The Joys of Summer #5: Hiking

 

     Normally, when I go to write these things, I pause for a second, muse momentarily, then nod briskly once and dive into what I have to say. The path is clear.
    But here, oddly, I sat a moment, pursing my lips, gazing into the middle distance. How to explain hiking? The immediate response seemed to be to invoke the line I sometimes fire at readers who ask insincere rhetorical questions, Louis Armstrong's supposed quip to some weisenheimer who demanded he define jazz: "If you have to ask, you'll never know."
     What is there to say? You go to a place and walk. The place should be beautiful, yes, but it doesn't have to be. I can't recall every going on a hike that wasn't. Are there trees? Fields? Clouds? Vistas? Flowers? Then it's beautiful.  The hike makes it beautiful.
     Why? Because it is a rare moment in your life when you are not getting or spending, not doing routine tasks, neither idling nor exercising, or some combination of all these things. It doesn't matter where you go, or when. You can hike in fall, when the colors are turning, or spring, when life stirs anew, or even winter. But summer is best, the warm weather, the free time. The above is Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia, where we went last summer after setting our youngest up at Virginia Law.
     I supposed it helps to be prepared. I have an excellent pair of hiking boots—Keen's—that make me happy to lace on, happy to walk in, happy every time my eye caresses their perfect lines. They want to walk, and lucky is the person who happens to have their feet inside them.
    A water bottle. A bag of trail mix. A day pack with a jacket. You go into nature prepared, and maybe that is part of hiking's appeal. You don't need a coffee grinder, or a snow blower, or a gallon of Tide, or all the thousand possessions and supplies and accoutrements you clutter your life with. You've got a pocket knife and a lighter, so are prepared to face  whatever life might throw at you that day.
    Hiking makes everything precious. Think about it. At home you've got an infinity of water a tap turn away. And you value it .... not at all. On a hike, you heft your water bottle, feel there is a good eight ounces left, enough to get you down the mountain to the parking lot. You feel blessed, lucky, prudent for not guzzling it all on the way up. 

The Joys of Summer #4: Family vacation

     One irony of this column is the boy who yawned at Times Square now lives in Greenwich Village.

     WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis.—When we took the boys to New York City earlier this year, they were not impressed. "Big deal!" the 6-year-old snorted, standing amidst Times Square's strobing, Blade Runner advertisements and crush of humanity.
     "I want to stay in the hotel room!" the 4-year-old later whined, sprawled in front of the TV.
     The city didn't make much of a mark on the boys. At home, they never mentioned New York and seemed not to recall they'd even been there.
     Now, the Dells, that's another matter. Our past visits were sources of constant fond reminiscence, coupled with urgent pleas to return.
     So here we found ourselves, once again, in the parking lot of Tommy Bartlett's Robot World. The boys surge forward, like bloodhounds nosing a fox.
     "I love Robot World!" the older one exuded.
     "Robot World is the coolest place!" shouted the younger.
     I shambled after, smiling sheepishly at my wife. Once, we vacationed in Paris, in New Orleans, in Martinique. Now, we're at the Wisconsin Dells, staying at the Wilderness, "America's Premier Waterpark Resort," an enormous hive of water slides and game rooms.
     What amazes me most is that I like it. I'm happy here. The bone-deep cheesiness of the place does not depress me, as it once would have. Maybe it's maturity, or resignation, I'm not sure which.
     This is our third trip to the Dells, and the ironic pose needed to shield myself for the first two trips is no longer necessary. I am genuinely excited to breakfast at Mr. Pancake. And the reason I am excited to eat at Mr. Pancake—you might not see it coming—is they have really, really good pancakes. Big and fluffy and homemade. The kind that take the sting out of a 186-mile drive.
     Sure, Robot World is a hodge-podge of optical illusions culled from a defunct science museum, salted with a smattering of low-rent robots of the lightbulb-and-garbage-can variety. But you know what? The boys liked it better than the Statue of Liberty.
     The Dells are an unfolding of hidden delights. Perhaps the biggest concentration of 1950s motels in the world—squat structures straight out of Nabokov, with names like Twi-Lite and Flamingo, heralded by achingly cute neon signs ("FREE TELEVISION"), ringing pools whose curving slides are a question mark as to how these places can still exist in the shadow of all those new mega-water parks such as the Wilderness. (They survive, I eventually realized, because the water-park hotels are so expensive that they've priced themselves out of the market for families that need to pay $50 or so for a room if they want to have anything left over for go-kart racing and roller-coasters and bungie jumping and rides on the Ducks.)
     We even glimpsed a bit of the natural beauty that got the Dells going as a tourist attraction in the first place, 100 years ago. Like most tourists, we didn't bother seeking nature out, but it found us in the most unexpected place: the entrance walk to Tommy Bartlett's Water Thrill Show, which turns out to be a cathedral of enormous pines, hushed and cool and not at all what you would expect to usher you into the inner sanctum of Wisconsin kitsch.
     I had never seen the Thrill Show before, perhaps because it struck me as the Seventh Seal of Midwestern, middle-class bourgeois Hell. I'd see the show, and before I knew it I'd be eating bologna and mayonnaise sandwiches and collecting Hummel figurines. Besides, I thought the kids would be bored by water skiing.
     They weren't. They loved it, at least the first half. The show is an oddly self-referential affair, a celebration of the history of water skiing and of its own history--the various forgotten world's fairs the show participated in (Seattle 1962!) and, of course, Tommy Bartlett, the radio announcer who swiped the idea of a water show from Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Fla., and brought it back to the land of clear spring waters.
     The boys liked the speedboats and clownery, and I savored the show as a pure form. One doesn't get much chance to see a chorus line of gals doing the can-can on water skis, never mind a flag-waving pyramid streaking by to "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
     We even experienced "A Wisconsin Moment." My wife wanted to take the boys to a fancy restaurant, so we got dressed up and went to the swank eatery attached to the resort--"Field's of the Wilderness," they call it. It had the trappings of sophisticated dining--the handblown wineglasses, the tuxedoed staff, the three forks. But instead of the forks being different sizes--dinner, salad and appetizer--they were a trio of hefty, heavy dinner forks, identical in size. Maybe that isn't enchanting to you. But, for me, it really was the highlight of the trip. Three big honking silver forks, one after another, triplets, next to the plate.
     It's the kind of thing that melts in with the other memories--like the boys joyously tubing down fake rapids, or pitting themselves, feverishly, against the arcade games--to form the image of a summer vacation. Ancient Greece is gone, but the civilization that is Wisconsin is still there, waiting for anyone bold enough to explore.

                     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 12, 2002

The Joys of Summer #3: The Beach

  

  

New Jersey Beach, by William Trost Richards (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

  
     This is an odd artifact, nearly 30 years old. And while it's a fairly flaccid piece of writing, it is interesting for its circumstance. 
     I hope.
     The summer of 1990 the Sun-Times was launching Sizzle, a magazine designed to appeal to young people. I was in my late 20s, so counted as a young person, or at least youngish, if you squinted, and so either volunteered or was asked to write something about the beach. I wrote the below despite that fact that a) I hate going to the beach and b) I almost never go. It's more of a fantasy than anything else, perhaps based on one hour of one afternoon with my pals shortly before graduating Northwestern. Of course the paper didn't publish it. To be honest, I feel a little squeamish posting it now; but then "squeamish" is a condition of life lately. I must have cared about it enough to print out a dot matrix version that has slept in a folder all this while. Vanity. But given the situation on the EGD medical front—I might get out of the hospital today, unless I don't—it's this or nothing. I hope I made the right choice.

