Standing leaf, er, leaves.

        
     So Wednesday, Edie and I were coming home from an hour's walk through the Techny Prairie, when I froze, one foot on the stairs.
     "Look at that!" I said, pointing to a leaf from the scoop magnolia next to our front door. A leaf embedded, tip down, in the crack between the boards, looking like a tiny modern sculpture. I snapped a photo. "What are the odds?"
     Quite good, when you think of how many leaves there are, falling from the trees in a span of a few weeks.
     Stop right there. How many leaves are falling from trees? Good question. This is a realm, obviously, where hard numbers are going to be scarce. But I found an estimate that made sense on a thoughtful blog called The Daily Apple where the author used an estimate for the number of trees in the continental United States—about 200 billion—times the number of leaves on a mature tree, about 200,000, and came up with an answer of 40,651,600,000,000,000, or 40 quadrillion.
     Squinting at that, my gut questions the 200,000 leaves per tree assumption. This seems too large to me, perhaps only applicable to the biggest trees. Most must have far fewer, a conviction that might come from planting dozen two-inch saplings this fall, each with maybe a few dozen leaves. That might have led me astray, however. An Illustrative Mathematics article, however explains how many times larger a large tree is from a small one, multiplying by height, breadth and depth, so that a small maple with 400 leaves means that a larger maple, seven times the size, has 137,200 leaves. A lot.
     In 2012, a Wired author did a fairly rigorous volume analysis and estimated 30,000 to 50,000 leaves had been on his oak tree (not that he identified it as an oak, though it clearly is from the photos. It says something about humanity that someone would do the math counting leaves on a tree and never mention what sort of tree it is).

     So close enough.
     And a reminder that in a world of 9 billion people, interacting continually, never mind possibly quadrillions of leaves, that fantastically improbable circumstances should not only come as no surprise, but should be expected,  counterintuitively, as ordinary. What would be odd would be if freakishly improbable events didn't happen, continually. 

        This was driven home to me, two days later, when I came home to find this:   

     Which led me to an unsettling question. The tree has been by our porch the entire 21 years we've lived in the house. If the Standing Leaf happened before, why did I not notice it? It seems I would have, given how arresting it was, and how it happened twice in three days. So if I didn't notice then, but did now, what changed? Maybe I did notice, but forgot.

     If it never happened before, why did it happen now? Has some environmental quality causes the leaves to be, oh, pointier, so they fall in a way to insert themselves into the crack? Or stiffer. Global warming perhaps? Maybe this isn't the work of nature at all but, for instance, a waggish postman? (We never think of the human aspect in this kind of thing which is why people believe in UFOs).

      I wish I could tie this all up, but I can't. Maybe these are the only two leaves that are going to do this, and I'll spend the next dozen or so autumns waiting in vain. It's a wild world.

The Chicago Botanic Garden's new Mitsuzo and Kyoko Shida Evaluation Garden.

 

     Saturday afternoon was crisp and sunny, and the Steinbergs—all four of us, for once, gathered in anticipation of Thanksgiving—headed over to the Chicago Botanic Garden for a stroll. The crowds that greeted the unusually warm weather last week were scared off by the mid-40s, and while we didn't quite have the place to ourselves, it was close enough.
     We made a beeline through the running cathedral arch set up for the holiday light show—you almost had to. I was tempted to say, "Wouldn't this be a nice place for a wedding?" but then thought better of it and kept my mouth shut; shutting up being an under-appreciated art form.

     I noticed that the boys had a habit of drifting into us as we walked, as they did when they were pre-schoolers, and the family tended to all stagger forward as a pack, a literal family unit. Occasionally my wife and I would have to stop, to let them get a bit ahead, as we did 20 years ago. 

     We wandered randomly, as we tend to do ("Left or right?" my wife or I would say, at each fork in the path) but intentionally crossed the Trellis Bridge, because it is so cool, with is serpentine bent wood deck, steel girder supports and stone pylons.
     "We can look around the experimental garden and then double back," I said, figuring we'd dead end against all the unsightly construction that has been going on at the south end of the garden ... well, if not forever, then a long time. More than a year. Chain link fences and construction trailers and heavy equipment.
    All gone.

