George H.W. Bush: last in a line of American presidential military heroes

     The first president of the United States was a military man. General George Washington not only led the Continental Army but as a young soldier fought in the French and Indian War for the British.
     We get that much in elementary school.
     What might be news is that most American presidents were in the military: 26 of the 44 men who have served as president also served their country in uniform in some capacity. (Because Grover Cleveland’s two terms were interrupted by the election of Benjamin Harrison, Cleveland is considered both the 22nd and 24th presidents, thus the number of men who were president always lags one behind the number of the presidency; Donald Trump, therefore, is the 44rd man to hold the office and the 45th president.)
     With the death Friday of George H.W. Bush, the most recent American president who fought, this is a good moment to examine the link between the military and the Oval Office.
      Washington might have set the precedent of serving two terms, but his military background certainly wasn't a model: he was followed by two decades of non-veterans. Washington left office in 1797, the next military man to be in the White House was in 1817, with the swearing in of James Monroe, who had dropped out of William and Mary College to fight in the American Revolution in 1775 and was wounded in the Battle of Harlem Heights (though James Madison, while not in the military, saw more combat than many who were, as we will see).
     Military heroism helped a number of presidents win office. Andrew Jackson was of humble origins — he was the first president born in a log cabin —and gained fame by his victory against the British in the Battle of New Orleans at the end of the war of 1812. William Henry Harrison was so linked to a particular battle that it could serve as his name — his 1840 campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” refers to an 1811 battle against a confederation of Native Americans at the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers in Indiana.
     Many presidents not generally remembered as soldiers in fact served — Abraham Lincoln was a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War. And sometimes “service” is a broad term — seven American presidents claimed to have fought during the Civil War, though that includes Andrew Johnson, who was military governor of Tennessee in 1862.
     As the presidency is by definition a political position, the issue of exactly what kind of military service a president tendered becomes important. Seeing combat is the general measure of worth, but not always. Dwight Eisenhower, the first World War II vet elected president, graduated West Point in 1915 and was never under fire in his nearly 40-year military career, yet that was not held against the Supreme Allied Commander.

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2006 flashback: "People, it's just Gerald Ford"

Lamentations over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt, by Charles Sprague Pearce (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

     Maybe I'm getting old. 
     That thought crossed my mind as I was lecturing someone on Facebook Saturday. He had posted a photo of George H. W. Bush throwing up in the Prime Minister of Japan's lap, after falling ill at a banquet. "Really?" I asked, sincerely miffed. The man had died 12 hours earlier.
     We lose perspective, and have to spin our spin constantly, like dervishes. Bush was a blue blood and a former CIA director and didn't snap to the AIDS crisis, and those flaws have to be pushed forward, lest we consider anybody respected, anybody admirable, anybody beyond reproach, as if any of us could have done better.

     I can't really get behind that. It's Trumpspeak. Our current president needs to portray everyone as suspect, everyone as guilty, everyone as bad as he is, to mask his own inadequacy. He can't be truly loathsome is everyone else is loathsome too. 

    Untrue. Everyone is not the same. Yes, we all succeed in some ways and fail at others. But some do better. George H.W. Bush wasn't perfect but he wasn't Donald Trump either, not by a long shot, and that is why his passing is causing more commotion than it might otherwise. Genuine affection. Real respect. To the man, not the office. Wednesday is a national day of mourning for George H.W. Bush. He will lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda beginning tomorrow, the first former president to do so since Gerald Ford did it, a dozen years ago.

     Gerald Ford, Gerald Ford...that brings back a memory. When he died, in 2006, the media also went all solemn. They also closed the markets, as they're doing for Bush  Wednesday. Back then, it struck me as overblown and ludicrous, and I wrote the following protest. Now, doing so seems not-quite-so-ludicrous. Maybe Bush was a better president than Gerald Ford. Maybe his example of dignity, the Japanese prime minister notwithstanding, and adherence to American values is something we need to go out of our ways to honor in the age of Trump. To remind ourselves what we were and what we might become again, if our nation is not already irredeemably poisoned. 
     Or maybe I'm just getting old. 

