Remembering Neil Armstrong and July 20, 1969

     Today is the 45th anniversary of Neil Armstrong stepping on the Moon. That he was the first man to do so hardly needs to be mentioned—the act made him one of the most famous men of the 20th century, a distinction that he carried with enormous grace. Like most people, I always admired Armstrong as much for the dignity he showed afterward as for the feat itself. He never sold out or cheapened his accomplishment. When he died two years ago I wrote this obituary, which appeared in the Sun-Times on Aug. 25, 2012:

     He was the first man to set foot on the moon, and he lived the rest of his life in such a manner as to never detract from that enormous accomplishment.
     Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of Apollo 11’s “Eagle” lunar landing module and onto the powdery gray lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EST on July 20, 1969, to the amazement of a breathless world.
     “That’s one small step for [a] man,” he said, famously, the “a” dropping out in the quarter-million mile transmission. “One giant leap for mankind.”
     For the next 43 years, until his death Saturday at 82 after complications from surgery to repair a blocked artery, Armstrong conducted himself as a hero should — modest, self-effacing, neither capitalizing on his global fame nor seeking a return to the spotlight.
     That was not only appreciated, it was apt, because Armstrong’s modest demeanor was what caused NASA administrators to pick him for the honor in the first place, selecting him to achieve the capstone of the United States’ epic quest, in the words of John F. Kennedy, “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
     In a statement, his family described Armstrong as “a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job.”
     Neil Alden Armstrong was born on Aug. 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, a small town in Western Ohio, 60 miles from the hometown of the Wright Brothers, who were his boyhood heroes. Armstrong received his pilot’s license on his 16th birthday, before he learned to drive, paying for flight lessons with his own money from after-school jobs, and became a naval air cadet the next year.
     He studied aeronautical engineering at Purdue — he always described himself as a “nerdy engineer” — but left college to fight in the Korean War. The youngest fighter pilot in his squadron, he flew 78 combat missions, was shot down once and decorated three times.
     After the war, he finished at Purdue and got his masters degree at the University of Southern California. He joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the precursor to NASA, becoming a research pilot at Edwards Air Force base, flying hundreds of different aircraft.
     Armstrong retired from the Navy in 1960 and joined the space program in 1962, part of the second class of astronauts. He commanded the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, conducting the first docking of two spacecraft in history, connecting with the Agena spacecraft.
     “Flight we are docked,” Armstrong radioed back. “It’s really a smoothie.” The rest of the flight wasn’t — 30 minutes after docking, a malfunctioning thruster caused the joined spacecraft to spin wildly, required the mission to be aborted and an emergency landing in the Pacific.
     NASA officials, looking for a cool head for the first risky moon mission, remembered Armstrong’s performance under pressure with Gemini 8. He was made commander of Apollo 11, where he was joined by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, who stayed in the command module Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the moon’s surface.
     Armstrong needed his trademark calm during the Eagle’s landing, when a balky computer threatened to put the spidery vehicle into a field of boulders — he switched to manual control, reading out the distance to the uprushing moon, flew past the boulder field and landed softly in a cloud of dust with less than a minute’s worth of fuel remaining in the landing tanks.
     “Houston,” he said. “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
     NASA always said that Armstrong was selected to go out first because his seat was closest to the hatch. But years later, officials admitted that it was his self-effacing demeanor — Aldrin had lobbied for the honor — that caused him to be selected.
     Armstrong spent less than three hours on the moon. He collected rock samples and took photographs — most of them, so he only appears in a few. Armstrong never flew into space again.
     The rest of his life was mostly out of the public eye — Aldrin described him as one of the quietest men he had ever met.
     “On behalf of the Aldrin family we extend our deepest condolences to Carol & the entire Armstrong family on Neil’s passing. He will be missed,” Aldrin said via Twitter.
     Armstrong taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati and served on corporate boards.
     He did make several rare appearances — in 2010, decrying a NASA budget that shed its human space flight.
     “It has been painful to watch,” he testified to Congress. “I believe the president has been poorly advised.”
     He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Congressional Gold Medal. More than a dozen public schools are named in his honor.
     Armstrong was living in Cincinnati at the time of his death. He was married in 1956 and divorced his first wife, Janet, in 1994, later marrying Carol Held Knight. Survivors include his two sons from his first marriage, Alan and Mark. A daughter, Karen, died of an inoperable brain tumor at age 2 in 1962.
     His family’s statement requested that those wishing to honor Armstrong, “honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

