I'm on vacation this week, running posts that somehow never made it online. This was written in August.
One of the many things I've always loved about the Sun-Times is how ad hoc it is. Not a lot of time for meetings and programs — at least at my level, where we're too busy putting out a newspaper. Reporters never know when they'll be pressed into action, or for what. I remember one Saturday, when I still lived in Oak Park, years ago, the paper called. There was some kind of police incident on Harlem Avenue, a block from where I lived.
I went downstairs and hurried over. The two moments I remember is arriving to see the police running in my direction, then turning and seeing the person I took for the bad guy, running away, with me between them. I pressing myself into a doorway to get out of the way. It seems incredible, now that I set it down — how was the situation not resolved before I got there? But that's what memory serves up. Maybe it was a dream that migrated into reality, in my mind.
The other moments was when the article came out — it must have been part of some larger story, because it ended up played prominently. "Only at the Sun-Times," I smiled to myself, "can you be lounging in your underwear in bed at home at 4 p.m. on your day off and still make the front page the next day." I do believe it happened, nearly 40 years ago.
This all came back Wednesday. I was at the Techny Prairie Rec Center, pressing dumbbells in the weight room, when the phone rang — my editor. Was I near an Illinois flag? he said. Could I get a photo of it? Photographers downtown had been dispatched to a police station and a post office and various sundry, no state flag.
The other moments was when the article came out — it must have been part of some larger story, because it ended up played prominently. "Only at the Sun-Times," I smiled to myself, "can you be lounging in your underwear in bed at home at 4 p.m. on your day off and still make the front page the next day." I do believe it happened, nearly 40 years ago.
This all came back Wednesday. I was at the Techny Prairie Rec Center, pressing dumbbells in the weight room, when the phone rang — my editor. Was I near an Illinois flag? he said. Could I get a photo of it? Photographers downtown had been dispatched to a police station and a post office and various sundry, no state flag.
"Lemmee look," I said. I walked outside. Yup, there one was, right under the American flag. But there was no wind. The flag hung limply on its pole. "Wait a second," I said. "We need a breeze." The breeze came up, I got my shot, sent in it, and went back to my workout. On Thursday there is was on page five.
Delightful, enjoy the week!
ReplyDeleteSerendipity at its best. Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteI’m certainly glad you had a chance for a photo credit and were able to summons the wind (impressive!) but were the editors really unable to just Google the Illinois flag for an image?
ReplyDeleteThe "incident" that unfolded in front of me on a crowded Loop sidewalk at lunchtime (W. Madison, between Dearborn and Clark) was a crime in progress. Saw a tall, skinny guy come up behind me and hurry past, at a fast walk...almost a trot. He had a bag in one hand and a gun in the other. Seconds later, an older and shorter guy, who also had a gun, ran up behind him and shot him in the head. He was the jeweler that the first guy had robbed.
ReplyDeleteSaw the whole megillah, from maybe five feet away, and was hauling ass by the time I heard the first screams. Disappeared down the subway stairs. Didn't want to be an "eyewitness"--or face questioning by the authorities. Next fall will be fifty years since it all went down. Back in '75, such incidents were extremely rare in the Loop. Probably not so rare anymore.