    In its place, two pristine round wooden structures, and beyond, a pair of large metal domes and a running tubular archway that someday will be covered with greenery.
     "Let's go look at the gazebo!" someone cried, though we were already rushing over there.
     "Isn't it more of a peristyle than a gazebo?" I said, unable to help myself. 
     "A peristyle?" one of the boys asked.
     "Don't you remember your Plato's Republic?" I replied. Plato taught at The Peristyle.
     "Most people don't know what a 'republic' is," my younger son remarked.
     Sadly true. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. And while a peristyle is columns surrounding a space open to the sky, it is also typically within a building. So I might have been mistaken. Wondering if you're wrong, another underrecognized art form.

     This one, whether gazebo or peristyle, is gloriously outside. Two of them, each with a half dozen brand new Chicago Botanic Garden wooden benches. We sat, luxuriating on their lovely smooth wooden newness, running our hands over the unfinished wood, eventually to age to a soft gray, with the sweet Botanic Garden flower logo incised on the back.

    "I wish they sold these," I said. "We could put one in the back yard."
     We strolled the entire quarter mile path, taking in the fresh plantings of grass and young trees and shrubbery. This is the new—I don't think it has officially opened yet—Mitsuzo and Kyoko Shida Evaluation Garden. The various "rooms" designed "to provide diverse growing conditions for plant trials." Uh-huh. That might be the official scientific rationale. But I think it's just a new attraction designed to look inviting and modern and cool. Six years in the planning and construction. 

     "I don't think we've been in this part before," I said, an old joke—we've crawled over every inch of the garden, yet parts always seem fresh. But now, as my wife observed, it was actually true.

     I poked around the Internet, looking for something about the generous couple, the Shidas, but didn't find much, beyond that they're in their 80s and live in Northbrook.
     No matter. Whoever you are, thank you for the gorgeous addition to the Chicago Botanic Garden. My family had a tremendous amount of fun exploring it, the boys, reverting to childhood, took turns playfully bumping each other as they passed under the new trellis tunnel. I imagine many, many Botanic Garden visitors to come will also enjoy themselves in this new section of the garden. Though they will be hard pressed to have as much fun as we did, many will no doubt feel appreciation for the gift, and I'm glad to be able to speak for them.

Ravenswood Notes: Salt

     The best sort of friends take turns inspiring each other. My blog post on WBEZ earlier this week prompted this reminiscence from Ravenswood bureau Caren Jeskey, who in thanking me for "antediluvian" (which I meant in the sense of "primordial") offered up the glorious rarity "endorheic." It was all I could do not to phone her, immediately, and shout, "Endorheic! Where the hell did you get THAT from!?!" But I was too fascinated skipping through its etymology. A French mashup of Ancient Greek, from endo-, meaning "within" and rheîn, "to flow." (Which, though I haven't done the legwork, has to be connected to both "Rhine" and "rain." How cool is that?)
But too much preface; Here is her report:

     When invited to take a dip in Al-Baḥr Al-Mayyit, we stripped down to our suits without a moment of hesitation. Entering the gelatinous warm substance that resembled the bluest of waters, we immediately recognized that due to physics there would be no walking in. No standing on a sandy bottom. When we got thigh level or so, our bodies popped up like corks. We carefully placed ourselves on the surface and floated, hot Jordanian sun blazing down on us.
     We had entered the Sea of Death, or the Dead Sea as it’s often known— an endorheic lake, meaning that it has no outlet to a larger body of water, thus forming a basin. It is highly saline with no in- or outflow, and uninhabitable by any living creatures except for bacteria.
     Our bodies surrendered, completely buoyed in the temperature of a generously heated pool. We’d been warned not to shave that day, or the day before, to avoid the torture of salinity getting into any small nicks or scrapes. Still, some members of our group ran nearly screaming out of the “sea” moments after they’d entered, dashing towards fresh water showers. Apparently, some tender body parts could not tolerate the extreme burning and puckering that occurred.
     The surface of the sea is situated on the “lowest land based elevation on earth.” It’s less than 500 miles away from where Noah is said to have built his ark, in modern day Iraq. After a while we maneuvered our way back to shore and scooped up handfuls of green mud to cover our bodies from head to toe. We allowed the mud to dry and crack, and made our way to the showers. Once rinsed off, our skin was buttery soft and our insides were too. The high levels of magnesium in the water gave us the benefits of the most amazing epsom salt bath filled that we’d ever had.
     Several years before this trip I’d been intrigued by a place called Space Tanks that was located in the huge white concrete building at 2526 North Lincoln in Chicago. As a yoga practitioner, I'd heard many folks in the community sing the praises of the zero gravity sensory deprivation tubs Space Tanks housed. For some reason I’d never gotten the courage to try them, even though I was quite drawn to the idea. It’s good to take a break from sensory input. (Sadly, they closed in 2016. Happily, one of the founders William Faith let me know recently that they hope to offer the experience to Chicagoans again in the future).
     It wasn’t until living in Austin Texas in 2015 that I discovered the incredible value of “floating” in such vessels. There was a place called Aquatonic that charged only $99 month for unlimited floats, a great bargain compared to the usual price of $25-$50 or more per float that most places ask for, (rightly so, since the tanks and their maintenance are very costly). The owner felt that this practice was so healing and necessary for the athletes he coached, that he wanted to make it accessible to them, and to all.
     The first time I went I was escorted into my own private room. There was a shower, a bench, hooks on the wall, and a gigantic white tub filled with tons of Epson salts and water. The tub was pristinely white and clean, and an indigo colored light illuminated the water. As instructed, after I showered, I placed my ear plugs, made sure the spray bottle of clean water was in reach in case I got salty water into my eyes, and I stepped in. My body effortlessly floated on the surface. The temperature in these tanks is exactly the ideal body temperature, which is quite comfortable. I placed a small piece of a pool noodle under my neck as a pillow.
     Before I’d climbed in, I had arranged for the indigo light to turn off after a few minutes of floating, and I had also arranged for the hypnotic music to silence after ten minutes or so. The other option was to keep the light and/or music on for the duration, but I was aiming for complete deprivation. Once I was comfortable, I pulled the top of the tub down part way, and later on I pulled it shut, as I felt more safe. It became a beautiful addiction. It enhanced my sobriety and gave me a place where I felt at peace without the help of mood altering substances.
     Day after day after day, I’d work, then take the short walk to Aquatonic and climb into what I found to be the perfect place. Sometimes I’d fall asleep and have vivid dreams, or fall into a reel of daydreamed images that soothed my soul. Ten minutes before my 90 minutes was up, the music and soft light would turn on, bringing me back to reality. I’ve never felt relaxation like I did in those tanks. I moved away from the area a year or so later, and it was too far to go for daily floats anymore. I learned a few years later that they had shut down; perhaps because of their own generosity but I’m not sure.
     Neil mentioned his experience at Space Tanks in a recent post. I was delighted to read his words “…for about an hour, at one with the universe, an amoeba on the calm surface of an antediluvian sea. Serenity settled in,” since that meant he’s also felt the bliss of a float. Lucky guy. I had to look the word antediluvian up, and learned that it can mean “ridiculously old fashioned,” or “before the flood.” I flashed back to my time in Jordan and it’s been fun to relive such a special time. These days I take a bath almost daily, and you bet I have a 20 pound bag of Epsom salt in the corner of my bathroom at all times. The magnesium takes away my chronic pain, just like magic. This world is full of wonderful things.

Sidewalks: Silent killer of great oaks

Scott Carlini in the Cook County Forest Preserve.