Divvy: all good fun until somebody gets hurt

     The city recently marked the first anniversary of its Divvy bike-share program with characteristic self-congratulation: “I encourage everyone to celebrate this milestone by getting on a Divvy bike and going for a ride,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel, trotting out the statistics — 1.6 million trips taken, 250,000 day passes sold, 23,000 annual members signed up, including yours truly. I’ve taken over 100 jaunts on the Divvy this past year. It’s a fun, convenient, healthful way to get around town.

     But ...

     In one regard the city has failed in its rollout of the Divvy program, by downplaying the importance of wearing a helmet. Perhaps because bothering with helmets cuts down on usage. Perhaps because they spoil the carefree, hip mellow Divvy is driving for. Perhaps — my theory — that Divvy doesn’t make money from renting helmets, yet.

     Go on Divvy’s website and find barely a whisper about the need for helmets, a bit tucked at the end of “Riding Tips.” Divvy is acting too much like a private business and too little like a responsible part of civic life.

     Not that I’m the Welcome Wagon for bike helmets. I didn’t own a helmet for the first 35 years of my life, having grown up in the era when we drank from garden hoses, rode in the beds of pickup trucks and played with lawn darts.

     But after having kids, I realized that if I wanted them to be wearing

their helmets when some careless motorist came blasting out of a side street, I’d better wear one too.

     It’s a big honking Bell helmet, the kind with the vaguely insectoid shape that makes it bigger and harder to haul around. But I do wear it, mostly. I wore the helmet when I met the mayor for a Divvy ride and was surprised that Rahm, usually attuned to optics, had no helmet. Maybe helmets poll poorly.

     My policy: Try to wear one. Usually. Shoot for 90 percent. OK, 75 percent. But sometimes I’ll go for a ride helmetless.

     I’m beginning to wonder if even those occasional breezy-haired trips are unwise. According to a new study, “Public Bicycle Share Programs and Head Injuries,” in the American Journal of Public Health, comparing cities with bike-share programs to cities without, head injuries increased 8 percent over three years, as a proportion of all injuries, in cities with the programs — to more than half of all serious bike injuries — while decreasing 4 percent in cities without them.
     “These programs are great because they promote physical activity, but at the same time they should really offer helmets on-site because this is a matter of public safety,” Dr. Ellen Omi, a trauma surgeon at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, said.  
     Fewer than a quarter of bike riders wear helmets, according to the National Injury Prevention Foundation, a statistic that conceals a bit of good news: Most people ride without helmets and most people are fine. Head injuries are quite rare. Helmets are like seat belts; you don’t need them at all until the moment you need them a lot.
     I asked Divvy spokesman Elliot Greenberger if there are any plans to encourage helmets more.
    “We’re exploring options to make helmet rental or purchase more readily available near stations,” he said in an email. “However we haven’t committed to firm plans. Helmet rental technology is quite new, so we’re looking at technologies being rolled out in other cities as possible options.”
     Until then, Divvy is offering members $10 off certain helmets. A start. But what they really need to do is put some of their marketing muscle, which they had no trouble using to push that special red bike, into urging riders to wear helmets.
     Greenberger said that “out of over 1.6 million Divvy trips served in our first year, we’ve had fewer than 10 incidents reported to us, none of which were serious.”
     “Trips served.” Like they’re McDonald’s.
     A good record. But that also means the serious incident is coming. Don’t let it be you. The bottom line on helmets: They’re a bother and you could view them as a waste.
     Or you can view helmets as a reverse lottery. Some poor soul is going to be cut off by a cab and bounce off Wacker Drive on his head, leading to the severe, long-term, possibly fatal brain injuries that Omi warns of. Buying and wearing a helmet is your ticket not to be that person, laboriously learning to speak again at the Rehab Institute.
     And when that happens to someone, which it certainly will, it’ll partially be the fault of Divvy, the city of Chicago and Emanuel because they could have done more to promote helmet use, but didn’t.