     Tell me I'm not alone here. Please. Tell me that, like me, you were slightly taken aback to wake up Tuesday and find it a national day of mourning, with the markets closed and mail delivery suspended.
     All for Jerry Ford.
     Don't get me wrong. Good guy, Ford. Served his moment on the world stage well, or well enough. Deserving of our respect.
     But c'mon! The man was 93. A ripe old age. I'd sign up for 93 right now, and so would you. All these ceremonies—seven full days of tribute and prayer, pomp and circumstance. And this is the stripped-down version, supposedly, streamlined at Ford's request. I'd hate to see what they would have done otherwise—flown in the pope, tolled the Liberty Bell, dressed George W. Bush in sackcloth and ashes.
     This is un-American, this groveling at the feet of lost kings, and I blame Princess Di—her funeral left us, like the Victorians, addicted to cemeterial splendor. Votive candles flickering in the rain and black crepe, pipe organ dirges and riderless horses. I wouldn't be surprised if they raise an obelisk to Ford, surrounded by statues of veiled ladies, sprawled with grief and labeled "Sorrow" and "Loss" and such.
     Let's not even go into the grim specifics—George H.W. Bush telling mourners how Almighty God spared Ford in World War II so he could eventually lead this nation. (A bad road to go down, since it raises the question of why couldn't the Lord also have had pity on the 50 million or so who perished in World War II while He was mucking about in human affairs, looking out for Jerry Ford.)
     The presidency is worthy of respect. But this is beyond respect and into pageant and excess. I kept thinking: Geez, don't spend it all, every time. You need to hold back a bit, sometimes. Maybe it's the media's fault. TV took what are in essence private moments—the movement of the casket—and made them into public display.
     If we do this for Ford, dead at age 93, what'll we do for the next Lincoln?
                    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 3, 2007

George H.W. Bush, 41st U.S. president, dead at 94

   

     

George H.W. Bush

    He was the last of a string of eight consecutive American presidents who wore a uniform during World War II, a teenage volunteer who learned to fly bombers at Chicago’s Navy Pier and at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Glenview.
     George Herbert Walker Bush, 94, the 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd president, died Friday night. He had been hospitalized three times in recent years, and his health took a turn for the worse after the death in April of his wife of 73 years, former first lady Barbara Bush. They were married longer than any other presidential couple.
     A combination of two heretofore distinct American types — East Coast patrician and Texas oil man, Yale blue blood and Houston wildcatter — Bush presided over what many remember as indeed being the “kinder” and “gentler” era he envisioned, both in U.S. politics, just before the polarizing Bill Clinton years, and in a world where the Soviet Union fell apart, seemingly of its own accord; when apartheid neared its end in South Africa without the expected bloodbath, and war — the Gulf War — was brief, relatively painless, and victorious. 

