group learn not to trust the system, if they don't think people like them can really make it, they will have little incentive to engage in impulse control. Researchers at the University of Rochester recently reran the famous marshmallow test with a new spin. Children initially subjected to a broken promise — adults promised them a new art set to play with, but never delivered — almost invariably "failed" the test ... By contrast, when the adults followed through on their promise, most kids passed the test."
     That's it. That's why, even as the outward restrictions of institutional racism slowly fade in this country, mass African-American poverty persists even as other racial minority groups arrive on our shores, collect themselves and thrive. The idea — deny gratification now, work hard, study hard and your rewards will come — is a much tougher sell on the West Side of Chicago. It seems a lie because, for many, it is a lie, particularly in this economy, when working hard and getting an education is not necessarily a roadmap to a successful future, no matter your race.
     So while a Korean immigrant can come to this country, open a business and work hard, convinced the American dream is waiting, many African Americans trying to do the same face a double bind: Not only must the path to success be open to them — when so many times before it has been blocked — but they must also believe it is open to them. Otherwise, they face a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure that scientists can measure but politicians can't fix.

Meh: This year's Super Bowl commercial fall flat.

     The majority of sporting events viewed on television in the Steinberg household are Bulls basketball games, and usually we start watching 15 minutes or so after the game begins, which means that, through the miracle of DVR, my younger son, who jockeys the remote, can fast-forward through the commercials.  

      At first, I would argue that we should watch them —I don't watch much TV, and am interested in what advertisers are ballyooing and how they are doing it. Commercial are  fun, or can be. But I lost that argument, and now just sort of gaze wistfully at the images flashing past. Though to be honest, since a significant percentage of all commercials on TV are those horrendous AT&T "In my day" ads, I don't feel that bad, since every one of those missed is a minute added to your life. The only time I make him stop and back up is when Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner has another commercial claiming the multi-millionaire is a normal person, and that government is the one area in life where having no experience whatsoever helps you succeed. Those I want to see.
     The Super Bowl was an exception — here are where the costliest, most seen commercials on TV make their debut, and since I do think advertising is an art form, or can be, I wanted to watch them. So I saw them all.
     Meh.
     Few even reached the level of "good." Radio Shack had a cute spot on the theme, "The 80s called, they want their store back" that featured 1980s cultural figures — Hulk Hogan, Twisted Sister, Mary Lou Retton — ripping a store apart and hauling it away. The ad not only was clever, but addressed the central problem of Radio Shack—it is indeed stuck in a time warp, and since they can't change the name — Computer Shack? I don't think so — a store makeover is the next best thing.
     What else? Coke had an emotional tribute to immigration, with various American minorities singing "America the Beautiful" in a variety of languages while engaged in ordinary activities, that was moving but probably flew past most viewers, except of course for a few bigots who were appalled.  Budweiser scored with its puppy-and-Clydesdale love story, though really, when you trot out puppies, it's cheating. Audi had a funny commercial featuring a horrendous mix of a big and little dog, the "Doberhauhau,"  though its point "Compromise scares us too" is sort of a strain (though credit to Audi for creating an actual parody public service spot, not seen during the Super Bowl, that featured Lilith Fair stalwart Sarah McLachlan). Which is a general problem that the automobile ads have. Even the effective ones had little to do with cars, and half the time you forget which make was behind the commercial, though Maserati's was strange enough to stand out, with a feral child making a speech about small people climbing out from the shadows to claim their due: memorable, but in a bad way.
      While leads to the Bob Dylan ad for Chrysler, a follow-up from the excellent 2011 Eminem commercial for Detroit in general and the Chrysler 200 in particular. But while that ad had drama, and impact, and beautiful scenes of Detroit. Dylan's begins with, er, Dylan, a black-and-white photo of the back of his bushy 1960s head, and the fall-flat-and-lay-there question, "Is there anything more American than America?" (Why no, Bob, I guess not. America is the most American thing there is. Why?) By the time present day Bob steps out of an old-fashioned elevator cage, looking around the eyes like a transvestite at his day job and sounding, with his grizzled drawl, a bit like Albert Finney in "Big Fish" -- "American prahhd" — I remembered that nothing guarantees failure quite so much as trying to ape your past successes.  The commercial didn't make me think about Detroit cars so much as think about Bob Dylan, and who wants to do that? Like Detroit of 1995, he's been coasting for decades on past success, trying to pretend his various misfires didn't happen.  Maybe people a few years older than myself have this enormous store of goodwill for him, and will be happy just to lay eyes on the guy. But to me, he's the singer who put out the superb "Blood on the Tracks" in 1975, followed it up with the less good but still alright, "Desire," and "Hard Rain" and then found Jesus and became a parody of himself.  It wasn't quite Chrysler having Woody Allen narrate their commercial, but in the same realm of creepy old recluses you don't want to find prowling your living room. 
    But we've strayed from Super Bowl commercials. The Bud Lite "Are you ready for whatever happens" fantasy date went nowhere — again, the creepy Arnold Schwarzenegger in a wig playing ping pong probably seemed wild and fun on the storyboard, but was just weird and off-putting (though I liked Lilly the Llama, not enough to redeem the ad). 
     This was a year when the football game was far better than the commercials, though given that the game was a 43 to 8 blow-out that the Broncos were losing from the first play, that isn't saying much. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman — Addiction cares not for talent or fame

