Owl.

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     Friday evening, just before dinnertime, Kitty and I reach the apex of our walk and begin the turn back home. To our right, as we approach a particular house, there on the second story roof, standing tentatively, as one does on roofs, a family—a mom, dad and teenage daughter. They have obviously climbed out a back window and are now, cameras and binoculars in hand, looking at ... well, something. I turn and look too, and see a ... large pine tree. They're gazing intently at a tree, taking photos. Turning back to the family, I wait until one looks down at me.
     "Dare I ask?" I say, in what I hope is a tone of levity.
     "Owls," the dad replies. I look harder, and see the unmistakable silhouette of a great horned owl, peeking out of its nest toward the top of the tree. Someone from the family above says there are baby owls, too. But I can only see the parent, since its head pivots—owl eyes are shaped like tubes, not spheres, to concentrate more light, and so can barely move in their sockets. To see to the right or left, and owl has to turn its head to the right or left, and it can turn its head 180 degrees in either direction, so can look directly behind.
     "Cool!" I said, or some such exclamation, and stand there watching as well. I know my iPhone won't take much of a picture, but give it the old school try, and get, well, at least some documentary evidence. Twenty years tramping around the old leafy suburban paradise, and this is my second owl—now that I think of it, the first one, more than 15 years ago, was also at the prompting of a sharper-eyed neighbor, who came up behind me, grabbed me by my shoulders, and gave me a 15 degree turn, hissing softly, "An owl!" That may have been how we met.
     Not counting the elf owl I saw at the Northbrook bird sanctuary. That seems like cheating.
     The nest, by the way, almost certainly wasn't built by the owl itself, but a crow or hawk whose nest that the owl had taken over. Owls populate an area based, not on prey available, but housing, since gathering twigs and such is beneath them.
     That there is something dramatic about owls. The word in English is a very old onomatopoeia, from the Old English "ule," or ulula in Latin, intended to echo their cry. ("Ululate," comes from the same base, and "howl" is related).  
     Before that, of course, owls were celebrated in the ancient world. The owl represented Pallas Athena, and were considered wise for their solitude, for those large, all-seeing eyes.  Glaux is "owl" in Greek, and Homer calls Athena glaukopis, or owl-eyed, which is usually translated as "gray-eyed."

Tetradrachm

     Athens took the owl as its symbol You can see owls on some beautiful Athenian coins, such as the decadrachm, where the owl spreads her wings, as if protecting her nest, her home city by looking bigger, as owls do in nature.  The tetradrachm is one of the most recognized ancient coins, minted in huge quantities, so much so that Athens ran out of silver and began minting them with copper, drawing hoots of ridicule from Aristophanes in his play, "Frogs."

Our silver coins, all of purest Athenian make,
All of perfect die and metal, all the fairest of the fair,
All of the unequaled workmanship, proved and valued everywhere
Both among our own Greeks and distant barbarians—
These we do not use. but the recent worthless base coins
Of vile character and basest metal, now we always use instead.

     So I guess we can take comfort that we are not the first nation to face decay, and a decline in our vaunted standards ... Okay, sorry, we've gone far afield from my intent, which was to say, "I saw an owl, owls are cool." 

 

Texas notes: Iron in the blood

  

     Honestly, I don't view Caren Jeskey leaving Bat City as EGD losing its Austin bureau chief so much as our gaining, not just another set of eyes on Chicago, but her particularly perceptive peepers. We'll just have to re-christen Caren our "Albany Park bureau chief" and keep right on rolling along. Yes, I had to look up "plutonic" too. No, I won't tell you what it means.   