     With his passing there are now four living former presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the oldest, Jimmy Carter.
     The current occupant of the White House, President Donald Trump, issued a statement Friday night praising Bush’s “essential authenticity, disarming wit and unwavering commitment to faith, family and country … His example lives on, and will continue to stir future Americans to pursue a greater cause.”
     Bush was the first sitting vice president elected to the nation's highest office since Martin Van Buren in 1836, and the first vice president since John Adams to serve two terms then immediately win the presidency, defeating Michael Dukakis in 1988.
      Also like John Adams, George H.W. Bush lived to see his son elected president. Together with son George W. Bush, they formed the second of two father/son presidential pairs in United States history, one requiring a retrofitting of his middle initials to tell them apart. While in office, he had been simply "George Bush," a president distinguished by his energy, athleticism and basic decency, a man, in the words of his friend James Baker, "who never learned to sit still."
     Yet despite his successes, Bush seemed not excite the passions stirred by other presidents. His four years in office were an economically troubled interlude between two of the most popular politicians in 20th century American history: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. While his administration had noteworthy moments, from dispatching troops to capture Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega early in his presidency to joining with Russian President Boris Yeltsin to announce the conclusion of the Cold War, overall the one-term Bush presidency left an "indistinct mark on America," according to Northwestern history Professor Michael Sherry, who wrote that "except for the 100-hour Gulf War, it featured no grand event, great speech, dismaying scandal, ideological crusade, or decisive political turn."
     Perhaps that was inevitable, given Bush's background of privilege and orderly achievement. He was born in Milton, Mass., on June 12, 1924, related to four previous American presidents. His father, Prescott Bush, was a banker and future U.S. senator, an avid golfer who headed the USGA and married Dorothy Walker, whose father created golf's Walker Cup. When George, whom everybody called "Poppy," or his four siblings were naughty, Bush later recalled, his father's regular punishment was to spank them with a squash racquet.
     The family moved to Connecticut shortly after Bush's birth. He was an athletic boy, but not a particularly studious one. Asked during the 1988 campaign to name a few of the books he had read in childhood, he replied, "I can't . . . I don't read that much." At 12, he was sent away to an elite boarding school, Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.
     Hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bush, then 17, resolved to enlist, but his father, who had fought at the Argonne in World War I as an artillery captain, strenuously objected, and the two squared off for six months. Bush signed up for the Naval Air Reserves on the day after his 18th birthday, later recounting it was "the first I had ever seen my dad cry."
      In August 1943, he became one of 15,000 pilots to learn to fly by taking off at Glenview Naval Air Station and landing on a pair of carriers anchored at Navy Pier. Or not landing on those carriers: 300 World War II-era planes still rest on the bottom of Lake Michigan, put there by pilots attempting a skill they had not yet mastered.
     The youngest pilot commissioned in the U.S. Navy, Bush was assigned to a torpedo squadron, stationed aboard the light aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto. Planes that Bush was flying in were twice forced to ditch at sea. The second time, during an attack on the Bonin Islands, Japanese anti-aircraft fire set Bush's Avenger aflame. He dropped his bombs, then bailed out. Two other crewmen were killed. Bush ended up in the water where, fearing atrocities, he "swam like hell" to get away from Japanese boats trying to pick him up, snagged his sea pack and ended up bobbing anxiously in an inflatable raft in the South Pacific for four hours until he was rescued by a submarine, the USS Finback, performing "lifeguard duty."
     He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for that action, and he ended up flying 58 combat missions, earning three Air Medals, before being reassigned to Norfolk to train pilots.
     In January 1945, he married Barbara Pierce-a distant cousin of President Franklin Pierce-whom he had met at a dance when she was 16. The Bushes had six children, George, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Dorothy and Robin, who died of leukemia at age 3 in 1953. Bush carried a token, a heart with her name on it, in his wallet for 40 years.
     After the war, Bush went to Yale, as his father had and his son later would. He pledged to the Skull and Bones secret society, another family tradition, and graduated in 1948 with a degree in economics.
     The family settled in Midland, Texas, where Bush joined the oil boom, forming the Bush-Overby Oil Development Corp.-with a helpful investment of half a million dollars by his grandfather. That company became Zapata Petroleum, named for the Mexican revolutionary. It gambled nearly all its capital on an enormous expanse of land in Texas. The first 71 wells Zapata drilled struck oil.
     His fortune made, Bush felt the urge to follow his father into public service, becoming active in the Republican Party, first as chairman of the Harris County Republicans, then as a delegate to the 1964 National Convention. He was elected to the House of Representatives from Texas' 7th District in 1966 and in 1968, running unopposed. At Richard Nixon's urging, he resigned his safe seat to try for the Senate in 1970, but was defeated by Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.
     As a consolation prize, Bush went on to serve in a variety of jobs under Nixon, first two years as ambassador to the United Nations, where he described that organization as doomed to be "a reflection of, rather than a solution to, the tensions that exist in the world." In 1973, he became chairman of the Republican National Committee. The next year, during the height of the Watergate scandal, Bush formally requested that Nixon resign, for the good of the party.
     Under Ford, Bush filled two yearlong posts, first as an unofficial ambassador to China- unofficial because the United States did not yet have relations with Communist China-sometimes surprising Chinese officials by arriving to meetings on a bicycle instead of in a limousine. Then he became director of the Central Intelligence Agency, from January 1976 to January 1977, helping guide it through the aftermath of a particularly scandal-plagued period.
      He decided to run for president in 1980 but instead ran smack into the political phenomenon that was Ronald Reagan, who crushed him in the primaries, then turned around and picked Bush as his vice president.
     Bush was a steady, reliable vice president, distinguishing himself by his calm and appropriate conduct in the difficult days after Reagan was shot in March 1981 (as opposed to Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who doomed his own political future by storming the microphone during a White House briefing and announcing that he was in charge).
