 |
| Photo by Kerry Reid |
In my 30 years — at the end of January — as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, I've been tasked by readers with many odd missions. One gave me an urn holding a lady's ashes that he had been entrusted with. I handed the urn to her loved ones. Another reader, a VA social worker, drew me into trying to track down the family of a Marine vet, found frozen to death in a West Side doorway and headed toward a pauper's grave in Homewood. My column helped locate his family in Alabama, who had been looking for him.
An elderly reader once asked if I could arrange for the newspaper to be delivered closer to her front door, as her driveway was icy. She was worried about falling. I knew that would prove beyond my capabilities, so went over and scraped the ice off her driveway myself, to her surprise, and mine.
I tend to take such situations seriously, because I appreciate people reading this stuff, and try to help them, when possible. Ditto for those who cooperate with being put in the paper. When I profiled a homeless man living in a van in the Glen of North Glenview train station parking lot, whose dream was to work in Appleton, Wisconsin, I phoned the mayor of Appleton to see what could be done. Nothing, as it turned out. But the call was made.
I don't always. "I'm not a social service," as I sometimes testily snap, to my wife's consternation. But certain situations just demand action. Such as this email, which arrived Sunday afternoon from Cathryn of Burr Ridge:
"Hi Neil. Watched Bear’s game last night & admired how beautiful Chicago presents on TV. Until the shot of Navy Pier — some lights on Chicago Children’s Museum are burned out which looked second rate on the national stage. I thought maybe you’d know who to contact so it could be corrected before next game. Thank you. Your long time reader..."I'd watched the same game — my wife's suggestion. "Let's join the zeitgeist!" she said, cheerily. (Zeitgeist, German: "the spirit or mood of a particular time." Shows what can happen to a person if she hangs around me for 40 years.) I'd admired the swooping shots of the glittering city and did not notice any balky Children's Museum sign. That could have been during the third quarter when, with the Bears on the ropes, we got bored and watched an episode of "Victoria."
Something about Cathryn's request seemed irresistible. It was a trust drop. No AI aggregator is going to ask the Children's Museum about their sign. I reached out to their PR guy, who put me in touch with Peter Williams, the vice president of exhibits and building operations at the museum. I forwarded the email. Williams replied:
"Chicago Children's Museum has an old school neon sign on the Navy Pier Head House. Sometimes when it rains, a neon transformer ground fault interrupter (GFI) will trip causing three letters to go out. Typically, the GFI will dry out and reset in less than a day. The part of the sign that went out on Saturday night was back on by noon on Sunday."
To continue reading, click here.
So nice of you to help with that ladies driveway.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have kids or grandkids, but now I want to go see the tops!
ReplyDeleteSo they went & replaced the entire sign?
ReplyDeleteHow much did that cost us Chicago taxpayers?
Why not just figure out where the leak in the sign is & fix that?
Clark Street! I suggest you re-read the column, with a focus on comprehension.
DeleteWhen I first read the column this morning, I thought, "Oh, oh. Somebody is going to take that little fiction out of context and complain Tsk, tsk, Clark.
Deletetate
By the way, a "Ground Fault Interruptor" is part of any electrical receptacle that has a "reset" button. It is a safety feature designed to prevent short circuits and electrocutions, especially in the rain. The museum should replace or repair the faulty lights.
Deletetate
A GFCI trips if there's a short causing a grounding. What was shorting out? Why not figure out where the short is? The column states the entire sign was replaced. Why not just replace the GFCI? It's just a microcomputer that senses an imbalance in the electrical load & then cuts off the power in a fortieth of a second.
DeleteTate: Yeah, I forget how easily confused some people are. Though note that, even after I attempted to correct him, CS merely restates his error. That's human beans for ya!
DeleteI wonder if Clark Street understands the amount of income Navy Pier generates for the city of Chicago I believe it's her number one tourist attraction I could be wrong but it's in the top five for sure
DeleteI'm not confused about anything! You don't replace an entire sign because there's a short causing a ground fault. You find the short & fix that!
DeleteI was so astonished by this exchange that I had to go back and read the column again. Unlike Clark St., who focused ONLY on the tongue-in-cheek, fictitious paragraph, I had forgotten it and didn't know what Tate was referring to.
Delete"'Chicago Children’s Museum has an old school neon sign on the Navy Pier Head House. Sometimes when it rains, a neon transformer ground fault interrupter (GFI) will trip causing three letters to go out. Typically, the GFI will dry out and reset in less than a day. The part of the sign that went out on Saturday night was back on by noon on Sunday.'
"Problem solved! I suppressed the urge to take full credit: 'Well, Cathryn it wasn’t easy — those fools at the Children’s Museum tried to deny everything. But our CEO, Melissa Bell, got on the horn to the mayor, and he leaned on Russ Ivinjack, chair of the museum board of directors, and a crane was out there Monday afternoon, replacing the entire sign ...'"
I mean, I understand skimming something, and all, but I submit that the finest, most consistently entertaining newspaper column around is not meant to be skimmed. So I really can't quite understand a regular reader completely ignoring the primary paragraph above and going all-in on the second.
