How many Poles does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Cell, by Judith Glickman Lauder, Metropolitan Museum of Art

    "How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" 
     I only remember the set-up, not the punchline. I was a child in the western suburbs of Cleveland, and the first version of the old joke I heard was directed toward the residents of Parma, whom we in tonier Berea considered ourselves better than because their dads wore white socks and blue work shirts with their names—invariably ending in "-ski"—embroidered over the chest and worked at the Ford plant or as janitors, while ours wore white shirts and black ties and worked in offices. 
     Except of course for my best friend Ricky, whose dad was a fireman, and Danny, whose father was a janitor at the hospital, yet wasn't in the same category as those Parma janitors.
      The joke wasn't phrased exactly like that. I believe we said, "How many Polacks  does it take to screw in a lightbulb" at a time when such bigotry went unchallenged. We had no trouble saying it because we believed, based on no personal experience, that Poles were dumb, would trouble with that lightbulb, along with other woes. Every joke with a dumb guy in it was about a Pole. 
     And here's the kicker: we were Polish.
     Partially Polish, anyway. My grandfather was born on a farm in Bialystok in 1907, my grandmothers in that great muddied zone of Austro-Hungary. My father's father claimed to be born in the Bronx, but who could tell? In essence the same place. 
     Of course many if not most Poles wouldn't consider us Polish at all, our being Jews. But that's a separate column. The point is, we were sneering at people very close to ourselves, for qualities of unsophistication that we ourselves possessed. My grandfather wore white socks. He slicked what hair he had and worked in a factory, Accurate Parts Manufacturing, in Cleveland. I'd never dare call him a Polack.
     Why were we this way? Immaturity? We were children, remember. It isn't something my parents would join in. Insecurity? The joy of being mean to people. To look down the ladder of society and feel the comforting hope that there was someone lower than ourselves.
     So it isn't that Donald Trump invented baseless bigotry, invented tribalism. We all suffer from it. But we also grow out of it. Most of us do. The only time I would use the world "Polack" now is with pride, describing myself, and even then I feel like I'm putting on airs. 
     We don't expect this kind of bigotry in our leaders. No publicly anyway. Not unashamed. Thus the shriek of outrage that greeted Thursday's "shithole countries" comment was more one of the horror of The Thing Out of Place. The orange in your hand opening a single cyclopian eye and staring at you. The walls bleeding. The president of the United States, too ignorant and arrogant to be ashamed, letting his schoolyard bigotry out to dry in the Oval Office, the yellowed undies of his hateful psyche flapping in the wind for all to see.  
     His die hard supporters let out a cheer—goll-damn, maybe they can let their cramped little hatreds out of the box to stretch their legs too! They hate living in an American ruined by black people, Hispanic people, Muslim people, fill in the blank.  
      It isn't that this hatred is so foreign. Just the opposite: it's so familiar, like a trail of toilet paper stuck to the shoe of some glamorous actress on the red carpet. We know what that is. We just don't expect to see it there.
     Familiar, yet still a shock, the way knowing Donny is a bully is one thing, and seeing him pound the shit out of some smaller kid on the playground quite something else. Because real people are being hurt. Donald Trump and his supporters are setting immigration policy for years to come. His judges will decide important cases. People are going to die in war zones around the world who might have found refuge in the United States. People like my grandfather and maybe yours, certainly millions more. 
     The thing with Trump is, we can get worked up as we like. We can vent on Facebook, shake our fists at heaven, demand impeachment now. Next morning, the man's still president. The smoke clears and the Terminator is unharmed. All we can do then is work on ourselves, and admit, the prejudice that so disgusts us is not as alien as we like to pretend. It certainly isn't unique to the president who, always remember, is not a cause but a symptom.
  

When does the surprise stop?

Black Warrior
 by John James Audubon (born Haiti, 1785)

