Israel forgets: being Jewish means more than not running buses on the Sabbath

Pro-Israel demonstration, Chicago 2004

     Now that's the Israel I know and love.
     I've gotten in the habit of pretty much ignoring what goes on in the Promised Land. Everything there is a problem (Promised to whom?) particularly as its government continues the rightward slide toward nationalism so poisoning our own country.
     While America, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is trying to be great again by harassing refugees and flipping the bird to immigrants, Israel joins the fun by reminding its non-Jewish residents of the Jewish state, officially by a new "Nation-State" law, that they don't belong, don't run things and never will.
     Is that helpful? To insecure nationalists, sure. To those trying to nudge Israel toward a viable future in the 21st century, not so much.
     A full-time job, opposing that slide in our own country. To keep our own religious fanatics from trying to turn the supposedly neutral government into an auxiliary of their church, in league with the least religious, least moral president since ... well, ever.
     Given that, why bother with Israel? Because by seeing how Israelis combat their problems gives us a hint how to cope with our own.
     So — talk about burying the lede — what's the good news out of Israel that has me smiling?
     A thousand Israelis took part in a mass Arabic lesson at Habima Square in Tel Aviv Monday night, to protest to the new Nation-State Law which, among other ominous rumblings, downgraded the status of the Arabic language because, well, nationalists like to stick their thumb in the eyes of those they consider beneath them. It's makes them feel better about themselves, which is what nationalism is all about: dressing up in the shiny uniform of your own people, strutting about and pretending to be magnificent.
     You fight that ... how? In part, by embracing the thing that nationalists would see denigrated. Just as in Denmark last week, Danes offended by that nation's new anti-niqab law have been protesting by covering their own faces. Or just by not being silent. Imagine if American liberals celebrated our country's diversity with half the volume that Republicans denounce it? Imagine the roar.
     Sitting at my kitchen table, reading the news, I had an epiphany. As much as I am without question Jewish, and am proud of that, my central identity has nothing to do with the God of Deuteronomy or my mom being Jewish or studying Talmud or an affinity for gefilte fish, or whatever particular marker of Judaism you care to name.
     What I like about Judaism is, first, the thinking part. The clear-minded, rational understanding of what's going on. Plus the compassion part, a feeling for others that I fancy is intrinsic to the faith, and not just the usual insincere chin-music.
     And second, is the doing part. Not leaving it all in God's hands, or hoping that justice is waiting in Heaven. But tikkun olam, repairing the world, right now, starting with whatever part of it happens to be right in front of you. So if your country tries to undermine the very language your neighbor speaks, then you need to go somewhere public and learn it.
     Nationalists view multi-culturism as dangerous and naive, and in 1300, maybe it was. The world as a zero sum gain; if one group wins the other must lose.
     But if we look at actual history, the human beings who somehow manage to cooperate and overcome their outward differences get to raise cities and develop agriculture. Those who realize that science has no nationality get to cure polio. While those who file their teeth to points and fight everyone who isn't like them eventually die out. Nationalists miss this; they see only the high they get from regarding themselves, but are blind to the cost. Our modern world has many benefits—running water, commerce, this computer stuff. But it scares some folks, and they want to go back to the womb.
     Don't let them try. Push back. We've got a good thing, with this modern world. Let's not wreck it. Nationalism is like any other drug that makes you feel really good until it suddenly doesn't. Germany soared, for a while, until it didn't. The sticky end always comes. A strong Jewish identity created Israel and brought it great success. But the world is changing, and a new strategy is needed.

Feeding pigeons with the Bird Lady

Myriad Birds, by Kitagawa Utamaro, 1790 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

    Video confrontations are a constant of the online world. Jangly images of jarring exchanges, heated words, sometimes violence. 
     We see them all the time. Yet rarely do you watch such an encounter and think, "I KNOW that person!" 

     But when Block Club posted a video of State Rep. Jaime Andrade, Jr. "confronting a pigeon-feeding woman" I immediately suspected I had written about this person, from the title alone. Because really, how many are there? Watching the video, she's a grainy presence, but with that accent, there can be no mistake. 
     Below is my column, from five years ago. To be honest, the pigeon lady wasn't the most eccentric person related to it. I wish I had saved the self-pitying voicemails that Ald. James Cappleman left for me in the dead of night after this ran, but alas I deleted them. They were, in my opinion, unhinged.
     Perhaps the source of his discomfort was clashing with the pigeons' champion. Were I State Rep. Andrade, who seems a nice guy, I would take a moment to pause and reconsider. Pigeons are a nuisance, yes. But does he really want to walk in Ald. Cappleman's footsteps, years behind? Is that wise? 

