Get well soon, Terri!

  

     Media personalities come and go, particularly on radio, where DJs land in the Chicago market with a splash and then disappear just as quickly without a ripple. 

     And then there is Terri Hemmert, my fellow Ohioan, always bright, always good-natured, sincere, direct, knowledgable, enthusiastic. And always there. She has been on WXRT 93.1 FM for more than 40 years, and it was worrisome news to hear Thursday that her last program for the time being is Friday. She has cancer, as she announced with her typical candor, is undergoing surgery on Monday, and will need at least a month to recuperate.     
      I am confident that many, many Chicagoans share the deep respect and affection — oh, hell, say it — the love that I have for Terri Hemmert, and join me in wishing her a speedy recovery and quick return to the airwaves, where she belongs. Here is a tribute I wrote to Terri when the city declared her a civic treasure in 2008. 

     A good radio station has a personality, a flavor, almost a smell -- there's an unmistakable fresh-laundry-snapping-on-the-line bleachiness to WGN, for instance, with Judy Markey and Kathy O'Malley chatting over the backyard fence and Orion Samuelson putting the John Deere into neutral, climbing down from the cab, squinting at the horizon and telling us how the soy bean crop is doing as he wipes his big hands on an oily rag.
     Then there is WXRT, which for a generation of Chicagoans is the radio equivalent of Thai takeout -- an essential element of city living, both familiar and exotic, peanuts and limes, nutritious and sinful, an essential luxury that makes up for all the hassles.
     The main course of WXRT is Terri Hemmert -- "Aunt Terri" to her loyal listeners -- who is being celebrated tonight as a "Chicago Treasure" at the Chicago History Museum. Terri just passed her 35th anniversary at the station; she joined as an announcer and public affairs director. In 1981, she became the first female morning radio personality in Chicago, and ever since her calm, soothing voice and musical laugh have been an anchor in a world of flux and madness.
     How did a girl in Piqua, Ohio, get into radio?
     "I wanted to meet the Beatles," she explained, over lunch at Volare on East Grand. "I saw a picture of Jim Stagg interviewing Ringo Starr." So she sought out the famed disc jockey -- who also ended up in Chicago.

     "He encouraged me," Hemmert remembered. "He said, the first thing, 'Don't let anybody talk you out of it.' So I hung in there."
     Eventually she would meet Ringo ("I hope it was worth the wait," he told her) and Paul McCarthy ("Now it's like we're old friends," she said. "I think that's so cool") and hosts a Sunday "Breakfast With the Beatles" in addition to her weekday duties.
     She also has taught the history of rock 'n' roll for 30 years at Columbia College.
     "I love teaching," she said. "That's my favorite thing; I love those kids."
     I observed that teaching is hard, students often intransigent. Hemmert said that's the part she likes.
     "I love getting slackers and whipping them into shape," she said. "Because I was a slacker."
      She is energized by the station's recent move from Belmont Avenue to NBC Tower.
     "I'm still in awe of this city," she said. "I'm thrilled to be downtown."
     Of course, some believe a certain scrappiness went along with being on Belmont Avenue.
     Has not the corporate behemoth -- the station is owned by CBS -- changed WXRT?
     "People always say that -- that being owned by a corporation affected the station," she began.
     "Well, it isn't as if you play 'Penis Envy' anymore," I added, mentioning a satirical Uncle Banzai ditty that Terri once played daily.
     She smiled.
     "WXRT has always evolved," she said. "We still play new music. We still play R&B, we still play the blues, which is very, very rare. We're a mix of old and new. People sense that we're there, and we have a commitment, and that's great."
     The lovely thing about Terri Hemmert is how excited she still gets about playing music and teaching music and being in this city. She could have moved. She had offers that might have nudged her up the career ladder.
     "I love Chicago so much; what a great city," she said. "I like Chicago more than I like radio. I'll die here."

TODAY'S CHUCKLE . . .