     Hmmm.
     So Donald Trump runs a campaign based on racism. His very first remarks, Day One, castigating Mexicans as criminals and rapists. He constantly winks and tweets at the vilest form of white nationalist haters, inviting them to enjoy the prospect of an acceptability not known in this country for 100 years. 
      And yet we're surprised. We seem to be surprised to hear him on Thursday, in the Oval Office, refer to "shithole countries" such as Haiti and El Salvador and parts of Africa. 
     Why is that? Is this complicated? What's not to get? Why is it so slow to sink in? 
     There is an aspect of racism that is just hard to believe, that is hard for the modern thinking American to realize forms the basis of the worldview of people like our president and his supporters. 
     "Shithole countries."
     Set aside the obscenity for a moment. The logic, to stretch the term, of such a statement is the central fallacy of white supremacy: You are where you come from. Nationality is destiny. To be a good person you must come from a good place, because bloodlines are destiny. And good places are white places. Because, being white, we need white faces around us. Diversity is genocide. That's a quote. "Diversity is genocide." They are so insecure about themselves that every difference undermines their existence.
     So if real Americans don't come from shitholes like Haiti or African nations, where do they come from? Oh right. From Germany, like Donald Trump's grandfather, and the Scandinavian countries, from Great Britain and a few other traditional sources of white people. Except of course if they're Jewish. Or Catholic. 
      You do realize that we all come from "shithole countries." Nearly all of us. Every black or brown person, every Jew and Muslim, every Italian and Irish immigrant—maybe not now, but in the day. 
     You don't have to be a bigot to support Donald Trump. You just have to frame reality a certain way. I ran into plenty of Jews at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, yarmulkes firmly bobby-pinned to their heads, going all out for Donald Trump, willing to overlook the fact that he is making our country more dangerous for Jews and every other minority with a puff of hope and a focus on his slightly-more-fervent-than-Hillary support of the equally-right wing administration currently in power in Israel.  The kind of Jews who pinned on their WWI medals before being loaded into the truck.

Red Shouldered Hawk (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     You just need to be ambitious. Marco Rubio, senator from Florida, which has the largest Haitian population in the nation, stared at his shoes after Trump made his remarks. 
    Or value your job. 
    Raj Shah, the deputy press secretary, whose parent immigrated to this country from India, which is not Norway either, issued this statement defending the president: 

     “Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people. Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.”

     The classic shifting of the discussion away from the undefendable toward something that almost makes sense, or might, if you ignore the central point. Trump is a racist. His supporters are either racists or willing to be blind to racism. Like most feel-good drugs, it takes a momentary high—the boost of unearned self-approval—at the risk of enormous long term harm. They would undo our nation and our modern world to maintain their fragile sense of superiority. They are in the act of undoing it now.
     I'd like to end with something hopeful, but I got nothing. Vote every Trump-enabling Republican out of office this November and fight for something better. This isn't who we are, yet. But it is who we will be, if we don't stop them. 

Chicago honors immigrant from nation Trump scorns

    Lying has become so routine to the Trump administration that nobody even bothers to press the issue. When Trump tweeted that he isn't visiting London because "he is no big fan of the Obama administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,'" the media dutifully pointed out that in the actual factual world the deal was struck under George W. Bush. 
    But there was no need to confront the president, no need to quiz him whether that lie, or delusion, or whatever it was, is even the true reason for avoiding the city, or could it possibly be how deeply unpopular he is in Britain? One lie begets another. When you're Donald Trump, avoiding the truth isn't a hobby, it's a full-time job. Two thousand documented lies in the past year. He's never going to say: "I can't visit England because I might have to confront the odium that Europeans reserve for me."
     He can't come to Chicago for the same reason. The last time he tried, for a campaign rally a year ago March, the rally had to be scrubbed because the protest was so intense. Trump didn't dare show his face. 
     I doubt he'll ever visit here. I almost added, "Not if he's smart." Since smart left the Trump building long ago, let's just say he's too cowardly. And credit him for knowing where he's not wanted. 
     If the president needs a facile excuse for never visiting the largest American city between the coasts, he can at least fall back on something true. Chicago has a bust of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, our first permanent non-native resident, right in the heart of downtown, at Pioneer Court, on Michigan Avenue just north of the DuSable Bridge. Du Sable, you probably know, was an immigrant from Haiti, one of those "shithole countries" that Donald Trump doesn't want sending any more immigrants to this country. Du Sable was living here a century before Donald Trump's grandfather left Germany.  
    Oh, and Trump also denies using the phrase "shithole countries." Even though a bunch of congressmen and senators were there and vouch that he said it. Dick Durbin, looking ashen and horrified, as are we all, confirmed it. These are ashen and horrifying times.