Philip Seymour Hoffman — 1967 - 2014

     “It ain’t a question of his being a good boy,” Mama says, in “Sonny’s Blues,” a 1957 short story by James Baldwin, “nor of his having good sense. It ain’t only the bad ones, nor yet the dumb ones that get sucked under.”

     Philip Seymour Hoffman was neither a bad one nor a dumb one, but among of the smartest, best actors of his generation. His audience not only admired and respected him, but loved him—there was something about the man, a twinkle, a regular guyness, coupled with the odd characters he played, and the daring parts he chose. There was nothing phoned-in or half-baked about him. He was more than a star; he was an actor.

     Hoffman  certainly was not movie star handsome—a large head on a thickset body—yet was always much more than a character actor. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, and won the Oscar for Best Actor for his 2005 portrayal of Truman Capote, in “Capote,” cutting through the mincing stereotypes to show the author’s pathos and strength. 

     My own favorites were his priest in “Doubt” co-starring with Meryl Streep, and his maverick CIA agent working with Tom Hanks in “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Hoffman was raw and real and human.

     Hoffman also excelled on stage. Chicago’s own Robert Falls directed him in the 2003 Broadway production of the Goodman Theatre’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” where Hoffman playied Jamie Tyrone, the booze-soaked son of a great actor. It’s hard to steal the spotlight from Brian Dennehy, but Hoffman did in the Eugene O'Neill masterpiece. "I am heartbroken," Falls said Sunday evening, no doubt speaking for many.

     I met him only once—I don't know why, when a prominent person dies, we journalists feel compelled to dredge up any fleeting personal connection and wave it over our heads. To puff ourselves? I hope not. I think that is more a general human response to tragedy, something everybody feels, to gasp, "But I met him!" Though I think the exchange does say something about what kind of guy Hoffman was.
     My son and I were at the Goodman in 2010, seeing Dennehy perform a pair of short plays: O'Neill's "Hughie" and Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape." Hoffman came tramping up and sat directly across the aisle from us, dressed casually in a big parka and green knit Jets hat. To me, courtesy dictates that celebrities be left alone when encountered in public, but I quietly pointed him out to my son, then 14, figuring it would give the kid something to tell his pals back at junior high school.
     What I didn't realize is my son would then spend the entire intermission nagging me: What kind of reporter am I? How could I ignore this star sitting a few feet away? He painted my good manners as timidity, which it probably was. So we positioned ourselves at the end of his row after intermission so Hoffman had to squeeze by. I pretended I just noticed him, "Philip Seymour Hoffman! I heard your film did great at Sundance!" I introduced ourselves to the star, who shook our hands and made conversation.
     Hoffman said he was there as part of preparing to direct "The Long Road." He was nice to us, and to me that speaks as well of him as winning an Academy Award, because so many actors, particularly those known for their careful craft, drop the ball when it comes to meeting the public. Hoffman was gracious. I respected him before we met, but respected him even more after.
     A nice guy and a drug addict. You can be both. In the Baldwin story, Sonny's curse is heroin, and that is what New York police say killed Hoffman; cops say the syringe was sticking out of his arm, the heroin nearby. He was sober for more than 20 years but recently fell off the wagon. That's how addiction is — you get free and then it perversely reels you back. People are said to be "recovering" but never "recovered"; 20 years doesn't make you safe.
     A terrible end, a loss to the world of movies and theater, not to mention to his friends, colleagues and loved ones, plus a caution to all of us who battle daily with the demon. Maybe that sounds like an excuse, but those who puzzle over Hoffman's sad end will be missing the point. Which is that neither talent nor wealth, fame nor skill, offer protection against the plague of addiction. Sobriety is but a good sign, but no guarantee. The pit sits there and waits, and it takes luck and work and constant diligence to not end up back in it. Philip Seymour Hoffman was 46 years old. Whatever he got from heroin, he would have gotten more from being alive for the next 25 years. If only he could have kept on the path.