     California didn’t keep me for long. I moved there in the 90s and only lasted a year and a half. One cannot dispute that the redwoods, dolphins frolicking in saltwater just off the shore, and complicated plutonic rock formations are captivating. Yet somehow not enough for me to consider calling it home.
     Is it possible that the Windy City’s copious ferromagnetic materials pull upon a giant magnet attached to my insides? It sure feels that way. My feet have roots that have burrowed—for many of my years on this planet—deeply into the concrete of the city streets, and are still firmly planted from over 1100 miles away. Perhaps my thousands of miles of walkabouts in Texas were a roundabout way to try to get back home.
     If I say Bari foods and you can imagine tearing off a piece of a freshly baked baguette and dipping it into olive oil and oregano you might be of the same ilk. If you love the clang of metal doors being pulled down over storefronts, are not afraid to explore Lower Wacker Drive, and gazing upon smoggy steel mills might as well be a misty mountain range in your eyes, we will get each other. Maybe we have microscopic bits of steel dust inside of us that make us feel incomplete unless we are in the city of wild garlic, near canals and the steady wheels of industry.
     Or maybe we’ve been cryogenically frozen enough times that we start to feel old and shriveled up without subzero temperatures. It was in the 90s in Austin today. Here we go! Months of above one hundred degrees to look forward to for those who are staying. After 7 years I have had enough. Maybe all of the sun damage on my neck, face and chest will reverse with the next polar vortex.
     Chicago is so much in my bones that when I drive through rural Texas I stop at every oil rig I pass. I park the car and get out, and I’m captivated by the slow and steady up and down of the arm of the rig. I could sit and watch that forever. Machinery. Is that normal? Do non-rust belt folks feel that too? The Austin music scene is special, but give me a blanket and machines become my drive-in movie.
     In my travels to the deserts, mountains, rainforests, oceans, lakes, and plains all around the world I am always aware that I’m a person from Chicago. It’s my identity. For the first five years of living in Texas I introduced myself as “Caren with a C from Chicago.” It was a way to be sure folks would not forget my name, and it often worked. But I also saw it as a badge of honor.
     Whenever I read an Anaïs Nin quote I feel seen and understood, and less alone. I Googled her name and the word “cities” to see what she had to say about all of this. I learned that she put together a compilation of novels called Cities of the Interior. How very apropos. I’ve written about what Carl Jung calls one’s inner partner here on EFD, er—I mean EGD, in the past. With the right intention, it seems all roads can lead to a sense of inner peace. We just need to have the courage to be engaged in the world around us. To be creative and adventurous, and whether homebound or sojourning, stay true to ourselves.
     In three mere weeks I will say goodbye to Austin for now and start heading north. I will hike and kayak along the way, and see as much of nature’s beauty as I can. When I roll into Chicago it will be a soft landing. I found a sweet coach house to rent—in the city of course!—with knotty wood paneling and a large outdoor deck. I can’t wait to be back in the city of big shoulders, embracing and being embraced.
     “The enemy of a love is never outside, it's not a man or a woman, it's what we lack in ourselves.” Anaïs Nin

Secret proof of UFOs banning all vaccines

 

     “Walgreens,” observed the medical technician at a CVS in Franklin Park Tuesday, reading the vaccine card I handed him as I sat down behind the little blue screen and bared my upper right arm.
     Busted, patronizing the competition. I hadn’t considered the Cubs vs. Sox, Field’s vs. Carson’s aspect of crossing from Walgreens to rival CVS for my second dose of COVID vaccine. My older son, who set up my first appointment in Springfield, shifted the second to Franklin Park. Considerate boy.
     Not only a far shorter drive, but by changing, the doses were now the proper three weeks apart. Turns out Walgreens was giving the Pfizer shots a month apart, because it was easier for them to schedule. Until they were called on it and stopped.
     Considering an employee of CVS was about to jab a needle in my arm, an explanation seemed in order.
     “I actually prefer CVS,” I said. “Because of Nicholson Baker’s ‘The Mezzanine.’ A man breaks his shoelace and goes to a CVS to buy a new one. That’s the entire plot of the novel ...”
     I tend to babble when being given a shot. (“Annnnnnd...” my wife thinks, reading this, smiling sardonically, “when NOT being given a shot ...”)
     As this was happening — I didn’t even feel the needle — Vice President Kamala Harris was in Chicago, imploring “those who have received the vaccine” to “please tell all your friends and aunties and uncles and grandparents and kids” to get vaccinated.
     Were it only that easy. Because you either already know to get the shot ASAP, to spare yourself an arduous, often deadly, illness, and protect your community. Or you haven’t figured it out and probably can’t. Being urged to do so will only cause you to dig in, in the knee-jerk contrariety that so many mistake for independent thought.
     Did you see the government slogan, attempting to reach the vaccine resistant? “Let’s Get Vaccinated.” The heart breaks. Putting that chirpy slogan — who dreamed that one up, the Muppet Babies? — up against the widespread serf fear of doctors and the wasp nest of crazed conspiracy mongering.

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Flashback 2013: "'Repent Gay People to God, be Saved"

    Facebook disinterred this chestnut, and it seemed an apt follow-up to Wednesday's column about religion.  Ever wonder why certain issues—like gay marriage—burn brightly for a while, then vanish? Because haters hate whomever they think they can get away with hating then, denied that pleasure by the shifting sands of public opinion, fall back, and defend a new line in the sand. It's almost as if the object of their scorn doesn't matter half so much as the act itself of despising someone. Which seems to be the case.

