Why this flag?

     I love the American flag, how it looks, what it represents. There's so much history bound up in every stripe; three years ago I set out to mark Flag Day, June 14—which fell on a Thursday in 2012—by answering a basic question about the American flag: Where did it come from?

     Why red, white and blue? Why these colors and not, oh, green and beige?
     Flag Day is Thursday, so it's an apt moment to wonder, and a quick glance into the murky and legend-prone history of our national flag offers a fairly solid answer.
     First, yes, Flag Day is without question a third-rate patriotic holiday, if you consider the Fourth of July as the undisputed No. 1, with the solemn military Memorial and Veterans days tying for second. Nobody gets off work for Flag Day. It's sort of an Arbor Day for flags, almost like one of those made-up Hallmark holidays, like Grandparents Day.
     Except Flag Day actually commemorates something real, June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress decreed: "The flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."
     Why those colors? In the 19th century, when people felt free to make stuff up, one patriotic guide suggested red, white and blue were handed down by God at Mt. Sinai.
     The short, factual answer is our colors are red, white and blue because the British flag is red, white and blue. Changes that seem revolutionary in retrospect actually occur in stages, and when George Washington began leading his troops, they saw themselves as British citizens fighting for their rights. Thus his Grand Union Flag, raised over the Continental Army in January 1776, had the British Union Flag where the field of stars is now.
     The British flag at the time was an amalgam of two crosses, the English cross of St. George and the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew The reason George's is red disappears into medieval lore (my guess: he's a martyr; red symbolized blood and courage). The reason Andrew's is white on blue rests on 1340-year-old legend: a sign, the X-shaped saltire cross, that Scottish King Angus MacFergus II supposedly saw in the sky before a battle in 732.
     So the red, white and blue in the American flag represent, originally, blood, clouds and sky, which sounds about right.
     Washington's version might have stuck—other former British colonies, such as Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and, surprisingly, the state of Hawaii, still have the Union Jack (as the British Union flag was called after the addition of the red X of Ireland in 1801) in miniature on the upper corners of their flags.
     But in the 18 months between the time Washington hoisted his Grand Union flag, and Congress codified it, passions had inflamed, the British banner jettisoned, and somebody had substituted a field of stars.
     No one is sure who. It almost certainly wasn't Betsy Ross. Much received flag wisdom is late 19th century whimsy embraced as fact by the ever-credulous public. Nothing suggests Ross had a hand in the creation of the American flag, beyond a paper presented in 1870 by her grandson based on family tradition. She was a seamstress and sewed a Pennsylvania navy flag, but beyond that the few known facts point elsewhere.
     The next time Congress took up the flag was 1793, prompted by the admission to the union of Vermont and Kentucky. Sen. Stephen R. Bradley—of Vermont, naturally—proposed a bill "for altering the Flag of the United States" to reflect the change. It passed the Senate, but the always fractious House bristled at being asked to consider this minor matter.
     One representative called the bill "a trifling business which ought not to engross the attention of the House, when it was its duty to discuss matters of infinitely greater importance." Something Congress ought to keep in mind when debating the next inevitable flag burning amendment—previous Congresses didn't even want to bother talking about the flag's design, never mind fret over those misguided enough to burn one. (I'm glad Flag Day is unofficial; enforced honor loses significance.)
     After complaining, Congress gave the flag 15 stars and stripes. It stayed that way for a quarter century, despite the addition of five more states, until 1818, when the prospect of an ever more striped flag brought about the current scheme of holding steady at 13 stripes, adding one more star with each new state, on the July 4 after that state is admitted.
     Which means, if you are my age—I just turned 52—or older, you can amaze children by informing them that you are older than the American flag, the current version of which became official on July 4, 1960, when executive order No. 10834 went into effect, giving the flag a 50th star to reflect the admission of Hawaii the previous August.
     Have a great Flag Day; fly it if you got it.
     "There is the national flag," Sen. Charles Sumner once wrote. "He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country."