When dogs disappear, they take a piece of our hearts

     Where do lost dogs go?
     What lonely roads do they travel? What hardships endure?
     Teddy is a mixed breed poodle who came to live with the Barrons in Northbrook. When they got him in early November, Teddy had already seen his share of woe — rescued from a breeder, he had never been outside the barn where he lived. The Barrons adopted him from a shelter to be a companion to their dog Barnaby. Teddy was timid. He startled easily.
     On Nov. 27, Dalya Barron, 7, came home from school and walked Teddy. All it took was a loud noise — a roofer's nail gun — to set Teddy running. He pulled the 2nd grader to the ground, she let go of the leash.
     Teddy was gone.
     The search started immediately. Dalya's mother Catherine Barron started going door to door. When she finished that first day, she looked at her Fitbit: she had walked 15 miles.
     Her husband, Dani, printed up 500 fliers, and they stuck them everywhere. Northbrook, Glenview, Highland Park.
     Such publicity is considered key to getting your dog back, but there is a downside.
     "With my cellphone number everywhere, we got pranked," Catherine said. "Someone told us they found her; they didn't. Another person told me they heard a coyote eating something in their yard and if I wanted to come and see if it was Teddy I could. A lot of weirdness."
     Even without the malice of strangers, losing a dog is traumatic.
     "Oh my God," said Susan Taney, director of Lost Dogs Illinois, which helps unite thousands of missing pets with their owners every year. "It's a loved family member. It's your baby. You're desperate."
     The Barrons struggled with the absence.
     "The day after we lost him, when I was walking at school, I was sorta crying, sort of not crying," said Dalya, who felt the weight of losing Teddy. "All my friends were like, 'What happened?' I couldn't even talk."
     At first they were hopeful. The beginning of December was mild, in the 50s. But the month wore on and it started getting cold. Fellow dog owners went on patrol, searching. Every time I heard a dog bark, I'd drift over in that direction, looking for Teddy.
     It got colder and colder. Neighbors traded speculation: maybe a coyote got him. We have coyotes, scruffy, yellow-eyed creatures padding their way hungrily through the backyards.
     Cold weather really hit. The teens. Single digits. The posters with Teddy's photo flapped forlornly in the killing wind.
     "About three or four weeks, we thought: 'What are the odds?"' said Dani.
     December 27, exactly one month after Teddy disappeared, the temperature was 5 degrees. A few of the Herbst boys were looking to pass the time on Christmas break.
     "What's more fun that hitting stuff with hammers?" observed Max Herbst, 12. "There's a creek by our house, that was completely frozen over. So we just go chip away."
     With him was his brother Patrick, 14, and their friend Reese Marquez, 12.
     "Look, there's a dog," said Reese, who remembered the posters. "That's the lost dog."
     They approached Teddy, who weakly tried to flee.
     "He walked away from us onto the creek," said Reese. "We didn't want the ice to break. We carefully walked. He finally sat down and waited for us to come to him. Max picked him up."
     "He was shaking a ton," said Max.
      The boys took off their coats and covered the dog.
     "I thought we should probably get him inside," said Patrick.
     They did. A call was placed. Catherine Barron started screaming. They hurried over.
     "Total shock, total joy," said the boys' mother, Leslie Herbst, describing the reunion.
     Teddy had gone from 24 to 14 pounds.
     "You could see his spine," said Dani. "Like a skeleton."
     Since then, Teddy's putting on weight, and perhaps learned a lesson.
     "He's just become a different dog," said Ella. "Before he got lost, he wouldn't approach anyone, barked at everyone. But now we've got him back, he's become more friendly, better with people."
     "The weirdest part of this whole thing is, in one month, nobody saw him, in densely populated Northbrook, there was not one sighting," said Catherine Barron. "He somehow managed to stay out of everybody's view."
     Which returns to our original question: Where do lost dogs go?

Teddy, center, with (left to right) Ella, Dalya and Catherine Barron and Barnaby.

