Inauguration Day: A hard rain's gonna fall

     Harry Truman was an angry man, given to firing off unwise attacks. Richard Nixon was vindictive and paranoid. Andrew Jackson was a hater. Warren G. Harding, a featherhead who surrounded himself with crooks.
     We've had flawed presidents before. Though never have all these negative qualities and more been bound up in a single individual, such as the one who will put his hand on a Bible at noon Friday and swear to uphold the Constitution.
     The tendency is to point, horrified, at the latest offense. My God, he's slurring civil rights icon John Lewis! He's carping about Saturday Night Live, days before his inauguration!
     And I'm glad someone is keeping score Though, to me, there is a futility in professing shock when somebody behaves exactly as he always behaves. Given Donald Trump's well-established track record as a liar, a bully and a fraud, each new instance of lying, bullying and fraud can hardly come as a surprise. The hope that his getting elected would change anything vanished in the past months of serial pettiness. The presidency will not elevate Trump; he will degrade it, and us. I don't believe that slapping your forehead every time he says something grotesque will do anything but give you a bruised forehead. It sure didn't keep him from being elected.

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Taco Diablo

     Of the three things that make a good restaurant — food, service and atmosphere — the last quality is the one that often gets overlooked, if not botched. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a new place, especially in the suburbs, and it was almost bare. It was all I could do not to pull the owner aside and say, "You want me to eat here? I don't even like to stand here. You're doomed, my friend."      
     But I'm not that guy, and I usually just scarf my chow—which tends not to stand out either—and get out. And soon they're gone, because there definitely is a connection between what's on the wall and what's on your plate. 
    You might not eat decor, it doesn't go in your mouth. But it's a bellwether, an indicator. Because if Mr. or Mrs. Would-be-Restaurateur cannot master the complexity of a nice sign, what's the odds that they'll be able to whip up a good sauce? Scant.
     Then there was the reaction I had Monday at Taco Diablo, 1026 Davis Street in Evanston. Somehow, just walking up and seeing this sign, I knew. This bas relief snaggletooth devil/bull fellow was the overture, setting the tone. This would be a good place. 
     Then the oval name on the door. Then the paintings inside. And the bar above. Tell me you don't want to hop on one of those stools and see what bartender Andrew can pour for you. 
    I got the lunch special: two tacos and a small salad for $12, and it was all superb, the tacos warm and fat, the salad with an intriguing orange dressing. The service was also first rate: attentive without cloying. If I were hunting for criticisms, I suppose that the standard three tacos for $15 is a bit pricey for lunch, but they are lovely little tacos, well stuffed with chicken or pork or duck or some other interesting combination.  I ate them greedily and with relish and, you know what? I don't even like tacos, as a rule. But I liked these tacos.
    My younger son, the Northwestern sophomore, had bird-dogged the place for us. Unexpected Benefit of Children #263: just when you reach the stage in life when you are out of the swim, and unable to locate good new restaurants on your own, your kids swoop in and have that direct line to hot, hip new places and sometimes will invite you along, if you pay.
    Taco Diablo isn't quite "new" -- it was founded in Evanston in 1992, burned down in 2013, and was rebuilt in 2015, paired with Lulu next door--they share a kitchen. And a bathroom, which is a little disorienting, since you have to wander into the kitchen, seemingly, to get there. But I managed. 
    "Einmal ist keinmal," as the old Mexican saying goes (okay, it's not Spanish, it's German, work with me here). "Once is never." So I can't vouch for the place on one visit and a pair of tacos. But I'm intent on going back, soon, for further investigation, and now that the base of affection is set, it's going to take some effort on their part to screw it up. Once going to Evanston meant seeing my son and eating at Lao Sze Chuan, not always in that order, and it took a few tepid, woebegone meals at the Laos downtown and in Skokie to begin the disenchantment process. Now Tony Hu has been banished to second place, and Taco Diablo is ascendant. Tienes que comer; así que come bien.

Wayne County is happy it voted 84 percent for Donald Trump

The Ferrington Farms subdivision has one house in it. 

