Neil Steinberg's Day off

 

St. Regis Tower viewed from Maggie Daley Park's Cancer Survivors' Garden

     Left to my own devices, I'd rather be working. And between the column and the book and the blog, God knows there's plenty of work to do. So when my wife suggested we chuck our obligations Wednesday and go downtown for a "vacation day," to ensure we wouldn't make noise and bother our oldest while he's downstairs taking the New York State Bar Exam, I went along, batting away qualms.
     Such as the moment, early in the morning, when I was at my desk, pulling reference art for the artist illustrating my book to base drawings upon. "Why am I going anywhere when I need to get this done?" I thought, grimly. I shook that off.
     We boarded the 7:56 Metra downtown. "Smiling faces under those masks!" the conductor urged. "Let's have those masks on please." People complied. Arriving downtown, we walked across the Loop. Normally we'd have gone to the Art Institute—it's been a year and a half since we've been inside. But it's closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, due to COVID crisis scheduling, so we picked up tickets for the 10 a.m. Chicago Architecture Center river tour on the Emerald Lady. I'll admit that my enjoyment of the tour was tempered by already knowing just about everything the docent said, and more. I had to retrain myself to keep from shouting out what I thought were salient details she sidestepped. But Edie loved it, and it was fun to spend 90 minutes on the river on a gorgeous warm summer day, first up the north branch to the Freedom Center, then down to River City, and back along the main branch, out to the lock. She didn't make a single factual error, and that might have riled me too, because I was primed and waiting for the joy of correcting others. 

     After, we headed to Ming Hin for a dim sum lunch, then crossed Randolph and wandered Millennium Park. Neither of us had actually been in Maggie Daley Park—we always pull up at the Bean—and it was fun to explore the place, with its clunky climbing walls and Cancer Survivors' Garden, which has a great view of Jeanne Gang's St. Regis, née Vista, Tower. There are a series of metal plaques offering advice to those facing cancer, including the dubious proposition that you can beat it if you really set your mind to the task, and that a good doctor will be a man. But I still managed to enjoy the place, despite, or perhaps because, of that.
     We swung over to the Chicago Yacht Club and walked down the lakefront, passing Segway tours and women in hijabs learning to kayak. We ended up relaxing in the lobby of the newly open Palmer House, enjoying a cold beverage and sharing a brownie, which the Palmer House claims to have invented and may very well have. There definitely were more people downtown, and it's good to be among them and see the city opening up, if only briefly before the next crisis arrives.

How do blind people pick up after their dogs?

     Four times a day, Leslie takes her black Lab for a walk outside her home in the northwest suburbs. “Get busy,” she commands.
     If you’re wondering why you’re reading a third column in a week about picking up after dogs, well, stick with me, and you’ll see there is no choice here. Some threads simply must be pulled.
     If you recall, Monday’s column quotes the Cook County animal law, Sec. 10.8 (r): “No person shall fail to remove feces deposited by the person’s cat or dog, except service animals...”
     This drew an email from former Sun-Times book editor, Henry Kisor.
     “Your column today, with all the poop about designer poo bags ... was interesting — and shocking,” he wrote. “Shocking in your citation of the Cook County law about cleaning up after your dog. Why should handlers of service dogs be exempt from that? I use a service dog, and like all other service dog handlers I have ever known, I clean up after my dog.”
     I replied that perhaps the clause is meant not for people who are deaf, like Henry, but for the blind. How could a blind person pick up after a dog?
     “The way I pick up after my dog, first of all, feel for her movement,” said Leslie, who asked me not to use her last name. “I can tell she’s moving around in circles, or sniffing, through the leash.”
     She also didn’t want me to use her dog’s name, lest someone read the article, see her on the street, and shout “Rover!” or whatever, and come over and pet the dog. You’re not supposed to do that. Service dogs are working.
     “You don’t want to give someone a chance to distract the dog, for safety reasons,” she said.