     Bush also served as temporary president during Reagan's term, briefly. On July 15, 1985, surgeons operated on Reagan to remove a cancerous polyp, and Bush became the only vice-president to become acting president in accordance with the 25th Amendment, filling that role for just under eight hours.
     Of the rest of Bush' eight years as vice president, little need be said, beyond that he did the typical officiating over events too trivial to demand the president's presence. Bush was away from Washington more than he was there, visiting all 50 states and 68 foreign countries during his tenure. When he was in Washington, he would have weekly lunches with Reagan, who liked to bounce jokes off him. A Secret Service agent taught Bush horseshoes, and he had the free time to become proficient at it, joining the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association. As president, he installed a professional horseshoe pit at the White House, another at the family home in Kennebunkport, and a third at Camp David, where he played against Mikhail Gorbachev.
     As for politics, he once said, "I'm for Mr. Reagan blindly."
     In 1988, he edged ahead of Republican rivals Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson to win the nomination in New Orleans. The Reagan revolution-shrink government by starving it of money-was in full swing. "Read my lips, no new taxes" Bush promised the convention. He chose Indiana Senator J. Danforth Quayle as his vice president and slid rightward during the primaries, championing the exact policies he had condemned as "voodoo economics" in 1980.
     An unenthusiastic, squeaky-voiced campaigner, Bush spoke of a nation illuminated by "a thousand points of light." While Newsweek raised what it called "the wimp factor"- particularly unfair considering his war heroism-Bush came from behind in the opinion polls to defeat Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis after a blistering campaign that saw Bush castigate Dukakis as a "liberal" and a "card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union." He campaigned for harsher punishment of criminals, criticizing Dukakis for opposing the death penalty, and running notorious TV commercials featuring Willie Horton, a black man who committed a rape while on a weekend furlough from jail in Massachusetts. In an election that set a new post-World War II low for voter turnout, Bush won decisively, with 54.6 percent of the vote and 426 electoral votes.
     Democrats retained control of both the House and the Senate, placing him in a difficult political situation.
     Bush, in his inaugural address, said "a new breeze is a blowing and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn." And indeed, huge changes, though not of Bush's doing, occurred during his term, particularly the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of its domination of Eastern Europe, and the rise of Solidarity in Poland (the spring after Bush took office young people in China, trying to catch the winds of freedom in their own sails, misread their government and staged the ill-fated uprising that ended in Tiananmen Square.)
      One international change Bush refused to tolerate occurred Aug. 2, 1990, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded his neighbor, Kuwait, conquering the country in two days. Bush worked through the United Nations to build a coalition to thwart this "naked aggression," sending 500,000 American troops to the region. After six months of preparation, Operation Desert Storm began with six weeks of bombardment followed by a 100-hour ground war that won Kuwait from the Iraqis with a loss of 147 American lives. Though urged to continue on to Baghdad, Bush resisted, a decision much criticized at the time.
     Not all of his international efforts worked so well. In December 1992, just before leaving office, Bush ordered 28,000 American troops to Somalia to support famine relief efforts there, a move that set the stage for the infamous "Black Hawk Down" battle in October 1993 that cost 18 American soldiers their lives and prompted Bill Clinton to withdraw American forces.
     There was trouble, too, at home. Bush's term was defined by financial difficulties, primarily the savings-and-loan scandal, a result of Reagan's passion for deregulation. Bush pledged $166 billion to close the failed savings and loans. The 1991 budget forced him to renege on his "read my lips" pledge.
     He also nominated Clarence Thomas to fill Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court, leading to his dramatic Senate confirmation hearings featuring testimony from Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment. The Senate nevertheless confirmed him, barely, by a vote of 52-48.
     A milestone of progressive American government occurred during the Bush presidency - the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in July 1990. Physical activity, a focus for Bush since he was a boy, was a hallmark of what one wit called "an aerobic Presidency," though his healthful lifestyle did not, famously, include broccoli.
     The faltering economy scuttled Bush's chances for a second term. Sixteen months before the 1992 election, Bush's approval rating had soared above 90 percent, but financial bad news eroded his popularity. Just as he had in the primaries with Ronald Reagan in 1980, in 1992 he faced another force-of-nature politician, this one from the left, Bill Clinton. Clinton's decisive victory-he won by more than 5 million votes-shocked Bush, a man who had named his speedboat "Fidelity."
     "He, a family man and a wartime hero, had been defeated by a womanizer and draft dodger," wrote University of Illinois at Chicago history Professor Robert V. Remini.
     Bush's 20 years out of office were softened by seeing his legacy grow in light of subsequent events. His son's disastrous foray into Iraq showed just how prudent-to use a word satirists welded to Bush- is decision to hold back from pushing on to Baghdad had been. He kept a low profile during George W. Bush's eight years in office, never criticizing his son publicly.
     That was not a courtesy extended toward our current president, however. Bush told author Mark Updegrove that he does not like Donald Trump, and considers him "a blowhard."
      Bush parachuted again, of his own accord this time, to celebrate his 75th, 80th, 85th and 90th birthdays, his "hip-hip-hip hooray enthusiasm about life still undiminished" the New York Times noted. The last jump made despite losing use of his legs to a form of Parkinson's disease. Bush made a total of eight parachute jumps in his life, once as part of a fund-raiser to pay for construction of his presidential library at Texas He is the only American president to jump out of a plane.
      In retirement, he also forged an unlikely friendship with former rival Bill Clinton, the two taking seven trips to work on humanitarian issues together.
     "I do think our friendship has sent a message around the world that just because you disagree on something doesn't mean you can't work together," Bush said.
     Working with Clinton, Bush helped raise $100 million to aid survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and set an example for our present leaders.
     "Because you run against each other, that doesn't mean you're enemies," Bush said at the time. "Politics doesn't have to be uncivil and nasty."