     Young Kang is not crazy. Yes, she speaks quickly. And yes, she has a heavy accent; she's from South Korea.
     And yes, she feeds pigeons in Uptown, every day, without fail. But she certainly can explain herself, if you take the time to listen.
     "I am a citizen," she says. "I am an American. We have a free country. This is my life. I am a bird lady. I have been doing this a long time. Everybody knows me. All of a sudden, this alderman, he thinks he can overpower everything. . . ."
     That would be James Cappleman, the new alderman of the 46th Ward, who has made a name for himself as a die-hard foe of pigeons, introducing anti-pigeon legislation into the City Council, arranging for his ward's pigeons to be spirited away to Indiana to be killed, even sweeping up after Kang, which led to a supposed scuffle with her last May that left her charged with battery.
     "This is really hurting the community," Cappleman said in December. "It's hurting the businesses. We have to put a stop to it."
     "I don't know what is his problem," says Kang. "I'm doing right because I'm a Christian. These are God's creatures. I have to take care of that. I was proud of that. Every day for years. The other alderman . . ."—that would be Helen Shiller— ". . . I have no problem. The lady says, 'I like birds, too.' All of a sudden, [this] alderman is elected. He is not talking to people. Just like a dictator. All of his guys coming in. They are like gangsters."
     I phoned Shiller to see how she managed to avoid a pigeon crisis in her 24 years as alderman, but she declined to chat. Cappleman was reticent too, though his chief of staff said that Kang has agreed not to feed pigeons and that most in the community do not share her fondness for the birds which, based on my discussions with ward residents, seems true.
     The one voice missing in all this, it seemed to me, is Kang's. So I asked her if I could watch her in action. We met in front of her apartment on North Winthrop. I expected to sit on a park bench with a bag of bread crumbs. "Feed the birds . . . tuppence a bag . . ."
     What I find is more Jason Bourne than Mary Poppins, a clockwork operation that involves driving to specific sites around Uptown—14 locations in all, where she scatters white rice while keeping an eye peeled for the cops, the alderman and his henchmen—whom she believes are following, threatening and harassing her.
     "They know my house," she says.
     Because of that, she has enlisted a silent partner—Ed Gross, 72. "We work together," she says. "He's a retired policeman."
     Ed drives a Prius. In the back is a 100-pound sack of long grain rice—the idea that rice hurts birds is an urban myth. I follow.
     Our first stop is a CTA parking lot by the L station at Wilson Avenue. Ed does the honors— a few dozen pigeons rise into the air from nearby eaves, wheel across the blue sky and swoop down to peck at the rice. The duo goes through 100 pounds every day.
     Kang is 60, married, though her husband is incapacitated. They once lived in Lake Point Tower, owned restaurants and buildings—she owned Daruma in Evanston.
     "I can live comfortably, driving a big car. I don't have to feed birds. I chose this life," she says. "Somebody has got to do it. This is my life. I was living large. Everything changed in my life. I learned a different way. Not material possessions, not shopping anymore. The Bible says to help the poor and animals. That's what I do. Somebody has got to do it." 

     How did she start feeding pigeons?
     "I just [started] coming here, a very convenient neighborhood, very reasonable rent. I have to exercise every day, I see the problem at Wilson and Broadway. I saw 500 birds on the street. I saw a lot of sick birds. I [cleaned up] dead birds. . . . I know there is no natural food, no source. Everywhere you go, the condos. I feel like, 'Oh my God, I have to face this.' So I start doing it."
     What about people who just don't like pigeons? Selfish, she says: "We all have a problem with me, me, me, my, my my. But I know this is not criminal."
     She says she never pushed Cappleman:
     "I never hit him. I never even touched him. That's why the charges were dropped."
     Cappleman's office says charges were dropped because she agreed to stop feeding birds. A vow that, if made, is not being kept.
     "I respect him as an alderman, but I think I'm right. That's a commitment, you take care of birds. It's not like, the alderman hates it, I can stop. They depend on me. They are waiting for me. I feed them. The alderman tells everyone I'm a criminal. They treat me like criminal. What is a criminal? Hey, I take care of God's creatures. That is criminal? All my money and energy. If I am wrong, I still have to do it. I have to save the life. What's wrong with that? If they have to hang me, if they have to kill me, I'm going to die."
     She feeds pigeons for a full hour. I leave glad I'm not the guy determined to stop her.