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Flashback 1987: " Lawyer test `worst,' bar none - It's agony--but you can't practice without passing it"

    The bar exam begins Tuesday. Both my sons are taking the two-day, 12 hour test remotely, because of COVID. My older son will take the New York state bar exam, my younger, the Illinois. This is the second generation of my being in proximity to the test: 34 years ago, I nervously hovered in the background while my wife-to-be took the bar. The memory is clear: we stayed at a hotel downtown, the Westin, as those taking the bar did, to be near to the examination site, and eliminate any risk of traffic tie-ups. The night before we wandered Rush Street, looking for a restaurant that appealed to her. At 1 a.m., after we had gone to sleep, workers started ripping up Michigan Avenue under our window. That was a surprise. We coped. At lunchtime, I hurried over to the hotel from work and ordered room service—cling peaches, cottage cheese and a baked potato, comfort food—so it would ready when she got there, and awaited her arrival. That moment of expectation is what lingers: the covered plate on a little cart, the silent room, gazing out the window at the street, waiting. After she returned to the exam, I went down to the front desk and demanded they change our room to one not facing the street. I also wrote this story. 

     

     On Tuesday, 2,236 people will sit down and face perhaps the most difficult and important test of their lives: the Illinois bar exam.
     For weeks, in some cases months, these would-be lawyers have hibernated with their lawbooks, shunning friends and family. They have enrolled in expensive cram courses, gnawed their fingernails, downed gallons of antacid and, above all, studied, studied, studied.
     While much controversy surrounds the two-day, 12-hour, 216-question exam, most of it centering on whether the time-consuming exam should be given at all, there are two things that cannot be disputed: It is a grueling, difficult, maddening test, and you cannot practice law without passing it.
     "I still have nightmares, awful memories. I don't even like to think about it," said Anne Burke, a Southwest Side attorney and wife of Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th).
     "It's absolutely one of the worst experiences you can go through," said William H. Wise, an attorney and part-time law instructor at DePaul University. "If it was up to me, they would get rid of all the bar exams. The questions they ask are so obscure and minuscule, things that in my 22 years of practice have never come up."
     How obscure? Past bar exams have asked questions about property law from 1670.
     "That's what's so crazy about the bar exam," said Nisha Kumar, who is taking the bar on Tuesday, hoping to join the ranks of the approximately 40,000 lawyers practicing in Illinois. "They're testing us on law that no state has been following for decades, yet we have to know that to practice law in Illinois."
     About 90 percent of the students taking the bar pay $795 for an intensive review course called BAR-BRI, designed to reacquaint them in seven weeks with the information it took three years of law school to learn.
     "Think of how you would like to take a final examination on something you studied in school three years ago," said Richard J. Conviser, an Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law professor who began BAR-BRI 20 years ago. "Nobody enjoys the experience - it's a lot of hard work under pressure."
     The exam is given in February and July. It consists of two parts. The first, an essay section, asks 16 questions relating to Illinois law. The second, known as the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), is the same in 49 of the 50 states and asks 200 multiple-choice questions relating to nationally applicable law.
     Just the act of responding to so many questions in so short a period of time makes taking the bar almost an act of physical endurance.
     "By the second afternoon, I was so emotionally and physically exhausted it was an effort just to finish it," said Jo Ellen Bursinger, who took the exam in February. "Afterward, we went out to dinner, and I was so exhausted that I couldn't even eat or drink."
     Despite elaborate preparation, some people are not able even to finish the test, never mind pass it.