The Saturday Snapshot #17

     What is it about middle children? I'm a middle child, and like to cause mischief when I can, compared to my more responsible siblings. So is Maddy, who lives down the street with her brother and sister. I've enjoyed getting to know her, and her parents, Randi and Tom, since they moved into the big yellow house on the corner.  When I saw this marvelous photo on Randi's Facebook page, I asked her if I could post it here, and she agreed. I also asked that she write something about it, and she wrote the following:

     “Maddy, Maddy? Where are you?” These were words that I have spoken often over the years so, it was not a total surprise to me that she had disappeared while we were shopping. Maddy has a knack for wandering. Not because she is angry or does not want to hang out with her family, but because she finds it hysterical and gets a kick out of hearing us (especially her mom) scream throughout the store, “Maddy, where are you? Maddy, come out now, Maddy this is not funny anymore.”
     Maddy has always been able to locate amazing hiding spots. Whether it was way in the back of our coat closet—so far back that it does not even matter that coats had fallen off the hangers and lay on the closet floor. Maddy would find those fallen coats and hide under them and not be found. There was another time she hid inside our dryer. That was a bit frightening. She also disappears in between racks of clothing in stores. When she is finally found, she giggles and smiles and says, “I got you” or “I am so funny!” I should probably tell you that Maddy is 14 and has Down syndrome.
     We were shopping at Northbrook Court and I took my eyes off of her for what seemed like only a minute. That was plenty of time for Maddy to wander off. She was nowhere to be found. I searched the clothing racks, the dressing rooms, looked underneath pillows and cushions and asked the staff if anyone had seen “the little girl with Down syndrome who was wearing a blue coat.” I walked outside of the store, looked left then right. No Maddy. I could begin to feel my heart beat faster and I was beginning to feel a bit queasy. I was ready to run to the other end of the mall when I happened to look into the store window display. I realized that the girl with the blue coat who had Down syndrome was sitting in the display window smiling, raising the roof and waving at people walking by the store. My irritation with Maddy quickly softened as I smiled and waved back at her. She was so happy in that display case. Who could blame her—she found another great hiding spot!

     Raising a child with special needs is exciting, scary, heartbreaking, intimidating and motivating. Like it or not, there is nothing boring about my beautiful daughter. She brings laughter and joy to anyone that meets her and enriches our lives every single minute of our day… even in a window display.