     FAIRFIELD, Illinois — Drive 275 miles due south from Cook County to Wayne County. You'll notice differences right away.
     It is warmer here, literally — last Wednesday, when it was 42 degrees in Chicago, it was 67 degrees in Fairfield, the county seat, and with a population of 5,000, the largest town in Wayne County, population 15,000.
     Figuratively warmer too. Ask directions at a bakery and the owner will walk out into the street to point the way. Strangers volunteer to put you up for the night. Pop in on the bank president, unannounced, and he'll visit with you a good long spell. The Rotary meeting starts with a sing-along of "Clementine."

      This isn't the traditional South, true. But the three vehicles in the fleet of the Fairfield Police Department are pickup trucks.
     The occasional Confederate flag can be spied flying in the yards of modest homes that sell for $35,000. There is a free-standing video store.
     Like the South, this is Donald Trump Country. Though he is being sworn in Friday as the 45th president with historically low popularity ratings nationwide, you wouldn't know it in Wayne.
     Line up Illinois' 102 counties based on how they voted in the presidential election, with Cook County at one end with 74.4 percent voting for Hillary Clinton. Skip over the next 100 counties and you end here, at Wayne, a struggling coal, oil, farming and light manufacturing region that went 84.3 percent for Trump.....

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The circus leaves town

    Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced it is going out of business this week. The last shows will be in May. It was sad news, even though I haven't gone to the circus in years, and when I did it was always with free tickets through the paper. Still, the circus struck me as a glorious anachronism, a wonder, and I valued it, and marveled that it was still here. And this was 18 years ago.

    My parents never took me to the circus. I imagine it seemed to them something that gentiles do. Which makes it odd that I had such a nostalgic affection for it—or perhaps that explains it. Either way, I went a number of times—with my brother in the 1980s, researching a story, then with my kids. They were three and four when I took them and wrote this column. The photos are from activities before the start of the circus, which was trying to be more interactive. Families got to pet animals, and performers were handing out peacock feathers and showing kids how to balance them on their faces. 

     Every so often, on a busy street corner, I will squint and try to summon back the pedestrians of the past, try to see the street scene as it might have been 40, 60, 100 years ago.
     It's the same street, the same corner. They were here, once, men in snappy fedoras, women in those wide, sloping hats, pulling on their white gloves as they stepped off the bus.
     Who's to say that it isn't the faintest flash, the flicker of some spirit of their humanity, lingering over the decades. Or maybe I'm just imagining things.
     That same yearning toward people past strikes me whenever I take in an entertainment that has been around for a long while, savoring the thought that I am doing something that people have always done.
     When I do something -- what's the opposite of cutting edge? Trailing edge. Something outmoded yet still -- incredibly, wonderfully -- here.
     For instance: this past Fourth of July, we joined a contingent of my wife's family to watch the Skokie Park District set off fireworks. Thousands of people were there, neglecting their computers, their Gameboys, ignoring all that virtual reality, IMAX and other more modern entertainment. Instead, they traveled to this spot, to spread out blankets, lay back and stare up into the night sky to watch explosions, tinted with powdered chemicals into brilliant hues, a treat that a Renaissance weaver or a Victorian wheelwright would instantly recognize and appreciate.
 

At the circus, 1999

   Ditto for the circus, the most famous of which, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, opened last night at the Allstate Arena.
     The circus is one of those things that shouldn't be here. Think about it. Ringling Bros. began its circus five years after the Civil War ended. It is a big extravaganza of animals and entertainers, something that traveled from town to town in the years before television, before radio, before movies, heck, before the automobile.
     It should have petered out 10 years ago, if not 20 years ago, bid farewell in a blaze of nostalgia, the pundits rumbling about TV and video games and pervasive pre-adolescent cynicism killing off our beloved icon, the circus. Woolworth's is gone. Drive-in movies are virtually gone. Yet the circus endures. Complaints from animal rights activists and the rise of our pervasive entertainment culture have had no effect. The circus was big when it was the only show in town. And it's still big, muscling aside its younger progeny once or twice a year.
     Why? Who would bother heading to the Allstate Arena to watch a troupe of performing dogs when they can flip on the Nature Channel and go on safari? Who would want to see frolicking clowns when they could, far more easily and far more cheaply rent a video of Jim Carrey in "Liar Liar."  