             —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 20, 2013

‘Normal people turn into crazy people’ — sports parents aided by expert guidance

     One of the many benefits of working at a newspaper is that expert advice is never far away.
     When my younger boy decided to play football in the 7th grade, I was concerned. He had played other sports — basketball, baseball. But football seemed not just difficult, but dangerous.
     As I was brooding on this I noticed my colleague Rick Telander, nearby at a desk — not his desk, since he was never in the newsroom long enough to need one, instead traveling the world covering sports. He was once a star cornerback at Northwestern and drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. He knows this stuff.
     I told him my kid was starting football and asked if he had any sage advice. He replied immediately with one sentence:
     “When he gets his first concussion, make him quit.”
     Right, Rick was also in the forefront of moving the concussion disaster from guilty NFL secret to general public knowledge. I promised him I would.
     But most people don’t work at a newspaper. Which is why my attention was caught by a bright, newly published volume called “#HeySportsParents! An Essential Guide for Any Parent With a Child in Sports” by Sharkie Zartman and Dr. Robert Weil. The former, a five-time All American volleyball champion at UCLA; the latter, a Chicago podiatrist with a radio show, “The Sports Doctor.”

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Blah Blah Food and Esso Gas Stations

     In the Harry Potter books, the ramshackle, tottering Weasley home has a magical grandfather clock whose hands show where each of the numerous Weasley children are located at that moment, whether "Home" or "In Transit" or School" or "Mortal Peril" or "Quiddich" or whatever.
    I actually have something better than that magic on my iPhone, an app called "Find My Friends" that my older son encouraged me to install because ... well, I'm not exactly sure why. He must have had his reasons, and I'm hoping they're benign: kind of an electronic dad 'n' lad pinkie swear kind of thing, bonding us via iPhone. 
     The way the system works is that he can always see where I am, and I can always see where he is. I suppose it's intended for the energetic young, so they can see what cool places all the gang is hanging out, and Archie can race there to spend time with Betty and Veronica and whomever. "Oh look! Jughead's at Pop's Choc'lit Shoppe!" Into the jalopy and away he goes.
      Still, I hesitated before signing up, wondering what covert purpose he could be putting it to. This wasn't like him. I sense a trap. But then I realized, with a sigh, that I'm never anywhere I shouldn't be, not anymore, and that may be the kid just wanted to attach this odd electronic tether to the home base before he set out into the vastness of the world.
     Now that he has been bumming around Southeast Asia for the past ... gee ... five weeks, I do find myself occasionally checking in, hovering above him like some minor Greek deity, unable to either communicate or affect anything, only observe. Though doing so is of extremely limited utility. 
     For instance, I see he is presently in Chiang Mai, which I already knew. A city in northern Thailand. I can see his little orange head-shaped cursor.... see that it is on Soi Chang Phuak 2—a street, apparently. For a shocked moment I thought his cursor was at Chang Phueak Hospital, but as I zoomed in his icon parallaxed away and I realized he was across the street at someplace unspecified. Maybe a street food cart; Google hasn't nailed down every one of those yet, though I suppose that's coming. This kind of mistake has happened before, with a police station, though were I to actually see him in peril, or a location where he shouldn't be, I'm not sure what I'd do about it from 8,000 miles away. Shout at the phone.
    Deriving utterly nothing from his location, I began flitting like a bird around the city, and the rather intriguingly named places in it, such as The Opium Serviced Apartment and Hotel—what must that be like? 
     There was a Bedtiny Hostel and a Chill Bed Hostel—neither sounds appealing—and Tuck Me In, which does, though it could have used a second "n," "Tuck Me Inn," but that maybe be too much wordplay to expect from non-English speakers. 
     Some spots radiated security—Bedtime Hostel, A Good Place, The Big Happy House.  Some establishments are very familiar—7-Eleven, Chevrolet, Amway, Holiday Inn, and of course a McDonald's. Plus, less expected, a Bavarian Garden and a Fajitas Tex Mex.
     Just as Japan surprised me by being speckled with outlets of the old Lawson's convenience store chain, which died out in Ohio decades ago, so Thailand still has Esso gas stations, a name Standard Oil changed to "Exxon" in the United States in 1973.  
    Many coffee shops, with names like One More Dose Coffee Shop and the Ice Love You Cafe, the Meo Cafe and Kaffe Man and Mad Coffee and Gozilla Was Here. Some seem to have mixed usage, apparently, such as Coffee or Me.  There was a restaurant called Blah Blah Food and a Honey Dee Bee Farm.
     I suppose at this point I should say something about the shrinking of the world, but in all honesty, I don't feel it. When I went to Thailand, 30 years ago, before any of this Internet business, I distinctly remember spending about three hours in a cab, desperately trying to find the apartment I was supposed to be staying at that night, which was actually tucked into a secluded alley almost impossible to get to. We could have used Google Map. That said, I'm looking forward to when I can find where he is by wandering through the house. 