    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, June 14, 2012

Kent Week #1: "Good day at Wrigley Field"

   

     The only topic I was ever specifically forbidden to write about in my newspaper column was my children, by an editor who had none himself and thus didn't see their utility. So naturally I wrote about the boys a lot, because I found them a source of endless fascination. My older son, Ross, being first out of the gate, got the lion's share of attention. But his younger brother was not ignored either. Since he turns 18 on Tuesday, I decided—with his permission, of course—to dub this Kent Week, and reprise a few highlights from over the years, such as this, when he was seven:

     Second children often get the short end of the stick. The hand-me-down clothes. The old toys. The half-filled photo album. When I try to explain the difference between how we treated our first and second sons, I put it this way: When Ross was a baby, I'd boil his baby bottle nipples, handling them with tongs and setting them out on paper towels to dry. When Kent was a baby, if I dropped a nipple on the floor, I'd pick it up, brush it off on my shoulder, and use it.
     Maybe that's inevitable. Parents get tired, and what at first seemed extraordinary over time becomes routine. Even here in the column. You've read, over the past nine years, of my oldest -- the chess-playing, book-devouring wunderkind. My youngest -- quieter, more athletic, more of a regular kid and less an oddball like his dad -- hardly gets mentioned. That isn't fair, but life isn't fair.
     Every once in a while, however, life compensates, and the overlooked step into the limelight. When my good friends at Harry Caray's asked if one of the boys wanted to throw out the first pitch at a Cubs/Sox game at Wrigley Field earlier this summer, I knew it had to be Kent. He's the ballplayer, the Cubs fan. I measured off 67 feet in the driveway and insisted we practice. The boy has an arm, for a 7-year-old, but it's a long way to the plate.
     The big day finally arrived. We sat together for nearly an hour in the stands in the bright sun, waiting. I yabbered nervously away while Kent squinted silently at the field, as if measuring it. Finally, they called him. He picked his glove up and trotted out to the mound. He never looked back, never glanced at me. He stood at the mound, set himself, looked at the plate for a single moment, and threw a cannon shot to the catcher. A strike. The stands erupted. I shouted myself hoarse. He trotted back to me, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips.
     I couldn't shut up for days; told everyone I know and sent copies of the pictures everywhere. He, on the other hand, never mentioned it again. 
    Well, once. I was marveling, for the 50th time, about him throwing that strike, right over the plate, and he said, softly, "The catcher was standing in front of the plate, Dad," which impressed me even more. The modest hero.
     I hope you'll forgive me sharing this -- I know it's bragging, and I resisted at first. But summer is almost over, and, thinking back over it, I realized that I had once again overlooked Number Two. It's hard to be a little brother and to dwell in the shadows of the first born, and I'm so glad he was able to step up and nail his moment of glory. You have to keep an eye on those quiet types -- they can surprise you. Not that anything he could do would surprise me now. If he is someday elected president of the United States, when the final ballot count comes in, I will turn to my wife and say, "Of course, after that pitch at Wrigley Field, we should have expected this."
                             —published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 3, 2004

Saturday fun activity: Where IS this?

     Okay, these challenges are far too easy. Time to pull out something that strikes me as just a little tougher, maybe stump you guys for an hour, for a change. So I airbrushed out the dead giveaway in this photo, and while I left in one tiny hint, to me this isn't one that should be solved in a minute.
     Of course I could be wrong about that; I invariably am.
     So where is this large rambling white wooden structure? My hunch is that the reader who guesses it won't have actually been there—off the beaten trail, to say the least.  But someone might be able to figure it out. 
      The winner will receive ... not a poster, that's getting old. How about this lovely and inspirational desk flag? I used the line to title my fourth book, and bought dozens of the little flags, thinking they'd be a good promotion giveaway for the book. They weren't, the book sank like a stone, which I suppose is apt. Anyway, the winner takes one away, which will only leave me with 10 or 2o. Place you guesses below. Good luck, have fun. 

"Keeps rainin', all the time...."

     How does God know it's the Blues Fest this weekend in Chicago? And why, knowing that, does He send the rain? Thunderstorms off and on all weekend. Tonight might be merely damp, if we're lucky. A philosophical quandary. Maybe the deity hates the blues, maybe He's just establishing the proper context. I don't have to make the obvious blues/rain connection. Your heart breaks, the skies open up. That's life.
     At least that's my belief. I did not, I admit crunch the numbers to see if it rains more on Blues Fest than other days in mid-June. That's doesn't seem worth doing. Besides, few people confronted with facts contrary to their beliefs change those beliefs—easier to ignore discordant facts and keep plowing forward—and I might as well be one of them, at least in this regard. As this column shows, I've held my Blues Fest=Rain conviction for a long, long time. It also shows how, unlike beliefs, fashions change. I almost never wear a suit today. What would be the purpose? Though I still have that tailor-made blue silk suit that I bought in Thailand, though I' know better than to try it on. 