    Ideally, you would never go to the beach. The beach would be there, outside your door, and you would wander onto it whenever the mood struck you, to think fine thoughts and watch the herons twirling over the shimmering sand.
     Having to go to the beach is more problematic. There is nothing intrinsically comfortable about a stretch of hot sand, never mind the usually long and difficult trek to get there.
     Comfort must be brought along, and comfort is chairs and coolers and towels and novels and umbrellas. Ice, bottles, food, utensils, sun block, shades and musical devices. Comfort is heavy.
    Which leads to the first and only each rule: Go with people. The thought of going alone might be enticing—you, silhouetted against the blue waters, a beacon of attractiveness and mystery.
    At the beach, alone, magnificent.
    But that isn't ever the case. Alone at the beach, you soon start to feel like something the waves washed up. A dead jellyfish. An old can. Nothing.
     A crowd makes you feel significant and, besides, you need people to help tote all the stuff. People to tell you that your shoulders are turning maroon. people to play Frisbee with and to hand you a cold beer when you don't feel like making the effort of reaching your hand all the way into the cooler.
   And that is the state you wish to attain on a beach. The laziest, sleepiest, most somnolent sort of near-coma you can possibly achieve.  Because you have spent so much energy lugging this stuff from the car, then setting up, and swimming and tossing the Frisbee and capering in the surf (another reason to go with a group. Have you ever seen somebody caper in the surf alone? They look like an idiot) you can then flop on the beach like an exhausted runner and rack up quality beach time.
    That is why we go to beaches in the first place.
     Where else can you wake up, all sleepy and disoriented, like a 4-year-old arising from nap time? You dig your watch out of .a sneaker. It's 4 p.m. You look around. Your friend are all scattered around like a pile of sleeping cats, their sand-crusted sides rising and falling in slumber.
    You fish in the melted ice and grab one of the remaining cold bottles. At the sound of the sloshing water, your friends start to stir and murmur. The sun is getting low. You think: evening. Dinner. Going out. First, a nice, cool , invigorating shower—maybe the best shower you ever had in your life, maybe with all your friends. Then dinner. Perhaps the best dinner you've ever eaten. The whole bunch of you, fresh and clean and wearing crisp new summer clothes, laughing together at your collective wit and mutual intelligence, heading into a wonderful restaurant after a day at the beach ,brown as beans and ready to party.
    That's what beaches do. they jumpstart your life. otherwise, why would people bother?

The Joys of Summer #2: Hot Dogs

     I love hot dogs—who doesn't?—and have written about the humble frank on a number of times over the years, whether attending Hot Dog University, or dipping into the ketchup controversy, alluded to yet again below. I somehow never shared this visit to the mothership itself, the Vienna Beef factory. Gold Coast is gone, alas, except for a tiny outpost tucked into a remote corner of Union Station. And Vienna Beef moved its factory to Bridgeport in 2016. No hot dogs, or solid foods of any type, for me at the moment—but I'll be looking forward to my next one, some time in August. Or September at the very latest.