While I am still astonished that Mr. Street (Della's husband, I've always assumed) (how's that for an old, old-school reference?!) would triple down on his misreading -- in this topsy-turvy, going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket world, stranger things have certainly happened, and will continue to do so. 😉
you know, Jakash, I was astonished, too. I even wondered if perhaps Clark St read a portion of the column, ending with the fictitious paragraph about replacing the entire sign..... and failed to click on the "to continue reading- click here" link to see the remainder of the column.
DeleteWhen EGD is printed in the paper, I sometimes encounter another hoop before I can read the rest of it online. (have to sign into my Suntimes account) . So I wondered if that might have happened. Where Clark St was able to read the first portion of EGD, but not the full column.
In any case, Clark St, I commend you for staying true to your beliefs despite considerable blow-back. But as Jakash points out, in this particular case you triple-downed on a false premise, either because you mis-read the column or read only a portion of it and missed the ending. I don't regard you as obtuse, so i presume something else was going on here to create the confusion.
Late to the game I know and I understand Clark street's mistake and your tongue and cheek reference to them replacing the entire sign.
DeleteIt's probably not even a leak but condensation from the temperature difference that causes moisture to as the word says condense inside the tube causing the short.
All very entertaining
But the person that works at Navy Pier doesn't understand how a GFI functions. It's not that the short is in that device the short is in the sign little bit of moisture will cause this tripping the GFI
The GFI doesn't dry out the portion of the sign does.
In a neon light which is a long glass tube it's almost impossible to figure out where that little bit of water is getting in.
Clark street's right about one thing replacing the sign or just that portion of it would be expensive and seems unnecessary until the leak gets larger and the gas comes out
Great column and love the response to good ol Clark St. Are you starting a shoveling service in retirement? Thanks for the smile on my face!
ReplyDeleteI too noticed the Chic Children's Museum sign.
ReplyDeleteFunny, the only thing i thought was "classic"
Thank you for the column, Neil; and your courteous and refined manner.
So it said "Chic Children's Museum" on national TV?
DeleteBeing in Cleveland, I wasn't allowed to watch the game.
And I don't do streaming.
I've known people with "chic children"...and they were pretty obnoxious. Some of them ended up as "chic"...and obnoxious...adults.
And they were not much fun to be around.
"Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be yupsters...
Don't let them drive Beemers or act like such shmucks"
Could make up some more lyrics, but no... gotta go to work.
I feel for the elderly lady. Sun-Times customer service is what finally did me in after getting the paper delivered for years. I would see the delivery guy literally throw the paper out his car window without even stopping. And then it was up to me to get dressed, depending on the weather, and search it out. I called time after time requesting that the paper be put on my front porch, and they actually said they couldn't do that for me! It was probably for the best, I guess. By that time the paper was just a shell of what it had been.
ReplyDeleteTribune delivery guy does the same-it's right on the curb at the END of the driveway
DeleteI will forevermore consider myself lucky to have the newspaper delivery guy that I have. He delivers ALL the newspapers (Tribune, SunTimes and others) and always gets the newspaper right up at the front door. When my nextdoor neighbor broke her hip, she asked him to place the paper inside her screen door so she could kick the paper through her entryway to a chair, where she could then sit down and reach the paper with her hand. And the delivery guy DID it!
Deletei try to guess the topic of your column by the title. I could only see the first 6 words before I opened the email, so I guessed you wrote about the horridness of last week's Bears-Packers game airing only on Amazon Prime for out-of-state fans. Obviously wrong! Truth be told, I found the aerial views of the city during the telecast quite beautiful and didnt even notice the Children's museum's glitchy lights.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to celebrating your 30 year milestone here.... recounting your acts of ancillary social service through the years is a great start.
Neil, I too noticed the burned out lights during the game. I thought it was a perfect example of Chicago, beautiful, but imperfectly real.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your column. Felt a great sense of pride looking at the Super Bowl shots of our “hellhole”.
ReplyDeleteThe only hellish thing about Chicago is the big sign on the building on the river where the SunTimes used to be.
DeleteI almost never watch football, but after watching The Princess Bride, Saturday night on Amazon Prime, I noticed they were promoting the game, do I clicked in some time during the 3d quarter. Wow. I loved those skyline shots, but as an alum of Navy Pier (U of I 1961-62) , I confess, I didn't notice the missing lights. But thanks for whatever you did. :)
ReplyDeleteSo, will you watch the Bears play the Rams Sunday, all the way through? I always thought you prized being an eyewitness to history, but now after your defection to Victoria, I’m not so sure.
ReplyDelete“Shows what can happen to a person if she hangs around me for 40 years.”
ReplyDeleteOuch! 😉
Congrats on your upcoming three-decade anniversary!
I always thought that "urbane" meant that you like to wear tweed sport coats with suede leather elbow patches.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sign, it's great that someone has identified the problem, and the fact that it seems to fix itself after the rain has stopped, but I can't believe that some discreetly-applied duct tape couldn't resolve the issue a little more effectively.