Balancing peacock feathers.

     A lot of people, apparently.
     The circus is no marginal operation: It is camping in Chicago for nearly a month.
     I think it is because the circus satisfies something of the aforementioned kinship to the past. It is both real and unbelievable, alive and a link to our national heritage.
     The circus is a cliche, a cultural cliche -- the lions, the tigers, the clowns, the swaying elephants.
     Like most cliches — think of Elvis — it is encountered usually, not in its pure form, but through some reference to it. You see a picture of Elvis or hear his name evoked 100 times for every time you hear him sing a song on the radio. You see a kitschy clown painting or a hectic meeting described as "a three-ring circus" or a movie like Tod Browning's "Freaks" 500 times for every time you actually find yourself at a circus.
    It touches something youthful and enduring in us, a sense of wonder that modern life has yet to erase.
     Just to announce its arrival is to feel a certain thrill. Say the sentence: "The circus is in town." See what I mean?

                          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 4, 1999

For some, Christmas just ended, with the Blessing of the Waters

Bless the waters (photo by Erasmia Smith)

     This could easily have been twice as long. The subject called for some background on the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lt. Hostetler said some interesting things about being a military "chap" and having to keep up with service members 20 years his junior. But the column is limited to 700 words in the paper, and it's no good if it doesn't fit. I will point out that the two photos below were taken by his 16-year-old son. I'd say the boy had a bright future in journalism if only, you know, people had bright futures in journalism.

Lt. David Hostetler blessing the waters (photo by Isaac Hostetler)

     The sky was overcast and rainy. But before sundown, when David Hostetler, a Navy lieutenant and Greek Orthodox priest, began his service at a beach on an island in the East China Sea, the sun broke through the clouds.
     “Just as we started our prayers,” Hostetler said over the telephone last Monday from Okinawa, Japan, where he is stationed.
     Christmas is a fading memory for most by mid-January, its farewell marked by secular ceremonies: the Dragging of the Tree to the Curb, the Boxing of the Lights.
     Eastern Orthodox Christianity extends Christmas through Epiphany, which ended over the weekend, including a ceremony called the Outdoor Blessing of the Waters, commemorating Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River. One was held Sunday on the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with others earlier this month on the banks of the Illinois River in Peoria, the Rock River in Rockford and the Mississippi at St. Paul, Minnesota.
     Though the ceremony that caught my eye was performed by a former Chicagoan living with his family on a military base abroad. As befitting a former resident of the Windy City, Hostetler had to deal with a strong wind that battered his vestments....


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Racing for the cross (photo by Isaac Hostetler)

Let's live up to King's faith in us

"Moving In" by Norman Rockwell

     
    Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tomorrow—a holiday which Illinois was the first state in the nation to officially celebrate, thanks to the efforts of a state legislator named Harold Washington.
    But King's actual birthday is today, Jan. 15.  His message is even more important now that our president will be someone who openly appeals to racial bigotry. Who considers black people to be a uniform mass of hell dwellers, except of course for the few celebrities as vain, shallow and publicity-hungry as himself, who will agree to meet with him and pretend they are capable of addressing the deep-rooted problems that will certainly be neglected over the next four years. Not that they invented the practice.
     Exactly 10 years ago I wrote this column item. 