   "In the morning of the first day the room was filled," said Burke, who took the exam in 1983. "After the lunch break on the first day, some people were missing and never came back. The same thing happened every day. They just couldn't handle it."
     Frank Morrissey, one of the five state bar examiners who write and oversee the test, said they often try to keep people from leaving.
     "Sometimes we can talk them into going back in," he said. "I remember one young man—his wife had served him with divorce papers the morning of the exam. He walked out about 10:15 a.m., saying, `I just can't think.' I said, `What are you going to do for the next two days, just sit in your apartment? You've got this time set aside, why don't you reconsider and go back in?' The guy went back in and passed the bar exam."
     To take the bar, a person needs to have done four things: graduated from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association (there are nine in Illinois), passed a brief morals test, paid a $150 fee (the entire bar exam procedure is funded solely by entry fees) and submitted five character references and three notarized affidavits attesting to his moral character.
     There is a long wait to get test results back—as much as two months. The examiners are reluctant to discuss exactly how the passing cutoff point is determined, but in general 70 percent correct will earn a passing mark. Test scores are not released; the new lawyers simply are informed that they have passed, the others that they failed and must try again.
     Although Illinois has one of the highest passage rates in the country, about 15 percent of the applicants who take the test fail. Those who fail can request an audience with an examiner, who will discuss their essay answers.
     Everyone who has endured the bar exam has a tale to tell: the student who had a nervous breakdown and had to be taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency room for observation. The armless student who, two years ago, went in and took the exam with her feet, even though she could have requested a scribe.
     Perhaps the greatest bar exam story of all is the famed Marsha Spak episode, which took place the second day of the exam in February, 1979.
     It was noon. Having finished the morning session, Spak, a January graduate of Chicago-Kent, headed toward the Ritz-Carlton, where she had taken a room to rest during the two-hour break. Her husband, Michael Spak, saw her crossing the street from the hotel window.
     "I had lunch ready for her," he said. "An $18 sandwich, sent up by room service. But I kept waiting and waiting."
     Spak was kept waiting because his wife was trapped in the elevator, between the 12th and 13th floors, in complete darkness.
     "I was all alone," she said. "My first thought was: I'm going to miss the exam. I was not at all concerned about falling or being killed, only that I was going to have to take the exam all over again."
     The hotel manager refused to pry open the doors, fearing damage to the expensive wood finish. Half an hour passed. An hour passed.
     After almost 1 1/2 hours, the elevator finally was unjammed, and with minutes to spare, Marsha Spak—too terrified to get back in the elevator—raced down 13 flights of stairs and back to the exam room. She arrived just as the test booklets were being handed out.
     She passed.

      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 26, 1987

Poop fairies won’t help, but this bag might

     Myble is a rescue and a sweetie, according to her owner, Barbara Radner. But like all dogs, the Chihuahua mix has her needs. When nature calls, the retired DePaul administrator escorts Myble from their home on the 33rd floor of a lakefront condo and down to the street to do her business.

     Heading out, Radner snags a WoofPack Dog Walking Accessory Bag. I learned of the product’s existence after my July 15 column about the non-reality of poop monitoring drones. Cook County is not searching for pet waste from the sky, but an Ohio company is selling a tote bag to put it in.
     “I just got tired of stuffing things into my pockets,” said Lisa Bast, who started her company, Waggin’ Trails, in 2017. “At times I was walking and didn’t have enough bags. Carrying bagged waste, cellphone, keys, treats. I wanted something all-in-one.”
     The bag is sold online and at dog shows.
     "When I saw it, I said, ‘Huh, that would solve several problems,’” said Radner, 76. “I’m going to get it.”
     I’ve been walking a dog for 11 years, and the plastic sheath from newspapers makes a perfect collection bag (try that, Apple News) which, knotted, I hold in one hand and do not think about until reaching the nearest trash receptacle.
     Why buy a $30 purse to put poo bags into?
     “It’s just designed perfectly,” Radner said. “There’s a little pocket for my cellphone and other stuff. A well-protected pocket for the poo bag, so your phone doesn’t smell like poop.”
     Bast had help perfecting the bag from the company manufacturing them.
     “It is very, very, very expensive to manufacture in the United States,” she said. “But I wanted it made here. I had it manufactured in Amish country, but the quality wasn’t there.”

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Flying jewels

     Hummingbirds are special. Most birds fly, which is incredible enough. Hummingbirds, alone among birds, hover, their wings beating so fast—50 times a second—there is no need for forward motion to keep them airborne. The wonders of this bird are so many they defy brief listing, though chief among them has to be that unique figure-8 method of flapping that allows hummingbirds to stay aloft by alternating between beating the bottom then the top of their wings against the air. Talk about efficiency.
     To that, add the marvel of smallness, the first thing that Europeans noticed when they encountered this species of bird only found in the Western hemisphere.

      "There is a curious bird to see to, called a humming bird, no bigger than a great Beetle," Thomas Morton wrote 1637 in New England Canaan, a furious critique of Puritanism that became the first book banned in the New World.

     "Much less than a Wren, not much bigger than an humble Bee," Richard Ligon wrote in A True & Exact History of the Island of Barbados in 1657.