     I'm writing this on casual Friday, which means that instead of wearing a coat and tie, I'm wearing jeans and a golf shirt. I don't know if that frees me up to soar the empyrean heights; we'll see.
     Frankly, I prefer wearing a suit. First off, there are more pockets. Like many men, I carry a lot of stuff. There is a wallet and keys, pens, sunglasses, my security card, a pocketknife, a handkerchief. It gets quite bulky stuffed into jean pockets -- a suit jacket has room for all that gear, plus whatever newspaper clippings, bar matches and folded letters I pick up through the day.
     There also is a certain feeling of readiness you get from wearing a suit. This is a job where literally anything can happen, and if you're dressed down, well, it can be one of those memories that causes you to flinch for the rest of your life.
     Two incidents come to mind. One was on a Saturday night. I was working the late shift -- 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Typically, if I'd be sent out, I'd be sent to a fire. So I wore jeans and a T-shirt. No fire that night. But I did get sent to the Palmer House, I believe, for a black-tie dinner for the Israeli prime minister, attended by the brass of the newspaper. Not a good moment.
     Even worse was a black-tie AIDS benefit. The men there really knew how to don a tuxedo. I went to this benefit, again at the last minute, wearing jeans and a ragged linen short-sleeved shirt that had begun to fall apart. I was literally hiding behind plants, scooting up to men dressed like the cast of a Noel Coward play. I would apologize profusely, get a quote while trying to scrunch myself up into a little ball, then hurry back behind a chair to hide until I worked my courage up to sally out again and grab another quote.
     A suit is so much easier. Lots of men grumbled when the word was put out, a few years back, that reporters at the newspaper were expected to dress properly. That was a shock to people used to dressing as they pleased -- I had once come to work in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
     But I didn't grumble; I felt liberated. The beauty of suits is that you don't have to think. Just make sure you aren't wearing the same one you wore yesterday, find a tie that doesn't clash terribly, and you're on your way.
     Perhaps because I don't deal with software companies, I have never gotten into trouble with the suit. Yes, I got a few long looks hanging around the dock at Montrose Harbor, chatting with boaters in tank tops and cutoffs. And there was that terrible Blues Fest.
     As you may know, it always rains at Blues Fest. Always. They might as well call it Rain Fest. I drew the short straw one evening, and went over there just as a monsoon of biblical proportions was lashing Grant Park. I happened to be wearing a blue pinstriped suit, tailor-made for me, and black wing tips -- the best outfit I owned.
     Of course I stayed under cover, by the bandshell. Until I noticed, way out in the grass, one lone person -- this goof, sitting all by himself, holding a garbage bag over his head, listening to the music in the driving rain.
     I at first tried to ignore him, tried to pretend that I didn't have to do what I had to do. But duty called. I'll never forget the slow slog through that mudfield, the shiny wing tips sinking into the mire, the rain matting the blue silk against my body.
     I got to the man and flipped open my notebook, the rain instantly soaking the paper, the ink running down the page.
     "I see you're enjoying yourself here at the Blues Fest," I said.
     "Oh yes," he said. "I'm a big blues fan."

              —Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 18, 1998

John Paul Stevens bridges the past, future

    Tuesday morning was quiet, which is bad for a newspaper. My column for the next day was already done, and I was prowling around for something to do. One of our crack editors, John O'Neill, had pity on me, and suggested I might like to go to Harold Washington Library, where former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was giving a talk. He didn't have to ask twice. Hearing him speak perked me up considerably, and I hope it perks you up too.