You’re safe from falling trees, probably; from opioids, not so much

 

     People exaggerate their proximity to death. "But I was just in Pittsburgh last spring!" I'm not sure why. To scrape up a frisson of excitement, I suppose. Or to feel significant, and turn attention back to themselves. Those sound right.
     So I want to be careful when describing what happened Monday. There had been a big storm the night before, as you remember, heavy snow, high winds, flights cancelled, power lines snapping.
     Monday morning, 6 a.m., my thoughts focused on firing up my mighty Ariens snow thrower, the pride of Wisconsin, a crouching orange beast with a light and its own little shovel, that had waited all spring, summer and fall under a tarp in my garage.
     But my wife counseled that 6:30 a.m. is too early. People are sleeping. Why not walk the dog first? This seemed a shirking of my snowblowing responsibilities—I could have our block clear in a jiffy!—but I yielded to her good sense, and leashed our dog, Kitty.
     Outside the front door, I thought I would address our front steps—easy to shovel before you trample down the snow—and Kitty went bolting off to a corner of our yard after a squirrel, which scampered up a walnut tree. That usually keeps the dog—whose brain is about the size of a walnut—occupied, standing on her hind legs, and looking up the trunk, waiting for the squirrel to come back down and be friendly.
     I finished the front steps, scrapping away the dense, wet snow. I might have had less than a minute to live, depending on what I did next. I headed toward Kitty, but rather than wait for me, she bolted off toward the street. My neighbor, Bill, was walking toward us, heading for the train. He snagged her leash.
     Normally I wouldn't engage in conversation—Bill has those trains timed to the second. But as I took the leash, he said something about the snowblower, or maybe I said something. I explained my wife had held me back, and asked if he wanted me to clear his walk. He said no, his high schooler was asleep, and he'd do it. I was standing at the foot of my driveway, just beyond a line of six 70-year-old, 50-foot-tall evergreen trees. Bill and I were maybe 15 feet apart, me on the sidewalk, he in the street.
     There was a noise, a kind of piny rending. I looked to the left, and the trunk of the tree was moving.
     "Step back! Step back!" I yelled, looking around for Kitty, who was leading the charge away.
     When I turned back, the tree was across the street, spanning it like a bridge, blocking my view of Bill.
     "Are you OK?" I said.
     He was OK. Not a scratch. The tree fell between us.
     Causes of death are in the news; the American life span is shrinking for the first time in nearly a century, thanks to suicide and the opioid epidemic. Overdose is the leading cause of death for those under 55.
     Where does being killed by a tree fit in?
     I searched for stats and couldn't find any, but did find Prof. Thomas W. Schmidlin of Kent State University, who spent his career analyzing windstorms and their fatalities, and studied trees as a cause of death.
     "That's why we did the research, 10 years ago," he said. "I was curious and couldn't find it."
     They crunched data from 1995 to 2007 and came up with 407 fatalities over 13 years from "wind-related tree failure."
     "It's not a big number, compared to all other risks we face in our daily lives," he said. "But it is important."
     I sure think so, now. Though my brush with the Pale Rider was due to ice, not wind.
     "We did look at that, yes," said Schmidlin. "We found 14 people - one a year - killed by a tree branch or whole tree overburdened by snow or ice."
     Very rare, but it does happen. Schmidlin mentioned Molly Glynn, the actress killed in Winnetka in 2014 when a tree limb blew down and struck her while she was bicycling.
     "The map of where these deaths occur from fallen trees are the intersection of where people and trees are," he said. "You don't see many deaths in the Great Plains, or the Rocky Mountains. All the fatalities are from Chicago and Houston eastward and in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of people and a lot of trees."
     Here's the odd thing. My heart never raced. I was never scared. In the days since, a certain happy-not-to-be-dead sense has lingered. I can't help but think of all the places where I've been worried about my safety, from the waterfront of Naples to the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince. The times I screwed up my courage to head into a CHA housing project or joined a sandbag line trying to hold back the rising Mississippi. Every time I thought, "Oh, this is dangerous." And the closest I come to buying the ranch in my life is on an ordinary Monday morning, walking the dog in front of my house on a quiet street in a quiet suburb.
     Well, that's life for you. Avoid those opioids. Trees, you're safe from. Unless you're that one person a year whose number comes up. Then you're not.

SpongeBob: More than "nautical nonsense."

     Sad to hear that SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg died this week, at age 57.
     We boys loved SpongeBob. Loved him. His buddy Patrick, the goofy starfish who was even dimmer than SpongeBob, if such a thing were possible. The power-mad Plankton, desperate to steal the secret recipe for Crabby Patties and spirit it back to his Chum Bucket. The whining Squidward with his jazz passion—there was a jazz critic at the paper who reminded me of Squidward so much, from the nasal whine to the bald dome, that I almost pointed out the similarity to him.
    My boys and I would sing along with the rollicking theme song. "If nautical nonsense be something you wish—SpongeBob SquarePants!—Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish!" We went to the full-length movie. 
     There was inanity for the kiddies. And a grown-up wink often tucked behind all the innocent silliness. I was even able to use a SpongeBob moment to try to make a point about charges of racism, which I think are thrown around much too casually. This column is 16 years old, and might grate a bit with our current pieties: the president wasn't blowing kisses at Nazis back then, so perhaps we enjoyed the luxury of being able to make fine distinctions. 