Tariff-stung Illinois farmers feel pain but keep the faith

Robert Klemm next to corn, on a farm in Waynesville, Illinois begun by his great-grandfather in 1905.

     Robert E. Klemm is a farmer, just like his father before him. And his father’s father before that. And his father’s father’s father before that.
     “I grew up right here,” said Klemm, standing beside a field of corn in Waynesville, Illinois, about 150 miles southwest of Chicago, on a farm his great-grandfather worked in 1905. Now he farms 1,100 acres of corn and soybeans, plus raises a smattering of cattle.
     Like most American farmers, he does not mince words about recent shifts in U.S. trade policy.
     “I don’t like the tariffs, as any agricultural producer wouldn’t,” he said. “It’s been very difficult on our economics. And I’m just hoping the president continues the negotiations. I understand the need of it. But it’s hit our pocketbooks really hard … I’m gravely concerned. It’s not going to hurt us. It is hurting us. It has and will.”
     President Donald Trump was elected, in part, by promising to revive domestic American industries such as steel, aluminum and coal. Over the past few months, he has imposed tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and other products from the European Union, Canada, Mexico and particularly China — earlier this month he levied tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products.
     When a country is hit by tariffs, however, it invariably hits back, and retaliatory tariffs slammed a wide swath of American industries, from motorcycles to beer. Harley Davidson announced it is expanding European operations; Budweiser is raising prices to reflect higher cost of cans.

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Corn.

Solve your problems today the Donald Trump way

     The most worrisome aspect for me about covering Donald Trump's speech in Granite City Thursday was not driving across the state, nor the possibility of a hostile crowd, nor having to gaze at the human embodiment of my country's decline and shame.
     No—and there is no way anybody who isn't me would guess this—the worrisome part was that the event began at 3 p.m., ended at some unforeseen time, and I would be sequestered at a steel plant, in the control of the federal government, for some unknown period afterward.
     The last time that happened to me, when Barack Obama gave his final speech in Chicago, the wifi was spotty, the deadline began to loom, and I literally bolted out while the president was still talking, and have this memory of running through subterranean passages around McCormick Place, trying to get the hell out there and find to a cab stand and get back to the paper to file a column. It was not a pleasant memory. 
     I didn't want that to happen again so, Thursday morning, batted out a "holding column"—one that could fill my place until I got a chance to file or, in theory, run in the paper if 8 p.m. rolled around and I was still at U.S. Steel. I've never blown a deadline in my life. I wasn't going to blow one now.
     As it was, there was quite a bit of discussion about this column at the paper—the White House, unknown to me, was eager for us to have a reporter at the speech, and the possibility of my being denied credentials existed only in my head.
     Still, it's a fun piece of work, I hope, and, today being Sunday, might entertain those who still have an appetite for this sort of thing. If you want to read the column that ran instead, batted out sitting in Jerry's Restaurant next to U.S. Steel, you can read that here.