     Charles Lindbergh gave John Paul Stevens a bird.
     It was the summer of 1927, a few months after Lindbergh became the most famous man in the world by flying from New York to Paris. He was checking out of his Chicago hotel room, and had more presents than he knew what to do with. So he gave the boy in knickers a caged pigeon.
     “I named it ‘Lindy,’” Stevens told a packed house at the Harold Washington Library Tuesday, during an hour-long conversation hosted by the Chicago Bar Association that quick-stepped through his very long and most extraordinary life, beginning as a privileged child of Jazz Age Chicago — his father built the Stevens Hotel, long since known as the Conrad Hilton, now the Hilton Chicago — hitting its stride in mid-life as the third-longest serving justice on the United States Supreme Court, and, for the past five years, enjoying a vigorous retirement.
     Steven is 95 years old. He still plays tennis and swims in the ocean.
     Here was a man who met Amelia Earhart. Who is certain that Babe Ruth really did point into the stands at Wrigley Field during the 1932 World Series, predicting where he’d hit his homer, the famous “Called Shot,” because Stevens, then 12, was there and saw him do it.
     It was about a half hour into the program, a conversation with Judge Ann Claire Williams, of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, when he was talking about being a Navy cryptographer in World War II, that I began to worry we’d never get to the Supreme Court part of his life, the way that two-thirds of the way through “Moby-Dick,” readers can start to wonder if the White Whale is ever showing up.
     But by the late 1940s, while a top student at Northwestern University Law School, he’s at the Supreme Court, clerking for Justice Wiley Rutledge, an FDR liberal nominee. Stevens was a Chicago lawyer in the 50′s and 60′s — teaching himself to fly and buying a plane in 1967 so he could more easily visit clients. In 1970, a former classmate from his undergraduate days at the University of Chicago, Sen. Chuck Percy — “The Wonder Boy of Illinois,” president of Bell & Howell at 25 — tapped him to be a judge on the 7th Circuit, and five years later Gerald Ford elevated him to the Supreme Court.
     Over the next 35 years, Stevens rendered more than 1,400 opinions in a career that defies summation, at least here. He was liberal and, as such, his beliefs could actually mature and change. Williams highlighted the evolution of Stevens’ thought regarding death penalty, from finding it constitutional in Gregg V. Georgia in 1976, to deeming it “cruel and unusual” — and thus banned by the Constitution — for people with mental handicaps in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, to finding it morally wrong altogether in Baze v. Rees in 2008.
     “The penalty really does not fit in our society anymore,’ Stevens said.
     His advice to young lawyers ranged from the value of studying poetry — which he found “extremely valuable” on the bench because “it helped me in my work as a judge” — to the best way to counteract a bad day: “drink at lunch” (advice he couldn’t have taken too often, or he wouldn’t have made it to 95).
     Riding the Divvy back to the paper, I tried to synthesize Stevens’ life. Despite the siren call of nostalgia — it’s more pleasant to bask in the glorious past than than figure out the confusing present — Stevens didn’t dwell too much in yesteryear. True, his first book, ”Five Chiefs,” was about the five chief justices he worked under. But unlike many men younger than himself, Stevens throws himself at the future, still, and his second book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” urges exactly that. Some of his suggestions are sadly impossible under the current state of political and moral cowardice — he thinks the 2nd amendment should apply only to Americans serving in militias — but some might actually happen, such as a constraint on gerrymandering, the slicing up of electoral districts for political manipulation, a practice perfected in Chicago and one that both parties see is corroding what’s left of our democracy.
     “I hope I’m that sharp when I’m 95,” I said to someone as I related Stevens talk, without too much conviction. Then, recognizing that I’ll be long relegated to a bronze urn in the back of a linen closet by 95, I decided to hope for something perhaps a little more realistic. “I wish I were that sharp now.”

"Listen to the music, all the time..."

     "Whoa-o-oh, listen to the music."
     Driving along  Dundee Road Wednesday, with my 17-year-old in the front seat.
     "Whoa-o-oh, listen to the music."
     Picking him up from Evanston where he ran, 13 miles, trying out a new pair of sneakers. Was going to turn around and come home, but didn't want to be late for dinner.
     Considerate lad.
      "All the time..."
     "You mind if I change this?" I asked. "Because I was sick of this 30 years ago."
      He grunted something affirmative. I hit the "Channel" button the steering wheel. A song about defacing your ex-boyfriend's car.
      "Shania Twain," I said, as if no more was needed (Actually, it's sung by Carrie Underwood. Casey Kasem, I'm not). Next song.
      "Take a look at my girlfriend
        She's the only one I've got.
       Not much of a girlfriend.
       Never seem to get a lot."
      "This song's 35 years old," I said. 
       Actually, 36.
       In one of the crueler twists of fate, all the pop crap that I hated as a teenager—Doobie Brothers and Kansas, Journey and Supertramp and Toto and the Cars is still around, played continually on the radio, just like it was 1979.
       Sure, I remember we had lots of decades-old, retread stuff when I was growing up. The 1950s were very much in vogue, Sha-Na-Na and "The Loco-motion" and whatever. But there were also new songs, lots of them, and while we might nod appreciatively at, oh, "Runaround Sue," it wasn't all we listened to. The new stuff wasn't so crowded by the overbearing past. 
      And yes, I know the solution is to get Sirius XM Satellite radio where I can tune into a narrowcast station designed for my tastes, whatever they are. Or load the CD player. Or buy whatever piece of string is needed to hook my iPod into the stereo. 
      The next car, I'm sure, will have all that.
      Until then, the radio's still there, and the boys like to listen to it, racing for the front seat so they can jockey the stations, and tend to like what they hear—it's new to them. I try to keep the dial on WXRT, though it does have a tendency to play "Dark Side of the Moon" a bit too much, though it actually will play actual new music that's actually interesting—on my way to Evanston, it played Elle King's funky, fuzzy "Ex's and Oh's," which I had heard once before, liked, and was happy to hear again.  Not that it's great music either—King is the daughter of Saturday Night Live's Rob Schneider, and musically sort of the love child of Amy Winehouse and Adele, with a driving, retro, roadhouse sound, at least on this song, released earlier this year, which is all I've heard of her.
     Promising enough to plop down $6.99 for the album on iTunes—that's also what an album cost 30 years ago. You forget that the Internet gutted the music industry just as it filleted publishing and gutshot journalism. People still make music and heck, Robert Johnson didn't get rich either.  But Elle King has my seven bucks—not that she needs it; or got it, Apple probably grabs $6.90 of that and she gets a dime. 
      Anyway, I was happy to get some new music; anyone can listen to the same old tunes. Liking a new song, good or not, is the best evidence I can think of that you haven't ossified above the neck quite yet.