     In a rare moment of perfect timing, I wandered downstairs this morning, searching for my shoes, just as the TV was showing the deepest, most profound scene in the entire oeuvre of "SpongeBob SquarePants."
     SpongeBob and his friend Patrick Starfish are in the midst of a heated argument that deteriorates into a rapid-fire exchange of insults.
     "You paint your fingernails!" accuses Patrick.
     "You don't even have fingers!" retorts SpongeBob.
     Patrick, clutches his head: "I can't believe I'm hearing this!"
     "How can you hear?" says SpongeBob. "You don't have ears!"
     "Holes!" the starfish yells, pointing at the sponge.
     "Conehead!" he answers.
     "Yellow!"
     "Pink!"
     Now Patrick, who is indeed pink, screaming "Yellow" at SpongeBob, who is in fact yellow, strikes me as the perfect embodiment of what many people choose to interpret as racism or ethnic hate, when it is actually just the expression of a convenient slur.
     It was odd, almost uncanny, to see the episode again this morning, because just the other day I was describing it to a colleague, who had challenged me over my plans to return to a local legend's radio show.
     "How," he said, amazed and indignant. "HOW can you go on Steve Dahl's show after what he said about you?"
     What Dahl said is that I'm a Jew. The week before, I had spent a few hours on Dahl's show plugging my new book. We ended up having a good time, dancing on the corpse of Bob Greene, with such joy and gusto that Dahl asked if I'd come back and do it again next week. I said sure, but then surprised him by adding that I'd return if he paid me something. Fun is a job if you have to do it regularly, or as the great James Thurber once wrote: "Even the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations--that of batting baseballs through the windows of the RCA Building--would pall a little as the days wore on."
     Dahl seemed to understand. "No problem," he said. "We'll take care of you."
     The next week, when I didn't hear from him, I shrugged and figured he let it drop. People typically let things drop. No biggie.
     The next Monday, a friend took me aside. Did I hear what Dahl said about you? He asked, with all intent and seriousness, as if someone had died. A caller wondered why you didn't come back, as you promised, and Dahl ripped you for wanting money and called you a Jew.
     Steve Dahl beating up on somebody who isn't there is typical—of him, me and everybody I've ever met in my entire life. What is rarer is my colleague, and I'm not naming him because he is actually a shy guy, despite his profession, and possessed of the quaint notion that his work should be filled up with other people actually making news. He confronted me, honestly shocked, sincerely curious. This was the oldest, vilest slur against Jews: money-grubbing. How could I associate with anyone who expressed it?
     The worrisome thing, for me, is that it had bothered me not at all. I assume people are anti-Semites. Frankly, I gave Steve credit for expressing his slur on the air, rather than whispering it to his buddies.
     Doesn't this condone it, my colleague demanded, not buying my argument? Doesn't this make the slander more acceptable?
     I told him the SpongeBob story. People get mad, they reach for whatever they think will hurt somebody else. If they're yellow, they call them yellow. If they're pink, they call them pink. There's an editor at the paper whom I've looked at over the years, narrowed my eyes, and thought, unkindly: "You big, Semitic, flame-haired S.O.B." That isn't being bigoted. I'm big, I'm Semitic, I'm—OK, not flame-haired, though I wish I were—but certainly an S.O.B. What it is, and what Steve's crack, and most such cracks are, is collecting every quality you can think of relating to the person you're mad at and spewing them back in a bad light. If I were angry at Reese Witherspoon, I might blurt out, "You button-nosed saccharine little megabucks movie fodder!" That doesn't make these bad qualities.
     Frankly, and this might be a false distinction, I differentiate between the Dahls of the world, airing the biases we all share and suppress, trying to be funny, and, say, the Pat Buchanans, who are pretending they're rational when, in fact, they're hatemongers.
     A lot of entertainment involves insulting someone; you need villains to hijack the planes, dupes to slip on the banana peels. We've purged culture of the traditional butts of villainy and humor, and so are stuck with those unidentifiable Eurotrash terrorists in black sweat shirts and clowns culled from the traditional power elite (Austin Powers is British; imagine if he were Jewish, or black).
     There is so much actual hate in the world (the Palestinian, send-junior-to-the-mall-to-blow-himself-and-a-few-Jews-up hate), I just can't see getting worked up over someone cracking a joke, or trying to. I find the insults flying between SpongeBob and Patrick hysterical. Then again, I am not a sponge or a starfish. We have come to that.