     GRANITE CITY — The White House issued me credentials to attend Donald Trump's tour of the U.S. Steel plant here, the first dip of his presidential toe into Illinois since taking office 18 months ago and, not incidentally, about as far from Chicago as he can get and still be within the state.
     Until the confirmation arrived, hope had bloomed. Maybe they'd ban me, wouldn't that be a coup? After all, it would have taken only a few keystrokes to find that I've been caviling the man since Day One, working hard to make "liar, bully and fraud" into a trope, like Homer's "wine-dark sea." And didn't they just ban CNN pool reporter Kaitlan Collins for doing her job, and using an Oval Office photos shoot to ask a question about the release of a tape made by Trump's former consigliere Michael Cohen, suggesting that the president's insistence that he didn't know about payoffs to his former lovers was a lie (why is Trump lying still news? Can't we at this point assume that EVERYTHING he says is a lie, and save the headlines for those occasional moments when he accidentally tells the truth?)
     Had they banned me, I could go to the protests in Civic Park....
     But no such luck. The Midwest doesn't count when it comes to the coast, particularly Washington, its own weird hall of mirrors world. The credential came through, giving me the right to stand in some pen 30 yards from where Trump gives whatever happy gloss he's putting on the toolbox full of wrenches he dropped into American foreign trade with his cack-handed tariffs. The plan was to get to a computer and file something by deadline, but if you're reading this, that means the deadline came with me still penned, or sitting in a Huddle House in Litchfield trying to get the wifi to work. Kind of a Break Glass, Remove Column situation.
     Monday will be better, I promise. To make good use of my time Wednesday on the drive down, I spoke with farmers along the way. Though in case I don't have room, or fall asleep on the drive back, I don't want to leave this earth without revealing an important fact I learned: The silk in corn? It spreads pollination through the ear. A lifetime of stripping that stuff off sweet corn, over newspaper if I'm smart (try to replicate THAT value, on-line news aggregators!) because otherwise you have to scrape up the tenacious strands, and I never paused to wonder what this stuff did beside get in the way. One of the benefits of talking to farmers.
     Anyway, their take was that it took 30 years to build up an export relationship with China, a major buyer of our crops, one that Trump blew out of the water without much thought, and his $12 billion band-aid won't even cover their loses so far, never mind the future losses.
     But heck, he's a businessman, so all's forgiven. He must know what he's doing. I guess if you have the constitution to see your hard work swept away by locusts, floods and drought, then a scourge like Trump's grasp of international economics is easy to rationalize.
     The Trump appearance at U.S. Steel is a perfect example of a concept that I've developed, trying to answer the question of how good, decent people like the farmers I spoke with can support Trump. I call it "framing" — you put a frame around the part you are comfortable looking at and completely ignore anything outside the frame. Thus Trump, tossing a grenade into America's breadbasket, slides into the one steel plant where jobs are created. Let's look at those, he says. And all the farmers who were already struggling with a disappointing season — weather's been on the dry side — can sell their equipment in the shadows and lease out land they could use themselves and take out loans they can't pay back. We won't look at that.
     We see this all the time in individual lives. Got cancer? Well, here are some life power crystals and cleansing rituals and a Reiki master to apply pressure to your healing energy field. Maybe the cancer will just go away — which it sometimes does — and you can credit all the mystic hoo-ha that distracted you from it in the first place. Me, I'd see a doctor.

Break for lunch

     "That guy in the wheelchair has a couple of bucks worth of truck there," observed Richard Sparrow, a volunteer at the Texaco service station on Old Route 66 that has been repurposed as a visitors' center for Dwight, a village about 100 miles south of Chicago along Interstate 55. An intriguing-looking man in a toreador's hat and black ensemble was rolling away just after I showed up Friday, before I could strike up a conversation—a pity, there seemed a story there—and we were watching him drive off in a big GMC pickup.

Richard Sparrow

     I had never heard that phrase before, and liked it for its internal rhyme—"a couple of bucks worth of truck" and we got to chatting. I asked his name, and he introduced himself, adding "the biggest sparrow you ever saw," a former printer who worked for R.R. Donnelly back in the days when the Chicago phone book came in three parts. We talked phone books awhile, and how his work had taken hims all over the globe.
    "I've been to China three times," he said. "I've been all over the world and this is the best country in the world."
    I did not argue, but enthusiastically agreed, particularly after I had the chance to nose around Dwight for a while.
    But first the iconic service station, whose classic design caught my attention like a star flare. Meticulously restored, with tires and fan belts hanging in the garage, an antique car to pose on, and a jar of Tootsie Pops, alongside a sign explaining that this was a tradition when the place was operational, and owner Phil Becker's dad, Red, liked to hand out sweets to the children of customers.
    "We invite you to enjoy a Tootsie Roll Pop in memory of Red Becker," said the last line of an explanatory sign, and I did, inspired by the generosity to select a red pop instead of my usual chocolate. I tucked it into my shirt pocket for future reference.
    Sparrow had been sitting with another older gentleman on chairs in one of the gas station's service bays, and from a distance I had at first thought they were manikins, a small town tableau. But they were very real.
   "So, what is there of interest in Dwight?" I asked, and Sparrow told me there is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed bank a few blocks away. Good enough for me; I had no other task that day but to get home, and plenty of time to explore. He gave me clear directions that I of course mangled, driving a bit around the lovely town—wide porches, quiet streets, an Amtrak station I figured would get you to downtown Chicago in two hours.
    Hmmmm, I thought, imagining a call to the wife: "Sell the house honey, I found our new home..." Nah, not yet.
    The bank is a lovely Bedford limestone building. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd give it more than an admiring glance at its clean lines, if I didn't know about the Wright connection. Originally the Frank L. Smith Bank, now the Dwight Banking Center: People's National Bank of Kewanee, it really is an amazing structure, and I'll tell you why. Take a look at the photo below? As yourself when it was built. Got a year in mind? Now continue reading below the picture.