     'To Mr. Steinberg," writes reader Robert Zuback. "Once again the Sun-Times intervenes when they shouldn't. They should remain neutral on the Gay Marriage issue. But the media like yourselves wants to go against the Catholic Church and its Bishops, who oppose Gay Marriage."
     Sometimes you find a moment of clarity where you least expect it. Such as reading Mr. Zuback's letter, which arrived in an envelope decorated with an American flag sticker and the scrawled slogan, "I prefer believers in Christ, Not sinners like the Gay People."
     "It shows their disrespect for Catholics like myself and my Church," he writes, "disrespect to the Holy Spirit as a whole, too."
     Well, no disrespect intended. Though I suppose you don't have to be gay to offer, by your very existence, what can be seen as implied disrespect. As a Jew, my entire non-baptized, non-confessed, Christ-a-nice-guy-but-no-Lord life can be—and God knows has been—seen as an insult and, believe me, I am grateful the question of my rights has been taken off the table. I can marry. I can hold a job. I can check into fancy hotels, now, which wasn't always true for my parents.
     "Gay marriage is an offense against the Bible, the word of God," writes Mr. Zuback. "This union is sinful."
     As has been stated repeatedly—the argument worn smooth, like a pebble—society happily shrugs off many grave Biblical sins.
     Why gays? Why marriage? Why this sin?
     "Marriage once again is between a man and a woman. Gay people should apologize to Christ and myself, being their neighbor."
     That is surprising. You'd think a guy would warm to the neighbors. Then again, my ancestors' neighbors in Poland, well, not to re-open old wounds but, let's say: not so nice.
     "Gay people have the right to vote, work and pay for their insurance as I do."
     Broad-minded. The right to work goes back, what, 30 years? Depending on the job. A reminder gay marriage is not a battle in a vacuum, but the latest skirmish in a long war.
     "The Gay Rights people are responsible for their acts by involving the Courts System that favor them," Mr. Zuback writes.
     Here we agree. Courts favor them—or will—because justice is on their side. There is no reason gay people shouldn't marry, except for the religious qualm he so eloquently expresses. Back in the day . . . OK, the world up to this moment . . . the church held so much sway over our government that certain key facts—i.e., being gay is an intrinsic quality that doesn't make anyone a less fit spouse or parent—were overlooked. Now they are known and, barring some unimaginable cataclysm in modern society, always will be.
     "It should have been settled by a natural vote, up or down. We the people, that's me."
     And me, don't forget. And the rest of Americans, the majority supporting gay marriage now, increasing as the years roll on. We did have an election in November, and the leaning-toward-gay-marriage-as-soon-as-it's-politically-safe-to-do-so candidate, Barack Obama, won over the ewww-back-into-the-closet-with-you candidate, Mitt Romney.
     "Gay people lack faith and wisdom. One judgment day is for all, even Gays. Hell's eternal pain, or Heaven's paradise. Repent Gay People to God, be Saved."
     And here he signs it, "Believer in Christ, Robert J. Zuback, Catholic."
     Thanks for writing, Mr. Zuback. Though you never did explain how gays marrying would detract from your life, except of course for the agony of knowing it occurs (though, I would think, if you truly believe in that Hell stuff, you wouldn't begrudge them their eyeblink of earthly happiness now, considering the eternity of superheated suffering ahead).
     While the harm to you is assumed, though not demonstrated, your religion—having its hooks into the law as it does—hurts gays in very real, factual, no-need-to-take-it-on-faith ways. In taxes and inheritance, health care and housing, not to mention plain old dignity.
     The gay marriage issue is, I clearly see now—thank you Mr. Zuback—a question of whether we live in a secular society of laws, or whether government is an arm of the church; Mr. Zuback's church, in his view, or the church of whoever happens to hold office. Those who push for the latter always assume it is their church in the driver's seat. If you don't believe that, ask them about Sharia law and watch their faces do a little confused contortion. Even though gays must be kept from marriage for the exact same reason women must wear veils—because God says so or, rather, God tells men to say He says so, or so the men say. But the funny thing about God is, we all have access to Him, in theory. Indeed, I was talking to God just yesterday, and He told me He loves gays—he certainly made enough of them. Though I'm not expecting you to immediately respect my beliefs just because I say so, Mr. Zuback, which is one of the many differences between us.