     Today is not only Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but one of the rare instances when the holiday -- officially set as the third Monday in January -- also falls on his actual birth date, Jan. 15.
     An apt coincidence, since King was 39 when he was murdered on a Memphis motel balcony, and would have been 78 today, which means that around June 1, by my calculations, will begin the period, stretching into eternity, when the man has been dead longer than he was alive.
     Making this an appropriate moment to remind ourselves of the importance of King's legacy.
     The marches and the speeches are what get mentioned -- they make good sound bites for the 10-second glance on television. But protest and eloquence were only the means, not the substance of what is -- in my opinion -- the reason King gets his own federal holiday alongside George Washington and Jesus.
     Martin Luther King Jr. showed America the way. If you look at what kind of society we were 50 years ago, the oppression and the misery, the racism and the hate, and what kind of society we are today, or at least what kind of society we aspire to be, and ask how we got here, without revolution, without more than minimal blood-letting, the answer is: because a black preacher from Georgia decided to embrace non-violence and face his enemies with courage, dignity and faith -- faith both in his religion and faith that America would, when pressed, embrace the ideals it was founded on but ignored for so long for so many. And the nation did, eventually.
    Which makes King a patriot, in my eyes, and I hope in yours, too. I know I'm putting out my flag this morning, marching my boys onto the cold porch to cover their hearts and say the pledge, and I'll explain to them why this is a holiday and why it is important. And if you do so, too, then we'll have a better country tomorrow than we have today, and the legacy of Dr. King will be well-served.

    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 15, 2007

"Shelves and shelves and shelves"

      "This is the flesh-eating beetle room," said John O'Connell, pushing open a brown door labeled "Dermestid Beetle Colony." 
     We were on a quick behind-the-scenes tour at the Field Museum last Saturday, the start of a whirlwind week that would include talking with a Marine priest in Japan, watching President Obama exit Air Force One at O'Hare, and driving nearly 600 miles to visit with the good folk of Wayne County. 
     Those last three experiences were for the newspaper. But I didn't want to let our extra-curricular jog through the upper reaches of the Field vanish into oblivion without setting a little down here because really, how many people get to do that? 

     The average culture hound likes to hit hot museum exhibits early, so as to be among the avant-garde. I'm the opposite; I tend to put off visiting until at the last possible moment, pressed by time, prodded into action only because they're about to  vanish forever. That was the case with the terra cotta warriors. My older son had seen the excavation site in China, my wife was eager to go, and I mentioned this to O'Connell, a major gifts officer at the Field, whom I had met at a party at the Tattoo show the day the Cubs won the World Series. We were slipping in just before the show closed,  and he asked if I'd like to see the extensive and fascinating off-limits area of the museum. I would.
     The dermestid beetles are used to turn animal carcasses into skeletons to be kept for research and display. No photos are permitted within, and just as well, because it's grisly business. We entered through a pair of doors, which I thought at first was to control the smell of decay—not bad really, compared to the morgue—but actually done to keep the beetles from escaping into the museum.     
     "If these get loose, it's Goodbye dioramas!" he said.
     O'Connell estimated there are 30 million objects in the Field collection. "Shelves and shelves and shelves," he said. "More shelves. It just goes on and on. It's a pretty incredible place." I enjoyed noting the titles on the door. The Field has a resident artist, painting watercolors of birds for exhibits. We'll have to meet over the long winter.
     He didn't have access to the drawers of preserved birds—I'll return to see those too—but I got to ogle some specimens of the Field's wet collection: jars of squid and and fish and crabs. The lengths of corridors went on and on, and we raced through (time was short because we had to get up to Evanston to rendezvous with our younger son) I felt convinced that I could be designated the Field Museum reporter and spend the rest of my career happily going from door to door, writing columns. How readers might react to that is another matter. I doubt they wake up thinking, "I wish I knew more about brachiopods."
    Great age has a way of adding an aura of preciousness to the most mundane object. A kernel of corn is garbage to be swept away on your kitchen floor. But a kernel of corn on the floor of an Egyptian tomb is science and history. I am not a particular fan of ladies' straw hats. But when O'Connell opened a draw of hats left from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, I marveled at their preservation and thought of the kind of dutiful stewardship that tended them, like relics, for the past 124 years. It made me think of ISIS blowing up monuments from antiquity, a cultural barbarity in keeping with their human barbarity, and prompted a thought I've never had before: Chicago has never been bombed. The Civil War never drew near. The cataclysms of the 20th century were oceans away. One disastrous fire in 1871, and then unbroken peace and safety, at least safety from outside harm. God knows we generate our own harm from within. Still, compared to a city like London or Berlin or Tokyo, much to be thankful for. Which is quite the weighty message to be carried by a fragile, century-old straw hat, but certainly one worth going out of your way on a Saturday to receive.