     In honor of Terri Hemmert (whose favorite song, "In My Life," lent the headline to her item) a Beatles joke:
     Q. How many Beatles does it take to change a light bulb?
     A. Four.
     John to come up with a light bulb. Paul to claim half of the light bulb. George to complain his lights bulbs are never considered. And Ringo, to actually change the light bulb.
                               —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 19, 2008

Stuff I love #3: Sushi

     The town where I grew up, Berea, Ohio, boasted exactly one restaurant in the 1960s: Pizza King, serving up a horror I remember to this day with revulsion: a greasy, tasteless circle of drippy dough with a third inch of cheese, tomato sauce and a scattering of pepperoni. I can see it still.
     Growing up and moving away, out into the world, meant discovering new cuisines, thank merciful God. The introduction of some I remember clearly. I recall exactly when and where I first experienced Thai food: The Thai Hut on Devon Avenue, around fall, 1979, taken by Kier Strejcek, my roommate, who knew more about the city because he had a band that played at North Side clubs. I remember exactly what we ordered: chicken satay, mee krob, and chicken pad thai. And for years, that was all I would order at Thai restaurants. The Perfect Trio, why depart from it? (To show you how far I've come, now I always order beef and broccoli at a Thai restaurant. Because that is what I want).  
     Sushi entered my life more subtly. I can't recall when or where. It could have been in Boulder, Colorado in the mid-1970s. Sushi had a fad in the 1900s in the United States, but really started to take off in the 1960s. It might have been at New Japan, a wonderful place in Evanston on Chicago Avenue for many years. It served grapefruit sorbet as a refresher between courses and a little soy salad with wheat noodles. The first time Edie met my parents we ate there. Now it's an Ethiopian restaurant.
     Whenever I first ate raw fish—a hump some Americans just can't get over—by 1982, when I was living in Los Angeles, sushi was a cherished highlight, a Friday ritual. Survive another week at a job I hate and reap the reward: a big platter of sushi, the New Yorker, and a jar of sake or two.
     I have been eating sushi, hand over fist, for 35 years, and I'm not tired of it yet. Just last Tuesday, Ross and I went to our current favorite spot, Sushi Sai at Randolph and Franklin, for its $20, all-you-can-eat, sushi chow down, for dinner before "Bel Canto" at the Lyric. The place is only a few blocks from the Civic Opera House, and that $20 special, you just can't beat it.
     What is it that makes sushi so good? Fresh, cool, succulent, a variety of slightly different tastes. The deep red tuna is more complex than the pale pink yellowtail. The fish eggs are salty and minute, caviar basically. The pickled ginger a sweet, crunchy break. Plus, they just look beautiful: a colorful array of discrete packages, artfully constructed, like jewelry. 
      One nice thing about sushi is that it's so expensive, which sounds odd, but the cost keeps you from eating it for every meal, which I once did visiting New York City: breakfast, lunch and dinner. The breakfast was, if I recall, one of those pre-packaged boxes from a bodega, and the big change over the past 30 years is that while once sushi was an urban oddity, now every Mariano's has a sushi chef on call. The stuff they make isn't very good—like frozen pizza to pizzeria pizza. But it will do.
     The downside of Sushi Sai is that their staff is a constantly changing band of anonymous persons. I've gone there 50 times over the past decade and, I swear, have never had the same waiter twice.  I go anyway, but being a constant stranger there removes the social aspect of eating out. 
      To be acknowledged  as a customer, we go to Fujiyama in Northbrook, where we're met by Irene, the co-owner, and her husband Paul, behind the sushi counter. They're the only two staff, besides an occasional busboy. At Fujiyama being a welcome patron is something you earn. The first time we went, 15 years ago, we tried to order sushi and Irene snapped, in essence, "No, you don't want sushi. My husband is very busy now. Get something else." That "What are you doing here? Get out!" vibe persisted for about five years, but we went back anyway, because the sushi is that good. And over the past few years, the hostility has mellowed considerably. The most recent time the boys and I went, last month, to celebrate their being home from college, we were greeted as old friends, quizzed about their schools. I like to think that's Irene warming to us, though she used to get roasted fairly savagely on Yelp, and she might have finally decided to warm to the people she was asking to pay top dollar (about $80 for a lunch for three, and Kent didn't even get sushi, but a Bento box).
     This wasn't meant to turn into a restaurant review—though I can't leave the subject without plugging Blufish, also in Northbrook. Very good sushi, a bit more creative, more of a contemporary exotic flair than Fujiyama, 2/3 the cost, and the young staff serves you with vigor and gratitude.  (There is a third sushi place in Northbrook, to illustrate how popular it has become, the venerable Kamehachi. And though it's a few blocks from my house, we never go there, because it's staid, completely eclipsed by the previously mentioned places). 
     What else am I missing? It's delicious, beautiful to look at, as the photo above (from Sushi Sai) shows. I was going to say it's low calories. A piece of tuna sushi has about 60 calories. Though Sushi Sai's $20 all-you-can-eat (after 2 p.m.) chow down defeats that, now that I think of it. I ended up ordering 21 pieces, which weighed in at 1200 calories or so. Quite a lot, really. 
     Still, if you've never tried it. And there are people, amazingly, who never have, you should. If I can eat sushi a thousand times—and I have—you can eat it once. You don't know what you're missing.