      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, April 7, 2013

See you in church ... oops, no I won’t

Belief + Doubt = Sanity, by Barbara Kruger (Hirshhorn Museum)

     On May 11, 1833, “Chicago’s first reformer,” Rev. Jeremiah Porter, arrived here to find “a wide, wet prairie, as far as the eye could reach, on a muddy river winding south over a sand-bar to the Lake with a few scattered dwellings.”
     The Presbyterian minister also found, to his horror, a priest, John M. I. St. Cyr, who arrived 10 days earlier, and got busy raising a Catholic church, St. Mary’s, at State and Lake.
     Not one to accept fate passively, Rev. Porter knelt beside St. Mary’s late at night and prayed for its destruction. Setting the tone for interdenominational relations for centuries to come.
     That prayed-for doom has been slow in arriving. But a milestone was sailed past last week, as the Gallup Poll reported that for the first time in its 80-year history of prodding the American soul, most people in this country don’t belong to a religious congregation.
     Only 47%t of Americans are members of a church, mosque or synagogue. In 1999, it was 70%.
     That figure will only dwindle, since, like using a handkerchief, regularly sliding your keister into a pew is an elderly practice. The Gallup Poll found 66% of those born before 1946 belong to a congregation, but only 36% of millennials do.
     The press is supposed to be the dread Beast, dancing around the bonfires of pagan secular humanism. But the story barely made a ripple.
     Could all those naysayers be right? Does the media really ignore good news?
     Is the decline of organized religion good news? Scratch any act of meanness, cruelty or spite and half the time you’ll find a religious person nodding vigorously, explaining how his big imaginary friend in the sky demands acting in an otherwise indefensible manner. Look at all the evil that faith has endorsed and it’s hard not to view religion as an engine of suffering, like disease.

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Back in the city

 

 
     West Fulton Market is not actually all that close to Franklin Park. A solid 45 minutes to the east and south. But circumstances Monday dictated that I be in the near western suburb at 11 a.m. sharp, and then down at 111th St. in West Morgan Park at 2 p.m., on the dot, and I had to concoct something for us to do during the two hours and change in between. Going back home would be pointless.
     It was close enough to 12 noon. So I pointed our party toward Bonci Pizza. You really can't get pizza like it anywhere else, outside of the Vatican, and I had only had Bonci once in the past year. I parked right outside on Sangamon Street, went inside, ordered three inches of red and orange peppers for myself, then waited outside. A helpful employee not only brought our hot pizza, but a towel to dry the seats off, and we perched, and ate and talked. I thought this was my first meal at a restaurant in Chicago since ... last September, when we went for our 30th anniversary to Gene & Georgetti. 
     I'd paid for 60 minutes of parking, and thought I'd get my money's worth by strolling east on Randolph, across the river. 
     Walking down the street, looking at the storefronts, the construction workers—lots of buildings going up, cranes in every direction—felt great. A word bubbled up that I seldom think, never mind feel, or write. But "joy" came to mind. Truly, it started blinking like a flashing neon sign. It was joyous to walk down the street in Chicago. I know a lot of people are wondering whether the city will regain its pre-COVID mojo, or whether people will just stay put and not venture out of their deep cocoons. I think they will. Some really good pizza and a half hour walk. It gave me a lot of hope. We're going to come out of this thing.
     The assumption is that regular, pre-COVID life will return in some huge event, a concert, a festival, that life will come back with a gong and ceremony. Maybe that'll happen, for some. But it can just as easily be a small moment. For me, I'll always remember, walking down Randolph Street on an overcast day, thinking, "What a lovely city. I've missed being here so much. I'm so glad to be back again."

Trumpish fear roils leafy suburban paradise

Julie Schaeffer, right, and Cal.

    Julie Schaeffer lives in Northbrook with her husband and their two kids, 17 and 19. The younger is a senior at Glenbrook North. The older, Cal, who goes to college in Wisconsin, studying remotely on campus, is the reason she phoned.
     “Cal is nonbinary,” she said.
     I asked how she learned about this.
     “When Cal was about 15 years old, they had gone to a gaming convention with my husband,” she said. “When Cal was there, they asked my husband if they could put a different name on their tag. That was the first time they sort of felt comfortable enough, emboldened to put it out of the rest of the world to see.”
     How did the Schaeffers react?
     “We hadn’t heard much before then,” she said. Her husband had an easier time, referring to Cal with the third person plural pronoun “they” and such. “He did better than I did. I just didn’t understand it at first. I didn’t know anyone else who was nonbinary, I didn’t understand it.”
     There’s a lot of that going around. I asked her to explain what being “nonbinary” means.
     “Cal does not identify as either male or female,” she said. “It’s not that they ever woke up in the morning and said, ‘I feel like a girl,’ or ‘I feel like a boy.’ Neither gender resonated with them.”
     That news might shock a parent.

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