     Another Fourth of July come and gone, and have you reflected on your deep personal debt to the humble hot dog? I thought not.
     Despite this being peak wienie season—nearly half of all hot dogs are consumed between Memorial Day and Labor Day—and despite Chicago being a world center for hot dogs, somehow the mild little sausages don't get proper credit, their significance ignored in their home town, drowned out in the choruses of praise for other Chicago standards, such as pizza.
     To add insult to injury, the only references I noticed to hot dogs over the holiday weekend were several reports on a hot dog eating contest—on New York's Coney Island, of all places, sponsored by Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, whose franchise on Rush Street quickly withered and died in the face of superior local fare.
      "Chicago is a hot dog town," said Tom McGlade, a senior vice president at Vienna Beef, the largest of several frankmakers in the city. "We have 1,800 hot dog stands—more than the number of McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's combined."
     That gets overlooked, since none of those hot dog stands have the advertising clout of the burger giants. Most of Vienna's marketing goes into hot dog stand umbrellas and those eye-catching posters of giant hot dogs.
     There are many noteworthy stands, such as Gold Coast Hot Dogs on State Street, known for the tendency of visiting Hollywood stars to send their underlings to Gold Coast to fetch bags of chardogs back to their luxury suites.
     And Murphy's Red Hots on Belmont Avenue, whose owner, Bill Murphy, found himself tapped as the Col. Sanders of the Japanese hot dog after he stepped out from behind the counter to greet a group of Japanese customers at his stand. They turned out to be a team of food executives scouting the American hot dog scene before introducing the fare to the frankfurter-starved Japanese millions, and Murphy's friendliness earned him a goodwill trip to Japan.
     Despite the famous quote about how people who like legislation or sausages should never see either being made, I couldn't resist inviting myself over to Vienna's North Damen plant, where more than 100 million hot dogs a year are sent forth to gladden the hearts of a weary world.
     "Before I came to work here, I always thought hot dog makers were sweeping bugs off the floor, tossing in cow's noses and pig's toes," said McGlade, standing in front of a vat of 2,500 pounds of ground beef. "You can see how clean our beef is."
     Indeed. The meat looked as attractive as a ton and a quarter of ground meat could. Surround it with a hundred loaves' worth of toast points and a few dozen pounds of chopped egg, pop open a few jeroboams of champagne, and you could have the largest steak tartare party in the world.
     The beef arrives in big hunks from Vienna's own slaughterhouse in Harvard, Ill. I was taken aback when I saw a worker with a metal hook at the end of his arm use it to pull a chunk of meat toward him so he could trim off the fat with a big curved knife. The perils of industry, I thought.
     Then I noticed that all the other workers had hooks, too, and I quickly realized the hooks were held, not attached.
     A computer monitors the mixture to make sure it is 80 percent beef, 20 percent "sweet brisket trimmings"—a fancy way of saying "fat."
     Garlic, spices and salt are added and the mixture is pulverized until it ends up an unappetizing beige gel, which is then packed into casings.
     After the dogs are cooked, they turn the rich, enticing mahogany color people associate with beef franks.
     "No dyes," McGlade said. "It's a miracle." McGlade demonstrated that they are pre-cooked and don't need heating by plucking one off the line, snapping it in half, and taking a bite.
     Vienna takes credit for the invention of the famous Chicago Style Hot Dog, a frank buried under a mound of yellow mustard, neon green relish, chopped onion, tomato wedges, a pickle slice, hot peppers and a dash of celery salt.
     "It's a nice combination of sweet and crunchy and hot," said McGlade, who personally likes his dog with jardiniere and Grey Poupon mustard.
     You think that's odd? I like mine with mustard and ketchup, and eat them that way even though every person I've ever mentioned this to recoils in utter visceral disgust.
     I've come to accept ketchup on hot dogs as a perversion unique to myself, and will continue the practice until they pass a constitutional amendment banning it, and probably beyond.
     Then there is the entire question of charred vs. boiled.
     But that's an entirely different column. Hot dogs, thank God, are one area where consensus is not needed. You can enjoy your hot dog with whipped cream and a splash of Tabasco and it won't disturb me a bit. It's summertime. We should all relax.

                —Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, July 9, 1997

The Joys of Summer #1: Ice cream

This is not the Jumbo Atomic Hot Fudge Sundae—that has three scoops—but the more modest Atomic Hot Fudge Sundae.

     Summer is a time of relaxation and the enjoyment of life's simple pleasures. To set aside quotidian concerns—our troubling political situation, the endless demands of work, complicated medical conditions that require surgery—and just have fun. 
    So for today, and the unforeseeable future, the blog, if not necessarily its author, will concern itself with the pleasures of summertime. For those who like to comment, it might be a number of days before I can sit up, read, vet and post them, and your patience as always is appreciated. I did think about just leaving the comments section open, but that's like handing my blog over to lunatics, and I'm not doing it.
     When I wrote the following, I had been home on paternity leave for seven months. This originally ran under the headline "Life, Treat Sweet at Margie's." For many years the Wicker Park institution kept a stack of photocopies next to the cash register, which pleased me greatly. It's still there, if you want to go, approaching its 100th year in business.