Rahm kicks the can down the road, again

     One point worth mentioning that got cut out of the column below when it was being whittled to fit into the paper.  As much as I wish the "Rahm thinks your stupid" trope were a genius divination of my own, the truth is that Chicago Teacher Union president Karen Lewis told it to me in an interview several years back. Though I did have that "Yes!" moment of total agreement when you're presented with an idea you are certain is true. Still, credit where due, she's the one who said it first. 

     Rahm Emanuel thinks you're stupid.
     Don't feel bad. It's not just you. He thinks I'm stupid too. You, me and everyone else in the city, apparently.
      Not without reason of course. Often we are stupid. Credulous, easily distracted, oblivious to the real problems before us, nevermind their difficult solutions.
     Take his performance last week over the ongoing scandal that is the Chicago Police Department.
     So Rahm rushes home from his vacation in Cuba. And does what? He announces that police will be equipped with more Tasers and be trained more in crisis intervention to "de-escalate" situations.
     Problem solved, right? Give police more equipment, make 'em take a course, and we'll all be living on Sesame Street.
     Anyone believe that? Show of hands?

To continue reading, click here. 

Stuff I love #2: Keen boots

     Last October, my wife and I spent a lovely, if strenuous day hiking the length of the Glen Onoko Falls Trail, in Lehigh State Park, about 90 minutes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, we saw two signs that caught our attention, signs the likes of which we had never seen on a hiking trail before, in all our years of tromping around this beautiful country.
       One had a skull and crossbones, to drive home the danger of the trail, which was wet, and rocky, with stretches that paralleled fatal drops. 

Glen Onoko Falls Trail

     The other was the sign above, that told hikers without proper hiking boots to "turn back now."  I smiled, confidently to myself, because I was wearing my Keen boots, the best hiking boot I've ever put on my feet. 
     I bought them at REI in 2009, when my boys and I were preparing for our epic 7,000 mile, nine-National-Park odyssey across the country. They're size 10, but somehow fit my 8 1/2 EEE feet perfectly. They've carried me up mountainsides in the Rockies, through fern-canopied paths in the Redwood Forest, splashed in the Pacific and the Atlantic, trod the deserts of South Dakota, Nevada and Utah, scampered around Wyoming, been up to Canada, striding through the woods in Nova Scotia and across the canyons of New York City and London and Chicago. 

Keens doing their job in
Southern Utah.

     Keen is a relatively new brand; founded in 2003 by Martin Keen, an outdoors lover and sailor who was looking to make a better shoe for use on boats. The Portland, Oregon company—same hometown as Gerber knife, featured here yesterday; must be the water—amazed backers with its rapid growth, and why not? The shoes are comfortable, light, rugged, water resistant. Low cut, they're easy to get on and off. They don't slip.
     I've had a number of other brands of boots that fell far short. A pair of Timberlands that quickly split between the uppers and the sole come to mind, bringing a shudder every time they do. 
     Even the best boots will wear out after years of hard use, and Keens are no different. (My wife blames the snow: I'd wear them to shovel our driveway, a mistake). When the left boot developed a hole in the upper, I did something I've never done with hiking boots or any other footwear for that matter. I took them to the shoemaker and had them patched. The patches are obvious squares of brown, but I don't care. If I get another few seasons out of them, it's worth it. When they wore away at the heel, I reinforced them myself with REI ballistic tape. Then I started gluing the tape to the seams.
     "Buy new hiking boots!" my wife sensibly commanded. But I can't. Not yet. I'll never find a pair like this. They fit my ducklike feet. They've been with me all over. At some point they'll fall apart—in my heart I hope I fall apart first—and I'll grumble and get another pair of Keen boots. I'm hoping they're as good, being made by the same company and all. But they'll have very big shoes to fill. 