A new meaning for the term "dog house"

 
    There were a lot of fascinating details to cram into this piece. You know you have a complicated subject when only after the story gets into print do you realize, "Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the owners has a paw print tattooed on the back of her neck."

     Step inside the double front door of the Greco residence on North Tripp and you will be met by a swirling, sniffing, barking welcoming committee: the six dogs who live there, a range of colors and sizes straight out of Disney, from Bongo, a tiny 9-pound Chihuahua, through Sugar, a Pomeranian; Blanche, a Shih Tzu mix; Cheyenne, a shepherd; ending with Shirley and Howard, a pair of 85-pound Bernese Mountain Dogs, Howard having the habit of sneaking up behind you and rising between your legs so you find yourself straddling him like a horse, an animal he resembles in size.

     Close behind will be Mario and Julie Greco, who live in what has to be one of the most singular homes in Chicago: a 6,600-square-foot, five-bedroom residence they built in 2009 with an eye firmly fixed on canine comfort and happiness, which dictated everything from the profusion of window seats, so the dogs could easily gaze out at their Old Irving Park neighborhood and a side yard dog run, to the heated floors in the basement and the marble wash station, raised 2 feet off the ground.

     That might be more for the comfort of owners who don’t have to bend down so far when washing their dogs, as are the mostly wooden floors.

     The Grecos are a married couple in their early 40s who, needless to say, love dogs. “They’re family,” says Julie, formerly a professional dog walker and doggie day care worker in Lincoln Park. Mario is a lawyer who now works as a real estate agent. They also care for numerous foster dogs — Bongo is a foster — and they wanted a house suited for that. Thus, matte-lacquered walls — easy to clean — and wood floors stained dark brown.
     "So the dark hair doesn't show as much," Julie said. "We had four Bernese Mountain Dogs at one time."
    Five of their previous dogs passed away and are memorialized by a magnolia tree in the garden, their own memorial stones and an elegiac ensemble of large photos transferred to canvas in the Greco bedroom where, yes, the dogs do sleep. If you naturally want to despise anyone in a position to build a mansion that coddles their dogs — my inclination before stepping into the house — that attitude would likely evaporate in the warm outpouring of love the Grecos have for their animals, by their unaffected, regular-folk demeanor and by the buoyant personalities of the dogs themselves, all rescue dogs. Howard, one of the Bernese, has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. Plus the overwhelming aesthetic beauty of the home that would be extraordinary without a single pet: a central staircase with trim that evokes a series of stacked boxes, 9-foot doors, countless built-in drawers and cabinets, 2-inch-thick limestone counters.
     The attention to detail is staggering, from the oil-rubbed bronze door handles and window latches, to the custom-made bricks, extra low and wide, to the intentionally sloppy mortar around the bricks, giving the sense not of new construction, but of something old and roughly tuck-pointed.
     "We moved from an old house in Lincoln Park that we renovated," Mario says. "We wanted to make the house feel like it's been here forever."
     They might have to live there, if not forever, awhile. The house (and lot) cost $3 million, Mario says — what happens when you install heated sidewalks — but in this market and neighborhood it's now worth $1 million. Then again, the Grecos aren't going anywhere soon, but plan to live with their loved ones in their doggie heaven.

Ten inches of snow predicted

     Ten.
     Ten inches.

     Of snow.
     Ten inches of snow. 
     Ten. 
     Inches.
     Of snow. 
     
      There was a time, a period of years, when I had in my possession the phone number of a man who had a plow attached to the front of his pick-up truck. I would dial the number, on evenings when a significant amount of snow was predicted for the next day. He would stop by like clockwork, shortly after the snow fell, and plow my  long driveway at breakneck speed, backing up, pushing huge berms of snow off to the side. I would leave an envelope containing a sum of cash —I think $25 or $30 —in the mailbox, and everyone would be happy.
      But guys with snowplows on the front of their pick-ups are a transitory lot —like the men in country songs, putting on their boots and cowboy hats and moving on down the line. One day I phoned him and he wasn't plowing anymore. 
      So I shovel. 
      I try to dragoon my two sons, 16 and 18 to help.  They should help. 
  
   "Where are your sons?" Willy Loman is asked, in "Death of a Salesman. "Why don't your sons give you a hand?" 