    More recently, Kenn Kaufman perfectly dubs them "flying jewels" in Birds of North America. Harriette Wilbur, in her priceless 1920 Bird Gossip refers to the hummingbird she spends hours and hours watching as a "tiny elf," its "thimble-nest" concealing translucent, pea-sized eggs. 

      Hummingbirds weigh about 3 grams—a little more than a penny—and at that size, certain design sacrifices are required. Their feet, for instance. The birds cannot walk, or even hop, but must shuffle awkwardly if need be. If you've wondered how they suck nectar through those long thin beaks (you haven't, but it's nice to pretend) the truth is, they don't. They wet their beaks in nectar then lick it off with their long clear tongues, a process that they must do well, because they can consume half their body weight in a day.

   D.H. Lawrence finds wonder anew by inverting the size situation in his delightful poem about hummingbirds, imagining them as the first creatures at the dawn of time:

     Before anything had a soul,

     While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate

     This little bit chipped off in brilliance

     And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.

     He imagined a time of giant hummingbirds.

     Probably he was big

     As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.

     Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.

     We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,

     Luckily for us.

     Expert that I am, I can tell at a glance that the bird in this series of photos, shot in Marcellus, Michigan by reader Nikki Dobrowolski, is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

     I'm joking. They all are, mostly. The Ruby-throated is the only hummingbird that breeds in the Eastern half of the United States. Though occasional stray Rufous hummingbird and other varieties do stray over here from the West. 

     To get a sense of the impoverishment this limitation represents, there are 150 species of hummingbird in Ecuador alone and 320 or so in the Americas. 

     Being American, they of course are warlike, despite their size. Like our country, they have an excuse for their aggression, though theirs is a better one: needing to feed so often and fly so far—some hummingbirds spend half their lives migrating, and can cover 20 miles a day—they can't indulge other birds that might be interested in the flowers they need to power up on. So hummingbirds are famous for fiercely driving off birds three times their size to literally eat their lunches.  

     Despite all this, hummingbirds, like people, can become bolloxed by our artificial world, and sometimes need a helping hand, as Nikki explained when she sent me these photos. "It’s not often you get to touch a hummingbird," she writes. "One flew into my garage today and kept trying to get out through the window. I put my hand out to guide it toward the door, and it did buzz my hand for a moment. I was able to get these shots on my iPhone, not bad pics of a live bird. Hope you enjoy them."
     I would say we all have. Thank you Nikki.

Notes From The Plaza: Moods & Foods

Rent Party

     And here I thought Austin was a cool town. Maybe it's really Dullsville, and only seemed interesting because Caren Jeskey was there, describing it. Here is her latest Saturday report, now from Chicago, thank God, striking a vibe that I wouldn't find had I hung around the neighborhood for a week. 