Sometimes you just play pool

    I have problems that nobody else has.
    Well, maybe not nobody. I haven't met everybody. 
    Let's say problems that I assume are unique to writers doing the kind of writing I do.
    For instance, I can have a hard time figuring out whether I'm working or not. Whether something should be written about or just enjoyed. Private or public? My wife, at odd moments, will say, "I don't want to see that in the paper." Invariably at something I would never dream of putting in the paper.
   And sometimes I have that thought myself.
    Last week, when I went to meet a reader at Chris's Billiards, it was because he had read a reference of mine to "second tier treasures," to spots like the old Division Street Russian Baths, that feel as if they could slip away at any moment. Chris's was another one, he said. Would you like to see it? Sure, I said. I'll let you in on a secret: I tend to go where I'm invited, because I don't get that many invitations to go places. Not to places I want to go, anyway.
     Plus I'd be meeting a person. I like meeting people, in the main, unless I don't.
     To be honest, the idea that it might be a column, or a blog post, or something, did not occur to me until he started to explain how to play 9-ball. I had never played 9-ball before, always 8-ball. However he explained the rules of 9-ball—I can't tell you what that was, because I didn't write it down or tape it—made me wish I had a record of it. A week later, I remember only the wish, and the narrow triangle of nine balls set within the rack.
     We had just met. I'm not so far gone I'd walk into a billiard hall with a tape recorder in my hand. I could have whipped out my notebook and written down some of what he said, after the fact. But I was trying to absorb the rules. My notebook stayed in my pocket.
    We shot pool, we talked about our kids and our jobs, about the city and growing up and life in general. I can't reconstitute that conversation either.
     I wrote one sentence down: "This is really the last one left." Big pool halls in Chicago, I assume. I did take a few photographs.
    When I got home, I realized that Chris's is featured in Amy Bizzarri's "111 Places in Chicago That you Must Not Miss." A book I just wrote about last month, when I went to get a cup of coffee in Englewood. I was kinda glad I didn't know, that I hadn't gone to check another place off the list. 
     Leaving, after 90 minutes of pool, I had been conflicted. On one hand, I had lost an opportunity: This interesting pool hall, featured in "The Color of Money," with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.  A vast, cavernous space, with pool tables and snooker tables and dark recesses.  
    And on the other, I had deliberately given work the cold shoulder. I was ... I realized with an inner smile ... doing something normal.  I'm allowed to do that. You can't work all the time and shouldn't try. Sometimes you just have to relax, and shoot some pool. Even noble Homer dozed.

Has electing one super rich egomaniacal TV star taught us nothing?

Metropolitan Museum of Art

     A thought experiment:
     So I buy a grizzly bear cub to keep as a pet in my home in Northbrook. He's a cute, energetic little fellow, bustling around, knocking over the occasional table lamp but generally manageable. Time goes by, and he grows bigger. One day I'm late doling out the raw steak from Costco and "Smoky," as I've named him, goes berserk and mauls me, chewing off my right hand.
     I recover, eventually. The bear, alas, has to be put down. 
     So I'm sitting there, flipping through the channels, holding the remote in my remaining hand. I pause at the Nature Channel to watch a documentary about tigers.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

   "Hmmm, tigers," I think. "Beautiful animals. You know ... a Bengal tiger would make a great house pet, and things have been so quiet since Smoky left..."
     Stop right there. Based on the information above, what would you think of me? You'd think that I'm an idiot, right? You'd want to grab me by the lapels, haul me out of my chair, and scream, "Enough with the wild animals, okay? Haven't you gotten the message yet?"
     How is than any different than the past few days, as Democrats, twirling in the blast furnace hell of a Trump presidency, turn their red-rimmed eyes to the heaven and fix upon ... Oprah Winfrey.
     Sunday night she delivered a speech at the Golden Globe awards.
     "A new day is on the horizon!" she said.
     "Oprah for president!" a colleague cheered, though in his defense he might have been summarizing the zeitgeist rather than adding his support.
     "Our next president?" The Washington Post asked Tuesday.
     "She would absolutely do it," said Stedman Graham, Oprah's perpetual escort.
     Of course she would do it. Everyone wants to be president; it's the biggest affirmation life can be bestow, assuming the election of Donald Trump hasn't ruined it, the way Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize forever tarnished the honor.

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Beauty to brokenness

     I'd never heard of McPherson guitars before I went to see Trace Bundy play at the Old Town School of Folk Music last October. There's no reason why I should; I'm not keeping careful track of music in general or guitars in particular. I wouldn't have noticed these were any different but for their distinctive bean-shaped, off-center sound holes.
     Bundy played an easygoing, virtuosic set, which had him keeping time to himself by beating on the body of the guitar, and deploying, then tossing away, a variety of capos, which otherwise were perched on the head of the guitar like splayed fingers, making the guitars look a little like Struwwelpeter's hands. He mentioned that the black guitar was made of carbon composite, which seemed something new.
     Before introducing his last song, "Joy & Sorrow," he said something along the lines of "There is a deep beauty to brokenness."
     At which point, his guitar somehow failed—I wasn't sure if it was the microphone pick-up, or what, but he tried to shift to the second one, and that failed too. The audience couldn't hear.
     So he shifted to a different song and played it acoustically, without amplification. And he was right, there was a deep beauty to it, though not the one intended. I don't blame the guitars, which can run up to $20,000 a throw. Sometimes things go right by going wrong. Assuming it wasn't all part of the act. If it was, we fell for it.