Saturday fun activity: Where IS this?

      It's Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a time of dawn-to-dusk fasting. Observing the fast is considered one of the "Five Pillars of Islam," but it's also a time of celebration and renewal of community ties, particularly at the Iftar, the post sun-down meal. Friday night I attended an Iftar raising money for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund  at Reza's on Ontario, a very nice group of Chicagoans, and of course plenty of good food as well. It was a lot of fun, and if you the chance to attend an Iftar—Ramadan runs until July 28—I suggest you grab it.
      This photo was taken, not at the Iftar, but inside a mosque, obviously, but which one? My supply of posters is almost gone, so the winner will receive a signed copy of my recent book, "You Were Never in Chicago." Please be sure to post your guesses in the comments below. Good luck.

John F. Kennedy Jr., 1960-1999

    This is the obituary of John F. Kennedy Jr., that I couldn't find yesterday. I thought it merits a second read. It originally ran in the Sun-Times exactly 15 years ago today, on July 18, 1999:

     He entered the world already famous, the only child ever born to a president-elect. His every action warranted a news story. When he first stood up. When he first went to church. When he walked.
     Later, and for years to come in the public mind, he was John-John, the little boy in a short coat, heartbreakingly solemn, saluting his father's casket as it passed by on a day that was both a moment of profound national grief and his third birthday.
     Eventually he was John F. Kennedy Jr., People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive," the admired and ridiculed inheritor of his famous father's name and charm, trying to find a place for himself in the world and its large expectations of him, first as a lawyer, then as a magazine publisher.
     Frequently dismissed as a dilettante, he nevertheless escaped the kind of notoriety that afflicted other members of his extended clan.
     Yet John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., 38, could not escape, apparently, the tragic ill fortune that stalked his family, his small plane crashing Friday on its way to Martha's Vineyard. His glamorous wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister also were on the plane.
     His 1960 birth was a dramatic event. His father, who had been elected president 18 days earlier, had spent Thanksgiving Day with his pregnant wife at their Georgetown home, then got on a plane for Palm Beach, where he was to vacation.
     Two hours after her husband's departure, Jacqueline Kennedy was rushed to the hospital; word reached the president-elect as his plane landed in Florida, and as soon as a new plane could be refueled, he turned around and went back to Washington. But he wasn't in time for the birth of his first son, at 12:22 a.m. Nov. 25, about a month before the due date. The baby weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces.
     For the nation, the arrival of JFK Jr. was welcomed as a break from the worries of the day. "No bit of news could have stirred such bipartisan excitement," the Chicago Sun-Times editorialized. "We bid him welcome, and wish him a long and good life."
     No detail of that life, early on, was too minor to be reported, from his formula (one tablespoon of powdered milk to two ounces of water every three hours) to his baptismal outfit (the white christening dress his father had worn 43 years earlier) to his first steps ("Kennedy Son Takes Steps to See Dad Off," one story was headlined).
     Three staffers worked full time opening and cataloging the thousands of baby gifts from people all over the world — hundreds of women knitted booties, sent, typically, with brief notes explaining they had done the knitting during the presidential debates, or while watching election returns. In later years, the presidential couple would implore Americans not to send the children presents. There were too many.
     Reports on his progress were part of the Camelot mystique, the joy of having a vibrant, glamorous couple and their young children in the White House. Early public glimpses of John-John came as he peered through the rails of the upper balcony at ceremonial events going on below, near where a sandbox was set up for him.
     The nation saw the little boy and his sister, Caroline, dance in the Oval Office while their beaming father clapped. They saw John-John playing under his dad's desk. President Kennedy would tease him by calling him "Sam." "I am not Sam. I'm John, Daddy, I'm John," he would protest. (It was his older sister who forbade him from being called "Jack.")
     He loved 21-gun salutes. He loved the helicopters and airplanes that the family often traveled on. He loved returning the Marine guard's salute with one of his own. The president called his children "my rascals," and they would come running whenever he called for them.
     John Jr. celebrated his first two birthdays in the White House. For his 2nd, the president of Ireland sent a pony.
     By his third birthday, his father was dead. The evening of the assassination, he and his sister were hurried from the White House by their nurse, Maud Shaw. John-John was told that his father had been killed by "a bad man," but he didn't really understand what had happened. "I don't have anyone to play with," he complained the next day at a private home, missing his father and the staff at the White House.
     Lyndon B. Johnson's first act as president after he returned to the White House from Dallas was to write a letter of condolence to the boy, beginning, "It will be many years before you can read this note. . . ."       