Stuff I Love #1: Gerber pocket knife

    Let's take a break, ignore the Punch & Judy show of Chicago politics and the banshee howl of the country's burgeoning population of crazy people, to visit the comforting world of tangible objects, with a brief reprise of my popular 2013 series, "Stuff I Love." 

    Just before Christmas, a reader wrote and said that he needed a gift for his nephew. He remembered my gift guides of the past, and wondered what I would recommend.
     I thought for a day or two, but only came up with one thing: this Gerber lock blade knife, the L.S.T. Drop Point, Fine Edge. 
     I've carried one in my pocket for at least 25 years. It's very light—just 1.2 ounces—yet sturdy and solid. It can be opened easily with one hand by a flick of the wrist.  Lightness is important—ultralight backpacking guides rave about it—since knives spend the vast majority of the time in our possession not cutting stuff but merely being carried. The stainless steel blade is strong and smooth; it's a joy to run your fingertip along its flat surface. The half-checkered, fiberglass-filled nylon handle is light and easy to hold. When the company brags the knife "just feels good and satisfying when you open and close the blade," they speak the truth. I probably open the knife and close it far more than anything else, even when I don't need it, just to have something to do with my hands. 

     Not that the knife doesn't get put to a hundred practical uses, from slicing apples to cutting rope. It'll trim cigars, razor articles out of the paper, even open a can in a pinch. Someone will be fumbling with a package that needs cutting and before anyone can think, never mind say, "Anybody got a knife?" mine is out and open, proffered with pride, accepted with gratitude and returned with reluctance. It sharpens in an instant, with a stone and honing oil. 
     I did pause, recommending the knife as a gift for a teenager.  It is a weapon, I suppose. Our schizophrenic society is such that while adults are waving their assault rifles around convenience stores, a kid can find himself trundled off by a SWAT team for forming his finger into a handgun at school. I can imagine the excitement this knife could cause pulled out at the wrong moment.  So I hope, if this kid's uncle gave him the Gerber, he gave him some advice too, and the kid has the good sense not to bring it to school. 
     Once you hit adulthood, however, it can go almost everywhere. Back before 9/11, I remember airport security opening it up and giving it an admiring look—at 6.1 inches, open, it just squeaked past airplane restrictions. Post 9/11, I once tried to take it through airport security at Denver, and they had me put it in an envelope and mail it home. But it returned, safe and sound. It always does.  
    Once I forgot I had the Gerber and tried to take it to Cook County Jail; the guard suggested I go outside and push it into the ground under a bush. I did, retrieving it afterward, muddy but none the worse after a quick rinse. They're simple, a single blade and open body, so clean up easily. 
    The LST isn't really a defensive weapon but, finding myself walking through a sketchy area at midnight, I'll keep it in my hand, in my coat pocket, as a talisman if nothing else.

    That said, the knife is so light, it has a way of disappearing for a while—I own two, just so one is usually around—but then they always turn up, buried in a pocket, in the bottom of my briefcase, on a table, and finding one is a burst of the Christmas I never knew. And should I ever really lose it, well, no big deal. If I ever need to replace the Gerber they usually sell for under $13. You can buy a knife for twice or 10 times that, though I can't imagine why. 
    There is, I suppose, a cool factor. Gerber is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and many of its knives are assembled in the USA.  Hunter S. Thompson mentions Gerber knives in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—and while the "Mini-Magnum" is the style of Gerber his attorney waves around, it is bigger and looks almost like a kitchen knife. I'll stick with my LST. 
    You can buy it from Amazon here. You'll never need another knife.  And if you lose it, you can get another one for 13 bucks. In fact, buy a few and save yourself the trouble. They also make great gifts. It's a beautiful thing.  I gave my wife one and she keeps it in her purse.
   LST, by the way, stands for "Light, Strong, Tough." I can vouch for all three. Carrying it might not make you, yourself, any of those three. But it sure will encourage the illusion. 

First a phallic flower, now this...