     It’s time to party again— even though COVID is ramping up the hunt. Yesterday, the unscrupulous virus prompted an alert on my phone (that still thinks I live in Austin): “COVID-19 is spreading rapidly. Austin Public Health is recommending both vaccinated/unvaccinated people wear masks indoors & outdoors when you can’t distance. Getting vaccinated is the best way to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
     Listening to music outdoors while distanced is one way to find joy this beautiful summer in Chicago. A friend’s band Rent Party played at Woodard Plaza this past Thursday evening as a part of of a free weekly music fest in Logan Square— http://nwz.a9f.myftpupload.com/moods-foods/— that runs through August.
     The band consists of three brilliant writers and musicians. Snežana Žabić played various instruments including an amped-up cigar box guitar accompanied by her poetic, thought provoking lyrics. Matt Sobczyk’s laid back stance, smooth voice and sultry bass is a pleasing balance to Ms. Žabić’s strong, bright voice and powerful (yet small) stature. Holly Rose Shapiro’s drum work wowed me. Her fair skin, dark curls, red lips and patterned Chuck Taylor’s cooly said “rockstar,” as her expression remained steady and focused. She clacked her drumsticks together to alert the band when to start each song, and hit the rhythms and beats with precision. At one point I tried to figure out what the heck she was doing, her handwork so intricate and quick. She nailed every stroke of the sticks and step of the pedals, and it was impossible not to dance.
     You can catch Rent Party at their next show on August 15th from 1-2pm at North Park Community Market at 5527 N Kimball. It’s outdoors, free and family friendly (https://northparkcommunitymarket.org/). I heard, on good authority, that the tamales are tasty too.
     For the first half of the show, the audience sat on concrete risers, attention fixed towards the stage, starting to emerge from their shells. A group of four young boys, some with ice cream cones in their hands, sat close to the stage. They were into it. One of the boys, about ten or so with a head full of thick black hair, patterned shorts and a bright blue tee shirt couldn’t help himself. The rhythm got into him, and he started clapping and knee slapping along with Holly.
     Enrique Morales, one of the organizers of this fine event that breathes life into the intersection of Diversey, Kimball & Milwaukee, placed a bucket of sidewalk chalk in front of the kiddos. They immediately sprang into action and turned the Plaza into their palette. They jumped and ran and danced as they swiped colorful thick wands of chalk all over the white concrete. When they were finished I got a closer look to see what they wrote. “Jesus Loves You And We Love You,” and “Take Care,” along with plenty of hearts.
     A few men who either live on the streets or perhaps in the encampment of tents set up just across Kimball also joined us. One came swaying over, obviously intoxicated, and sat down. I felt nauseous just looking at him. He could barely hold his head up yet still bobbed it along to the music and called out “more, more!” when the band paused to share a story. He was wearing $10 shower shoes from Walgreens with the Cubs logo on them, and I noticed that one of his toenails was badly infected. I wondered what all he has been through?
     A slender black man came by, danced a bit with some nimble footwork, then picked up a good sized cardboard box I hadn’t noticed (probably his bed for the night). He then stepped right in front of traffic to cross the street, making it to the other side—unscathed, thank goodness. He placed the box on a bus stop bench for later, and danced away. That’s when I noticed the tents and men sitting on lawn chairs in the little park across the street.
     Midway through the show, a young couple bounced over with big smiles. The bearded man leaned back, turning the concrete risers into a comfy couch, extended his arm and offered his chest as a pillow for his special lady. They gazed lovingly at each other and then settled in to rock out to the music. When the show was over they approached Snežana and asked about the stringed cigar box. Snežana offered it to the young lady to test out. We chatted a bit and I learned that she is a talented artist and musician named Anna Marie. You can see her lovely work here: https://annamarie.studio/. The bearded man is her husband, Zander.
     I helped the band load up and we went to Dante’s on Armitage for a slice. A lovely time was had by all.

First victim of 1919 race riots will get grave marker

     On a sweltering Sunday afternoon in July, Eugene Williams and four friends hopped a produce truck to the lakefront. There they recovered a large raft they’d hidden and went out on Lake Michigan. The year was 1919, and the day was July 27, but it might as well have been this year and yesterday when it comes to explaining why Chicago is the city it is, and faces the problems it does.
     “A pivotal moment in the city’s history, and significant in the nation’s history,” said Adam Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.
     The raft drifted away from the “race’s answer to Atlantic City,” the Black beach at 25th Street and toward the beach at 29th Street, which white Chicagoans had staked out as their own private property.
     “He happened to float across a perceived line,” said Green.
     A white immigrant, George Stauber, stood on the breakwater and began throwing rocks at the boys. One hit Williams in the forehead, and he slid off the raft and drowned. His friends rushed to a lifeguard, and then the police. A white officer refused to arrest Stauber, and stopped a Black officer from doing so. Seven days of riots followed Williams’ death. People were shot, stabbed, stoned, pulled from streetcars and beaten to death, houses burned, blocks reduced to ruin. Thirty-eight Chicagoans died in the unrest.
     “People lost a sense of existing within a shared civil community,” said Green, referring to 1919, though it sums up too many situations today. “They engaged in this primal battle to enforce upon African Americans a subordinate place. We think of it in such macro terms, we lose track of the individual people. The 38 who lost their lives.”
     Williams was buried in an unmarked grave. A century passed.
     Two years ago, on the centennial of the riots, Chicago magazine published a story by Robert Loerzel, “Searching for Eugene Williams,” collecting what little is known of Williams’ brief life.
     “Just a regular kid like us,” a friend recounted to an academic, half a century later. “A pretty smart boy.”

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