     I do not believe in angelic voices, interceding in our daily lives. Nevertheless, a voice did speak to me last week. It said, clearly, unmistakably, "Go to Margie's and get a sundae."
     To be honest, I had been feeling a little down. The routine had become very, well, routine. "Go to Margie's," the voice said. "And get a sundae."
    So I went. Driving down Western Avenue, I tried to remember how long it had been. At least six years. Maybe eight, since I last tasted that gorgeous bittersweet hot fudge sauce. And Margie, a tiny, ancient woman, sitting beside the cash register. Would she still be alive? Would the place even be open?
     Six years! Maybe eight. The Republicans are right. Our values ARE skewed. What could I have been doing all this time that was so important I couldn't go get a sundae? Shameful.
     From the outside, the place at 1960 N. Western is the same. Same 1940s sign. Same silk flowers and china dolls in the windows. The menu still offers 50 different ice cream sundaes, with names like the Zombie and the Astronaut and the Coco-Loco.
     The choice was easy. I ordered the Jumbo Fudge Atomic Sundae. Just placing the order was a joy: "I'll have the Jumbo Fudge Atomic Sundae, please," I said.
     Say it out loud once and you'll see what I mean.
     The Jumbo Fudge Atomic Sundae was exactly as it should be -- a white clamshell filled with three scoops of ice cream, covered by a lattice of hard chocolate dribbled over the top. (The lattice is what makes the sundae "atomic"). Whipped cream and chopped nuts on top of that. Plus a cherry. Plus two sugar cookies.
     Alongside, a stainless steel urn, filled with hot fudge sauce. Just as perfect as before—hot, rich, deep, dark, bittersweet.
     There was one difference, however. Margie Poulos was gone. She passed away just last year, at age 80. But Peter George Poulos, her son, was there, and he slipped into the booth and told me the Margie's story.
     His grandfather, also named Peter George Poulos, came to Chicago from Greece and, 75 years ago this year, opened an ice cream parlor at the exact spot where it stands today.
     The grandfather's son, George Peter Poulos—the current owner's father—met a girl named Margie Michaels.
     "They got engaged in that booth over there," says Poulos, pointing to a spot a few feet away. "We call it Lover's Lane."
     That was in 1933. Countless other couples have used the booth to pop the question. "You should be here on Valentine's Day—the joint is up for grabs," says Poulos.
     "People come back here to get engaged because their parents were engaged here."
     Poulos was born in 1936, and grew up, literally, in the store. "My father made up a cradle in the back of the candy case," he says.
     From the beginning, Margie's candy, the ice cream, the fudge sauce, was homemade, and nobody ever saw a reason to change it. "My mother was offered a fortune for the fudge recipe," he says.
     Fame has brushed against the little ice cream shop. Al Capone was a customer. The Beatles came by, after their Comiskey Park concert. Poulos, who is a podiatrist, was at a hospital doing his residency when his mother called.
     "She said, 'Hey, some English guys are here from Sox park,' " remembers Poulos. "I said, 'Ma, there's no English baseball team.' And she said, 'No, dummy. It's the Beatles.' "
     When Margie died, Poulos took over, moving his podiatry practice across the street, so he could better run the place. Lunchtime finds him there, along with his wife and their newborn son, named George Peter Poulos, after his granddad.
     "He loves the taste of ice cream," says Poulos, who gave the infant a fingerful of Margie's 18 percent butterfat frozen treasure when he was a week old.
     Might there be a chance that baby George will be running Margie's 75 years from now? Following in the footsteps of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents?
     "The little guy?" Poulos says, as if he never considered the question before. "I don't want him to be a foot doctor. I hope he will grow up here, like I did."
     Poulos thinks he has something good to pass along.
     "There are so few businesses that children want, because they see their parents work so hard, killing themselves," he says. "This is fun. You make people happy. It's not a tough life. You can walk around to your customers and say 'Hi' and be proud of what you're doing."
     I finished scraping the white clamshell clean with my spoon and made sure that not another iota of fudge could be dredged up out of the steel urn. Then I licked the spoon.
     I paid my bill -- the Jumbo Atomic Fudge Sundae cost $4; less than some places charge for a bottle of beer.
     I can't tell you how happy I felt leaving Margie's. Maybe it was enzymes from the fudge, working on my brain. Maybe it was the infectious cheer of Peter Poulos. Maybe it was the thought of baby George being groomed to make the secret fudge sauce for me when I am old and gray and will need it more than ever.
                 —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 5, 1996