      Well, they have activities—Ross has a chess tournament Saturday. And Kent volunteers. Important things to do. Places to be. They don't like shoveling. And I failed to instill in them the sense of leaping duty that dads always seem to impress upon their sons in fiction. My dad was good at that, good at a "get your ass out there and shovel" bark that sent me scrambling for the door. I tried to avoid being that guy, so now I have to shovel alone, sometimes. Usually.
      Ten inches.
      I should have bought a snow blower. Years ago, I almost did. I went to Home Depot to get one, with an acquaintance, who was also buying a snow blower. Another snow blower. I went with him to see how it was done, as moral support, or something. He walked immediately up to the most expensive snow blower in the Home Depot, one that had, I swear, rectangular lights on stalks, and a radio, and looked like it was built to clear airport runways. I hovered behind a shelf of seed packets, watching. The snow blower cost, if I recall, $1400. The snow blowers that I eyed suspiciously, that I thought cost a decent amount and were in my price range, cost about $500 and looked like bread boxes on wheels the size of Oreo cookies by comparison. 
       In my memory -- and heck, perhaps in actuality too, sometimes the two intersect—people in the store stopped, to watch my friend go by pushing this snow blower. Some clapped or whistled or cheered, as my friend wheeled his snow blower to the check out line. It was like the ending of "An Officer and A Gentleman."
     I bought a shovel instead.
     I view it as exercise. Shoveling. Exercise in the crisp air. Exercise ordained by God. Why go to a gym and work out and pay someone to plow your driveway when you can take a shovel in hand, do the thing yourself, and get in exercise as ordained by God while saving money? It's perfect.

     HOWARD: This is no time for false pride, Willy. You go to your sons and you tell them that you're tired. 

      The guy across the street, whose driveway is half the length of mine, has a snow blower. He very kindly does the sidewalks of the neighbors on either side of him, and at times, tracking him out of the corner of my eye, I've imagined him steering the thing into the center of the street, where he puts it in neutral. I walk over, as one does in dreams. It sits there thrumming, vibrating with power and possibility. He smiles and makes a sort of Gallic "here it is" shrugging gesture, both palms turned up and to the side, proffering. I take the thing in hand, feel it straining to go forward, like a brace of bloodhounds. He nods. I jiggle the throttle, or the clutch, or whatever it has and the snow blower springs to life with a throaty roar, and I snowblow my way up my driveway, loudly tossing an arcing plume of snow into the yard.
       But he never has done that. 

       WILLY: I can't throw myself on my sons. I'm not a cripple! 

       It is not —I insist — cheapness that keeps me from buying a snowblower. No no no no no. No. It's tradition. My father never owned a snow blower, or a garage door opener, and so now those devices seemed like sybaritic luxuries. More. They are impossible, forbidden. People like me did not have those things. It is outside the realm of possibility.  Buying a snowblower would break some known order of the universe, and if I bought one — not that I could, not that it is possible, but say it happened — as a result, as punishment, my scarf would dangle down into the twirling blades, and I would be sucked face first into the maw of the thresher, or whatever it's called, and a plume of bright crimson leaping from the device, which would crawl away with my upper body jammed in it up to the shoulders, feet dragging limply behind, bouncing a bit on the uneven parts, spewing as it went. It would become an urban legend. My family would move away, but nobody would buy the house, the Snow Blower House. Eventually, the structure would be torn down and they'd build a small park that no one ever stepped foot in on the site... 
      It was a long week, and to be honest, I am tired and was looking forward to resting on Saturday. On the couch. With the newspaper or a book or both. Now I'll be in snowpants, shoveling all day, trying to stay ahead of the 10 inches of snow. 
     Maybe it won't happen. Maybe the weatherman will be wrong. He, she, they, have been wrong before. Maybe the snowy frontal system, or whatever it is, will skirt Chicago, and dump over Wisconsin, a state of resourceful, burly men who, I believe, all must own snowblowers as a matter of state law.
       That is what I'm praying. 

       Ten.
       Inches.
       Of. 
       Snow.
       Ten. 
       Snow.
       Snow.
       Snow.
       Sno

                                                                   #


Postscript: Only about three inches of snow fell. And Kent came out and cheerfully helped without being asked. Ross won his games.

Post-postscript: In December, 2016, I broke down and bought an Ariens, one of those fancy big snowblowers with the light and the little shovel attached. It didn't snow more than three inches for the next year and a half, but what I didn't realize—what the mindset of this column blocked me from seeing ahead of time—that I would be happy just owning the thing, just seeing its orange, powerful presence sitting my garage, gleaming, ready. 

After-Words New and Used Books, 23 E. Illinois Street, is the only remaining independent book store in downtown Chicago. A large, yet comfortable space, it features both a range of new books, with an emphasis on political and counter-culture books, plus a vast used book section downstairs. I never walk by without stopping in, and appreciate their displaying my blog poster — No. 16 —— in their foyer. The next three book stores I asked turned me down.