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 24, 2002

‘Inquiring Nuns’ holds a mirror to 1967 Chicago, and to ourselves today

Sister Marie Arné, left, and Sister Mary Campion

     Are you happy?
     This simple question underlies "Inquiring Nuns," a charming time capsule returning to the public eye this week, a 66-minute black-and-white documentary of two young nuns going around Chicago in 1967, asking about happiness.
     The film is from Kartemquin Films, a "collaborative community" that has produced 65 movies since it began in 1966, including 1994 "Hoop Dreams."
     The film stars are a pair of Adrian Dominican nuns, Sister Mary Campion and Sister Marie Arné, who are given a microphone and thrown into filmmaking.
     "I'm not exactly sure what we're going to do today," Arné says, in the opening scene. "What do you think works best?"
     For me, the film works on three levels. There is the universal question and its variants: What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy?
     There are the unnamed Chicagoans of half a century ago: how they dress, how they speak ("You mean Fadder Buckley?" asks a man from Berwyn). The streets behind them. The Art Institute, a supermarket, the crowd letting out after church at St. Columbanus Church on East 71st Street.
     And third, the movie's stars, the nuns.
     Our cliched notions of the '60s are almost entirely absent: hair is merely longish, no beads or hippie garb. Though the first person approached, a round young woman greets the question with, "Groovy. Yeah, I'm happy. I really am." Most of the men wear coats, ties and fedoras, while many of the women view happiness through a very conventional lens.
     "My husband and his success..." replies one. "That's what makes me happy."
     I admired the brio of a woman in sunglasses who looks at the nuns and replies:
     "There are three big things that make a person happy," ticking them off on her fingers. "Sex, social life and ... what's the other? ... your work."
     Some replies are joyfully incongruous.
     "We like raspberries," says a man with his wife in a supermarket. "We pick raspberries, wild."
     The most common topic—at least six people mention it—is what one calls "the present conflict we are having right now, the Vietnam situation."
     For a modest documentary, "Inquiring Nuns" has surprising star-power. First there is the score, composed by minimalist icon Philip Glass (who had met one of the filmmakers at the University of Chicago).
     And second, the nuns talk to Lincoln Perry, who used the stage name, Stepin Fetchit, a vaudevillian who became the first black movie star to get a screen credit. Perry reaches into his pocket and pulls out a thick stack of photographs, which he starts handing to the nuns, one by one.
     "There's me and Shirley Temple," he says. "There's me and Will Rogers."
     Both nuns soon left the order and started families. Kathleen Reinmuth—the former Sister Marie Arné—now lives in New Buffalo, Michigan. Cathy Rock lives in Florida. When I caught up with Reinmuth, she looked back on the film with mixed feelings.
     "This is the movie that will never go away," she said. "I was 23. When I look back, personally, I often get embarrassed. I look so young and naive about things. But when I watch it with other people ... I can step out of myself."
     How did the pair of nuns wind up in the movie?
     "I was involved with a film group through the parish of St. Denis," Reinmuth said. "We were already showing movies like 'Night and Fog.' The archdiocese decided to do an adult education program using film, and hired Gordon Quinn and Gerry Temaner to do three films. I think they came up with the idea of doing one on happiness, using nuns."
     While it is natural to focus on the people talking, Reinmuth said it is also important not to miss the nuns listening.
     "Listening is such a gift to people," she said. "To ask a question, then really listen and let them talk. I kept thinking, 'Wow, they really wanted to talk.'"

"Inquiring Nuns" will be screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, Friday Nov. 30 through Thursday, Dec. 6. Filmmaker Gordon Quinn will attend three showings for an audience discussion. For details, see the Siskel Film Center web site. (Editor's note: This was in 2018, so don't go now. It's not there).