      Kennedy's salute of his father's casket, as it was leaving St. Matthew's Cathedral for Arlington National Cemetery, was one of the many searing images from the days following the assassination. He had been standing next to his mother and, at her prompting, stepped forward and saluted. The date was Nov. 25, 1963: his third birthday. The Sun-Times ran the photo over an entire page.
     After the assassination, the family moved to New York, living first in the Carlyle Hotel. Kennedy began his schooling at the prestigious St. David's School, transferring for third grade to the 330-year-old Collegiate School —  reportedly because St. David's wanted him to repeat the second grade.
     While Jacqueline Kennedy was strenuous in protecting her children's privacy, he remained frequently in the public eye: for skinning his knee, for punching a playmate, for breaking his wrist falling from a pony.
     Not only did the public note his actions, it imitated them. "John F. Kennedy Jr. has let his sideburns grow and the repercussions have been felt all over Manhattan's Upper East Side. Next month, Des Moines," a half-page article in the New York Times began. Kennedy was 6 years old.
     By then, he was correcting people that his name was not John-John, it was "John." His mother had begun calling him "Johnny" when he turned 4, to show he was growing up.
     After Jacqueline Kennedy married shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis in 1968, her children's time was divided between New York and Greece.
     Like his mother, he was plagued by paparazzi, filing an affidavit in his mother's lawsuit against photographer Ronald Galella, accusing the photographer of almost causing an accident while Kennedy was operating a speedboat off the Greek island of Scorpios.
    "Unexpectedly a fishing boat ran directly across my path," said Kennedy, then 11. "I had to swerve and almost capsize in order to avoid a collision."
     He received Secret Service protection, as mandated by law, until he was 16 years old. But that didn't spare him from being mugged in Central Park when he was 13, when a drug addict robbed him of his bicycle. In 1972, a plot by a dozen international terrorists to kidnap him for ransom was foiled before it could be carried out.
     He went to high school at exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and bucked family tradition and attended Brown University instead of Harvard.
     While at Brown, he was in many ways a typical late-1970s collegian: to pledge Phi Psi fraternity, Kennedy—nude and covered with fish entrails and dog food—streaked across campus.
     He reportedly wanted to attend Yale Drama School, but his mother threatened to disinherit him unless he went to law school. He bowed to her will, enrolling in New York University Law School in 1986.
     After graduating in 1989, he joined the New York district attorney's office as an assistant district attorney at $30,000 a year. "A down in the trenches kind of job" he later said. Kennedy took the subway to work, where on his first day he had to run a gantlet of 40 reporters, photographers and TV crew members.
     To keep his job, Kennedy needed to pass his New York state bar exam. He failed on his first two attempts, to cruel hoots of media ridicule ("THE HUNK FLUNKS . . . AGAIN" screamed the front page headline on the New York Daily News). But Kennedy was nonplussed.
     "I am clearly not a legal genius," he said after the second failure.
     He passed on his third try, in 1990.    