          
      

On the big 5-5, looking back at the big 4-0

Age 40, in Vilnius, Lithuania

     Today's my 55th birthday. I was puzzling over which column to drag out of the vault—a guy should get a break on his birthday— when my former colleague, Kara Spak, posted something on Facebook about the column below, saying it made her want to work at the Sun-Times. I had just looked at it and decided to pass—a bit ominous, in light of later developments in my life—but figured, if she remembered it after 15 years, then it's probably worth revisiting. And heck, as creaky as I sometimes feel at 55, I think I'm doing better than the guy who wrote this. 

     We parked at the curb. People were streaming into the party. A fine, elegant, North Shore home. The big door opened. There was a flash of tuxedo. I froze in my tracks.
     "This is black tie?" I said to my wife. "You didn't say it was black tie."
     My tux was hanging in the closet at home. I was wearing black jeans and a gray golf shirt under a $3.99 Old Navy vest. Casual, yes. But it was a surprise birthday party for a friend. I figured pizza. Lowered lights. "Surprise!" Not this.
     "Don't be so inhibited," my wife said, dragging me toward the door. "Be proud of yourself."
     She did not add, "Stop cringing, you worm, and be a man," but that's the meaning I took. Head bowed, I shuffled toward the door, feeling very naked, fashionwise.
     The tuxedos were, it turned out, on the help. The people taking coats at the door. It was that sort of party. A harpist played in the dining room. Fancy bartenders. Piles of shrimp. A singer at the piano.
    It was the surprise birthday party for a friend. Her 40th birthday. Turning 40 is hard, and I can't imagine entering that bleak year in a more upbeat way than our friend did: surprised by her husband, surrounded by their friends and children, reveling in the trappings of material success.
     I couldn't help but be reminded, of course, of my 40th birthday, last June. I knew the sad tale would find its way into print, sooner or later, but thought it would take years until the sting subsided. But six months seems to have done it. I regaled anyone I could corner with the story, until my wife made me stop.
     My 40th birthday was spent working, in a bass boat, watching Gary Klein pull bass out of Lake Michigan. For some guys this would be heaven, and for the first few hours it was diverting. But the day ground on, the fish piled up, and I was very happy to reach shore.
     Happier still to get home. Nobody was there. We still lived in the city, so I strolled on over to Friar Tuck's, the neighborhood saloon. Slumping against the bar, I raised a glass and toasted my birthday.
     "On your birthday, you get a free drink," the bartender said. "What'll you have?" I said a shot of Jack Daniel's would do wonders. She disappeared for a moment—I should have known something was up—and returned with a big inflatable sheep, the product of some novelty shop, whose original purpose I shudder to imagine. There, balanced in the, ummm, anal cavity of the sheep, a shot glass filled with whiskey.
     I looked around. Another bartender had a camera. The place grew quiet. The patrons turned to watch.
     There comes a time when a man has to make a stand, to calculate his position in the universe and make a dramatic statement of the sophistication, grace, dignity and decorum he brings to his life.
     I took the inflatable sheep in both hands and drank. The camera flashed. The photo, for all I know, decorates the bar to this day.
     This sounds like a sad tale, and it may be. But I'll tell you, if I live to be 100, I'll never mark a birthday in such an apt fashion again. We get the birthdays we deserve. Our friend, with the surprise party—the harp and the singer and the shrimp and the household jammed with friends—was a perfect expression of the world she has carved out for herself. And my encounter with the sheep, well, let me tell you: The whole damn year has been like that.

    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 12, 2000