Cleanslate preps workers for real world

 

     “Let’s get to work,” declares Tommy Wells, to no one in particular, loading empty garbage cans into a white pickup. “Make it a great day! Ladies and gentlemen. And it’s raining.”
     It sure is, a few minutes before 6 a.m., coming down hard. Some 60 men and women in identical baseball caps and gray vests trimmed with neon green gather in a large garage on South Ashland, waiting, snatches of conversation reflecting areas of the city that tourists never visit.
     “They wasted that boy — shot him in the face three times,”
     “This world just going crazy. It doesn’t matter where you go. In Chicago? It don’t matter where you go. Crime is everywhere.”     
     But not here. Here crime and homelessness, drug addiction and despondency are held at bay, thanks to the organization whose name is on those vests and hats: “Cleanslate” — operated by Cara, a social service program that since its founding in 1991 has paired more than 10,000 jobs with what it tactfully calls “individuals with high barriers to employment” — felons, recovering drug addicts, all manner of people taking their first tentative steps away from the street.
     The work is not elegant.
     “Mainly cleaning up sidewalks and curbs, some landscaping,” says Enise, 33. She’s worked a year for Cleanslate, which asks that workers’ last names not be used, so this first rung doesn’t hold them back higher up the ladder.

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Boffing bunnies

     It's summer, and I'm about to take a little time off. It seems my brain got a jump on things, so if you're looking for a significant topic deftly handled, well, check back tomorrow. Maybe you'll have better luck.
     Otherwise, when I was growing up, there was a shop in my hometown of Berea, Ohio called, aptly enough, "The Shoppe." It started off as what we called a "head shop," a small store where you could buy pot pipes and rolling papers and records and such. But soon it grew, and began offering clothes, and hip housewares. It's where, about 1979 I bought this pair of mugs to prepare the Quaker Apples and Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal I lived on as an undergraduate.
     This was the '70s, people were less tightly-wound about such things, and if you notice, not only is the bull anatomically correct, but the rabbits in the background are, well, doing what rabbits are famous for doing. A leporine Kama Sutra. I can't recall if I noticed this before or after buying the mugs. My guess is after. I came to think of it as the "boffing bunnies" mug, and appreciated both for the wide expanse of cobalt blue making up each creature, and particularly for the large size mugs. Perfect for tea.
       I looked closely at the steer mug and saw it's signed "1978 Win Ng-Taylor." In 1965, Spaulding Taylor and Win Ng formed a company called "Environmental Ceramics" in San Francisco, and came to be a quite popular purveyor of chic kitchen supplies, mugs and aprons, pot holders and dishtowels, in the 1970s and 1980s under the name Taylor & Ng. The company had a generally asian aesthetic, and also sold woks, if I recall, an exotic item at the time.
     The Shoppe is still in Berea and—why does this surprise me?—Taylor & Ng still operates online, where you can buy the exact same mugs, at the company's web site here, for $9.75.
      Of course you can. Though my mugs were made in Japan,and my guess is the new ones come from China. Still, they sell 'em. We live in a time where nothing, absolutely nothing, goes away. Whether that is a good or bad thing, well, you can discuss. So maybe a little significance after all, despite ourselves.