     "I hate to criticize the Botanic Garden," I said to my wife as we strolled along its trails Sunday, "but the flowers are more ... subdued than usual."
     A joke,  or an attempt at a joke, high spirits being necessary for an hour's walk in temperatures in the upper 20s with a brisk wind. While there wasn't much in the way of colorful blooms, it was compensated by an utter lack of people in the more far flung regions.
     "Hell," as Jean-Paul Sartre writes in No Exit, "is other people." 
     My wife observed that it was the first time we went through the entire Japanese gardens without encountering a soul. The Japanese gardens, a pair of islands connected with quaint bridges, are particularly beautiful this time of year, filled with evergreens like the Jack Pine above, and with subtle decorations like stone Japanese lanterns, whose gently spreading tops are designed to hold snow.

Baha'i Temple

    There were more people at the Wonderland Express, the train diorama the Botanic Garden sets up for the holidays. The last day of the season was Sunday, and we decided to go in, in part out of curiosity, in part to get out of the cold.  I had a memory of visiting the place with the boys, a dozen years or more ago, but only the vaguest recollection.

Mariana Towers

     The Chicago architectural landmarks the trains were going around and over were all constructed from natural materials: twigs and bark and mushrooms and seed pods and such. 
     Sometimes the effect was impressive, such as the Baha'i Temple. Sometimes, well, not so much. I was not charmed  by the Marina Towers constructed of shelf fungi, and said so, prompting my wife to praise the corncobs, or, I suppose, mushroom cobs, I suspect out of the notion that someone took the time to construct it and their feelings must be considered. 
     There was one part of the display we both agreed upon. A model of the Bean or, if you're an employee of the Chicago Tribune, "Cloud Gate," that had been rendered from what seemed like a gourd painted silver, only one that lacked the necessary bean-like smoothness but had a slight cleft that made it resemble something else entirely.
     "It's a tush!" my wife exclaimed, and before I could agree, a British father and his kids came by, and he said aloud, to no one in particular. 
     "It's a bottom!" 
     Nothing wrong with that, and it did add a certain adult, Rabelaisian flair to the otherwise sedate, charming and child-friendly holiday tableau. My wife suggested that perhaps it might be best to place a single Hershey's Kiss directly below the Bean/butt. "Or a some mini Tootsie Rolls!" I suggested.
     "Ewww," she laughed, and we pushed onward. Something to bear in mind for next year, the holiday season now being officially over, with nearly six weeks of winter until a brief respite arrives in the form of Valentine's Day. 

     

Flock of Armed American Loons spotted at its winter nesting ground

     The warblers have left the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and gone south for the winter. As have most of the tundra swans. Few of the 320 species of birds which make Malheur a mecca for birdwatchers remain for the harsh Oregon January. If you search hard, though, you might find some common goldeneyes, mergansers, and perhaps, if you are lucky, the rare Eurasian widgeon.
      This week, though, an exceptional ornithological event: a flock of not-so-rare, sadly, Armed American Loons has abruptly established a winter nesting ground at the nature preserve on the southern shore of Malheur Lake, about 30 miles south of the small town of Burns. 
    "This refuge — it has been destructive to the people of the county and to the people of the area," Ammon Bundy told CNN. He led a band of undetermined size, calling for other armed radicals to join their stand, but not, as yet, declaring the bird sanctuary a caliphate. 

    Twitter mocked the group with hashtags like "YalQaeda" and "VanillaISIS"  and "Yee-hawdists." 

     "Wow I'm sure glad the NSA is monitoring emails and telephone calls to warn of home grown terror incidents," tweeted Pat Ondabak.

"Terror" somehow seems a little harsh. While some wanted to make a point that if it were Muslims we've have drones shooting missiles, the incident does seem to invite more ridicule than fear, at least for now. I couldn't help thinking: "Boy, I'm sure glad we kept all those Syrian refugees out of the country; if we hadn't, they might have armed themselves and taken over a bird sanctuary."

The group announced it intends to be there for years, and open up the area to logging and mining and other activities that Republicans just love. The federal government, prudently, announced it has no plans to go in and drive them out by force, but will just wait until they get bored and go home. And as much as I'd personally prefer the Army to sweep in and kill them, on general principles, I have to grudgingly admit that patience is probably the right path, at this point. We don't want to make them into the new Branch Davidians. 
One wonders what the birds make of all this.