    The bank was built in 1906.
     It's an astoundingly current structure—to me, it looks like something from the 1950s, when popular architecture began catching up with Wright. (Not that I consider that an improvement; I'm more of a corinthian column kind of guy. There's no accounting for taste).
     I went inside. The loveliest bank interior I have ever seen.
     "Do you mind if I take some pictures?" I asked teller Iris Cregar She came from behind the counter.
     "Let me turn some lights on for you," she said, illuminating a side room. "We have the original architectural drawings."
      "Do you get a lot of people coming in to see the building?"
      "Yes."
      I noticed it was Free Popcorn Day, but didn't partake. I already had the lollipop from the Visitors' Center; I didn't come here to loot the place.

     People tend to be very nice downstate. They catch your eye and nod at you on the street. The staff at the little restaurant I had eaten in the night before in Lichfield, The Ariston Cafe, had been so friendly, it was almost unsettling. The maitre d' had actually touched my arm, guiding me to my table. The waiter, Logan, could only be described as buoyant. He conveyed a basket of bread to the table with the panache of a magician producing a bouquet. They brought a guest book for me to sign. I half expected the staff to burst into song. The food, by the way, was quite good, and the decor didn't seem much altered from when the place opened up in 1924. I was reluctant to leave.
    Yes, I know, the hidden flaws of small town America, better than most. I read my mail. But one downside of our culture is the need to fight every battle on every hill every time. I can't write that ice cream tastes good without one person mentioning fat content and another the oppression inflicted upon dairy cows, strapped into machines when they should be nuzzling their young with human-like affection. I do my share of dark cloud spotting too, sometimes.
     But not all the time. I liked Dwight, enjoyed poking around—the historic train station across from the bank, the fairly-active Main Street. I felt vaguely guilty, digging into mind for any kind of association with Dwight prior to showing up by accident—I stopped because it was noon and I was hungry, I didn't even notice where I was exiting, only that it had dining establishments—and all I came up with was the Dwight Correctional Center. An old frame of reference, since the women's jail closed in 2013. There's much more to the place than that.  They have a festival, Dwight Harvest Days, coming up September 20 to 23, including a parade, a car and tractor show, Cutest Baby Contest, and the 21st Annual Basset Waddle, which now that I think of it I've heard of as well.
    Two hours from Chicago. It seems worth a visit. Where I ate lunch, by the way, the Old 66 Family Restaurant, is worth trying. Salads are a long shot downstate—you end up with a bowl of diced iceberg lettuce sprinkled with dry carrot shavings, with a few cherry tomatoes thrown in. I was considering the cheeseburger, always a safe bet. But I had a solid hour in the Holiday Inn's perfectly new, perfectly empty fitness center, and felt in a health groove. I had a good feeling about the summer fruit salad advertised on a card on the table, with grilled chicken and poppyseed dressing, and asked the waitress about it, and she rhapsodized the thing.
     "It took me a year to try it," she said, sharing my skepticism. "But when I did..." She made an expression of rapture.
     I inhaled the thing. Strawberries. Blueberries. Fresh romaine lettuce. Even the canned peaches seemed to somehow work. Or maybe I was just hungry. I almost told her, "You know, last month I ate at Alinea, the best restaurant in the world, and if they served me this, in a portion about an eighth the size, it would have fit right in." I formed the sentiment in mind to tell her. But that seemed pretentious, and perhaps not quite true, so I kept it to myself. But I tipped well and left content, hotfooting across the intersection to explore the Texaco station.
     After my sojourn in Dwight, pulling back onto 55 for the long slog home, I remember the Tootsie Pop, unwrapped it, and enjoyed a lingering taste of small town sweetness.