     Kennedy made his political debut introducing his Uncle Ted at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. That was the year People magazine named him "Sexiest Man Alive." His public appearances often had a tinge of rock-concert hysteria to them, as women shrilly shouted their approval.
     Kennedy did not speak publicly about his father until 1992, when he appeared on ABC's "Prime Time Live" with his sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. He doubted that "given the tenor of the times" his father, if still alive, would have gone into politics at all. He said that while he wasn't going to see Oliver Stone's movie "JFK," then just being released, that the assassination and the theories surrounding it were not particularly important to him.
     "That act, that day does not have much to do with my life," he said. "My father's life has to do with my life."
He said he did not waste time wondering about the event itself.
     "There are people, historians, filmmakers, etc., who are going to take time and money studying (the assassination). Whatever they decide is not going to change the one fundamental fact in my life, which is that it won't bring him back," he said.
     In 1995, he launched a magazine devoted to politics and celebrity. Kennedy named it George, after the first U.S. president, despite the advice of consultants who called the name bland. He worked vigorously promoting it—even appearing on the "Murphy Brown" sitcom delivering an issue. Circulation swelled to an impressive 800,000 issues, though it fell once the novelty wore off, and its future was viewed as uncertain in recent months.
     The public scrutiny continued. In February 1996, Kennedy and his girlfriend, Carolyn Bessette, were videotaped quarreling in a New York park, with talking, fighting, pouting and crying before they made up. The 20-minute spat showed up on television—and caused controversy in Chicago, where WBBM-TV Channel 2 used it to lead the news, distressing viewers who felt that it was inappropriate and intrusive.
     Kennedy's love life, like the rest of his life, received extensive public scrutiny, and he was tied romantically to several women, from Sharon Stone to Daryl Hannah, whom he dated for years and nearly married, to Madonna (who described her tryst with Kennedy as being "like going to bed with an innocent").
     In September 1996 he married Bessette, a former Calvin Klein publicist, in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island, along the Georgia coast. The couple had lived together for about a year.
     He was given kudos for pulling off the wedding in secret, without the frenzy of media hype and helicopters that usually would attend such an event.
     Kennedy provided the most glittering party of the year in Chicago in 1996 when he feted his magazine at a summer gala at the Art Institute. Celebrities from Norman Mailer to Kevin Costner to Aretha Franklin attended.
     Kennedy avoided the sort of deeply embarrassing public scandal that afflicted his cousins and his Uncle Ted. In 1997, he felt comfortable enough to chastise a pair of errant relatives, calling his cousins Michael Kennedy — accused of having sex with his family's teenage baby-sitter — and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, who was contemplating a run for the Massachusetts governor, the "poster boys for bad behavior." Joseph Kennedy, embarrassed by his ex-wife's book revealing his efforts to force her to agree to an annulment, abandoned his bid for the governor's post, though he was thought to have been a shoo-in.
     Kennedy said he had few memories of his father, but that his being the only son of the president was something he enjoyed, not regretted.
     Asked a few years ago by CNN interviewer Larry King if it's "good to be the son of a legend," Kennedy replied: "It's complicated, (but) it makes for a rich life. Great opportunities and some challenges. But all in all, I feel very fortunate."

Remembering John F. Kennedy Jr.

      Has it really been 15 years since John F. Kennedy Jr. died? I remember it well because July 17, 1999 was a Saturday, and the newspaper called me in to write his obituary even as the frantic search was still going on. Poring over the clips, I realized that he was born in the period between the time when his father was elected president, and when he was inaugurated—the only child ever born to an American president-elect. Every coo and gurgle was breathlessly reported. My opening sentence was, "He entered the world already famous." When I saw the other, purely laudatory obits, I was proud that mine passingly mentioned the struggles that even Kennedy had, the "Hunk flunks" headlines as he tried to pass his bar exams. I've always believed that obituaries should recount a person's life, not just blanket him in weepy praise. I'd reprint the obit, but our always-harried library staff doesn't seem to have transferred it to Nexis.
     I met the man, once, in August, 1996. He was throwing a huge party at the Art Institute for his new political magazine, George. Quite the glittering East Coast event for lumpy midwestern Chicago. Norman Mailer was there—that was a thrill, to meet him. Both Mikes were in attendance, Jordan and Royko. All sorts of stars—Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Billy Baldwin. That's where I first met Esquire's Bill Zehme, who would become a good friend. 
     Kennedy was late in arriving, of course, and I remember the packed room surged in his direction. I instinctively fled the other way, to avoid the jam, but a young woman of my acquaintance hooked her arm in mine and spun me around, ordering me to introduce her to Kennedy.
     So I did.
     I walked up, introduced myself, we shook hands, and I asked him something banal about his impressions of Chicago. Somebody snapped a photo, which I can still see in my mind's eye. One the right, John F. Kennedy Jr. in profile, chiseled, handsome—handsomer than his father, even, by far. And me, also in profile well, let's say, less handsome, a profile like a potato with a nose. The contrast was jarring, at least to me.
    I gave the photograph to the young woman, who was also in the picture, and whose name I can't recall. 
     Anyway, if I can track down the obituary I'll post it here. Until then, here's a column I wrote about the search for his missing plane:

Treating our stars well makes us look good too

     Originally published in the Chicago Sun Times, July 25, 1999

     During the endless time-filling and tap-dancing performed by network news shows as the search for John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane dragged on, there was a moment that says something about who we are.

     I only caught it in passing, from one of the TVs bolted to the ceiling over the city desk. On the screen, a reporter was grilling a government official about the search. Would all this effort be expended, she wanted to know, for a non-celebrity? If Joe Average's small plane went down, would all these resources be mobilized?

     The dream reply would have been for the official to stare down the reporter and come back with: "Would you be here for a non-celebrity?" Sadly, the tedious, real-world answer was some evasive observation that any plane would be searched for.

     The question, of course, carried a submerged criticism that the official instantly recognized and dodged. As much as Americans roll like puppies at the feet of their celebrities, as much as we hang on their every action and vicariously relish the perks and luxuries of their lives, when it comes to government privilege, we yank the adoration away and start tallying the cost.

     Just let Hillary Rodham Clinton fly to New York for a little campaigning. Or let the wife of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush try to slip her undeclared Paris shopping purchases through customs. Or let a search armada be rolled out for JFK Jr.'s plane.

     Suddenly, practical questions emerge. Who's paying for all this? Nobody questioned the economy of sending a military transport on a mission of mercy to drop medicine to that doctor at the South Pole, even though the government was paying the tab. The name of the doctor wasn't known. Had it been Candice Bergen at the South Pole needing the medicine, the public would not have been so inclined to charity. It would have sniffed elite favoritism and not liked the smell.

     Perhaps it has something to do with the ingrained American suspicion of kings. The public wants to be the one dispensing favors, not the government. We don't want automatic privileges. If members of the Kennedy family were able to send mail for 32 cents instead of 33, people would howl. (Remember what brought down Dan Rostenkowski? Abusing postage). Even Michael Jordan getting his driver's license delivered to his home ended up in the paper, with an official explaining that it is done to keep the secretary of state's office from pandemonium.

     While this is a positive instinct, generally, the reporter's question was still naive. Celebrities get good treatment, not really because they demand it, but rather because doing so reflects well on us. Mick Jagger would be ushered through the mob at Gibsons, not because they're courting his business, but because it just would not do to let him camp out at the bar for an hour, crushed in a corner, morosely waving his empty glass at the distracted bartender.

     Similarly, I don't believe the effort to find Kennedy was due to his Uncle Ted getting on the red phone and threatening to pull back Pentagon funding. Remember that 200 neighbors will show up to comb the fields for a missing 5-year-old, not because his family is famous, but because they know him or his parents and know that it is terrible to have a loved one vanish. This weekend's tragedy, though overlit by celebrity, is similar.

A question answered before it's asked

     This is embarrassing.
     I have lived in Cook County continuously for the past 31 years.
     In various spots: Evanston, Barrington, Oak Park, Chicago and now Northbrook.
     And in all that time, I have investigated many stories.
     Delved into many questions.
     Looked up many facts. 
     Including, on Wednesday, the definition of the word "pozzolanic."
     Which has to do with volcanic ash related to the manufacture of cement.
     From the Italian town of Pozzuouli, where pumice was found by the Romans.
     But one mystery hung in front of my nose.
     Almost every day.
     For 31 years.
     And not only did I not know the answer.
     But I—curious guy, usually—did not even pose the question.
     Did not wonder.
     Not once.
     To my knowledge.
     Until last week.
     When I met my brother to go to lunch.
     At his place of business.
     In the Cook County Building.
     Usually he's there first.
     Waiting for me.
     Punctual guy.
     But this time I was early.
     A couple minutes.
     Just long enough.
     To notice this plaque which.
     In decades of walking through the building.
     I somehow had never seen before.
     Answering  a question.
     I had never thought to ask.
     Cook County,
     Okay.
     So who
     Was Cook?
     Who was the place named for?
     You'd think such a famous place.
     We'd all know.
     We all know "Chicago" means wild onions
     Or at least we're all told that.
     But Cook?
     Gets the short shrift, as always.
     One Daniel Pope Cook, apparently
     Lawyer, newspaper publisher, Illinois' first attorney general
     Friend of John Quincy Adams
     He died early, at 33.
     And four years later Cook County was named for him. 
     In 1831
     Six years before Chicago was voted a city.
  

Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his (wooden) shoes

    Most people are sheep; even those who try to be different tend to be different in exactly the same way. The rare times when a method of standing out -- tattoos for instance -- is actually sort of rare, so many flock to it that it becomes just another kind of conformity. And then there is Benjamin Pomerance, whose bright yellow wooden shoes were only the tip of the iceberg to his extraordinariness. 

    We live in cages of conformity, shuffling, shackled by habit and timidity. How we act, what we wear, even how we think, are limited to traveling along these set rails of behavior, and it can take an iconoclast for us to even realize it.

     Meet Benjamin Pomerance, 26.

     I spied Pomerance — to be honest, I spied not him but his shoes. His wooden shoes. His bright yellow wooden shoes — across the Impressionist room at the Art Institute.

    My first thought, naturally, was: “Now that’s strange.” Maybe it was some event related to Rembrandt. Dutch Week or something. But he wasn’t greeting people. The business suit didn’t go along with the shoes. “An odd duck,” I thought, dismissively, pointing him out to the family.

And that would have been it. But this was my chance. A moment later and he’d be swirled away in the crowd. I had to know.

     “The shoes?” he replied. “They’re from my grandfather in Holland.”

     Not his grandfather by birth, he explained; his parents were traveling in Europe when this older Dutch gentleman befriended them. When Benjamin turned 5, he received a present from his new grandfather: a pair of wooden shoes.

     “Every year since I was 5, we’d see a shoebox-sized package from the Netherlands and say, ‘What is this?’ ” he smiled.

     He wears wooden shoes almost every day.

     “They’re comfortable,” he said of the shoes, made of willow wood.

    A lawyer from upstate New York, he was in town to speak at John Marshall’s Elder law conference. Knowing the wrath of judges, I asked if he goes to court like that.

     “Not with these on,” he said. “But I have worn them to negotiating sessions.”

     “They create quite a fuss in the prisons,” added his mother, Doris (his parents were with him). “Airports go crazy,” his father said.

     Back at my office, I jumped online.
     Pomerance graduated last year from Albany Law School, where he received the New York State Bar Association's Pro Bono Service Award for, well, read the citation:
     "While maintaining a 3.93 grade point average, Benjamin Pomerance of Plattsburgh founded and leads the Albany Law School's Veterans Pro Bono Project. He organized a three-hour Continuing Legal Education training focusing on legal issues confronting homeless military veterans. He also recruited volunteers to assist at a monthly Wills for Heroes pro bono program at the Albany Housing Coalition's Veterans House. Most recently, he implemented free legal clinics to help 87 veterans from five different counties."
     More here, clearly, than splintery shoes.
     Pomerance got his undergraduate degree at the State University of New York-Plattsburgh campus, where no less a figure than school President John Ettling confirmed that wearing wooden shoes is indeed Pomerance's habit.
     "You can hear him coming before you see him," Ettling said at commencement in 2010, in a clip you can find on YouTube, introducing Pomerance, who gave a speech quoting Jackie Robinson as saying: "A life is not important, except for the impact it has on other lives."
     That's a radical thought, one you don't see in the media much, and I'd like to draw a connection between the sort of rare personal courage — for want of a better word — needed to go about in public wearing a fashion so out of the mainstream, and the extra drive needed to routinely set aside your private concerns to do significant work for others.
     The truth is, we could all do so much more — wear yellow wooden shoes, start a program addressing life's ills — than we end up doing. Most of us anyway.