     Scott Carlini rides west along Bloomingdale Avenue on a lovely mid-November day. At 79th Avenue, we detour south and park our bikes before a wide tree stump where the night before Carlini had penciled “White Oak” and “163 yo.”
     He points to the center of the stump.
     “Here’s the little tree, 160 years ago,” he says. “If you notice, the rings are really small here when the tree was young because it was in a crowded forest. Then in 1926, they came in here and cleared out the forest and started building some of these bungalows. Once the area was opened up to more light, then we’ve got the big rings, because it grew a lot faster.”
     Carlini knows trees, but then he’s spent years biking around Elmwood Park, neighboring suburbs and Chicago, trying to save trees, particularly ash, which he sometimes injects with his own formula of anti-emerald ash borer insecticide. Carlini cuts a distinctive figure: long hair, neon orange vest and stocking cap, Pall Mall cigarette often in one hand.
     “Oh boy, oh boy,” he says, sadly. “See here? Where they filed the roots away. That’s super bad. It’s stupid.”
     The white oak fell victim to a human ailment — the conviction that sidewalks must run straight.
     “In the old days, we used to move the sidewalk around it,” he says. “Normally this tree would have lasted another 200 years if it wasn’t damaged. But some sidewalk guy ground that away, and that’s not cool.”

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Flashback 2012: 'Who makes the public space public?'

     Rev. Phil Blackwell sent me an email from St. Louis, where he retired to be near his family. He was commenting on my infrastructure column, and recalled that I'd visited him at his residence atop the Chicago Temple downtown, doing research for my Chicago book. Alas, this description focuses more on the politics of the day, taken up with the pending NATO summit, and left out such details as the wood carving of Jesus regarding the Chicago skyline, circa 1955, in the "Chapel in the Sky."  Though I did snap a not-very-good photo. But he raises some interesting points, still current today.

     Serendipity led me to Rev. Phil Blackwell. I had heard that the Loop, which today is home to thousands, once had only one full-time resident: the minister of the First United Methodist Church, who lives in a three-story parsonage starting on the 22nd floor of the Chicago Temple, the quirky gothic structure south of Daley Plaza, with its "Chapel in the Sky" on the 25th floor.
     Interesting If True, as I like to say.
     I got in touch with Rev. Blackwell to see if he could shed some light, but he had something beyond Loop demographics on his mind, and invited me by his office, its leaded glass windows overlooking Daley Plaza.
     He handed me a typed message:

     "I have lived across the street from Daley Plaza for 10 years," it begins. "During that time I have seen and heard:
     "Tea Party protesters. War in Iraq objectors. Halloween clowns, Whirling Dervishes, Blackhawks celebrators, World Cup spectators, Christmas ornament purchasers, 21-gun salutes, children sliding down the Picasso, wedding couples being photographed at the fountain, movie casts playing their roles, people who are homeless sleeping on benches, farmers selling produce, gun violence opponents bowing in silence, hundreds of bicyclists ready to command the streets, blues, country, gospel, and jazz musicians, workers sunning at lunchtime, Sox fans rejoicing, sister-city promoters, creches, menorahs, and crescents and stars, and placard-carrying/bullhorn-proclaiming/marching stalwarts for most everything."

     Yet suddenly, he said, the city seems to be reconsidering if our rights will be respected.
     "Daley Plaza is the public square in Chicago," Rev. Blackwell said. "As the mayor and the City Council discuss circumscribing the people's use of the plaza during the summits coming in May and then extending the limitations indefinitely, the question is: Do they have any capacity for nuance? The first indication suggests that the answer is, 'No.'"
      The city insists that permits will be issued and rights respected. And while I want to believe them, we have seen an ominous shift in this country, from our president claiming the legal right to murder American citizens at his whim, to new laws that seem designed to help foreign potentates party in peace in Chicago. How ironic that, as other parts of the world protest toward new freedoms, we who are theoretically the most free try to limit protest and coin new punishments.
      "It's a major commitment for the city and the mayor to make, to host the G-8 and NATO summits," Rev. Blackwell said. "I understand how it would be advantageous for it to go well, to be picturesque, for the world to see Chicago as an international outlet and I hope that's the case. The gathering in Grant Park after Mr. Obama was elected, it was one of the most glorious portrayals of Chicago, and it erased, mainly, 1968 . . . But who makes the public space public? And who decides that? And when you say, you have to talk to the Realtors who oversee the use of the plaza, I say, 'Wait a minute. When does a real estate company determine public use?' What makes this square public? Free speech - is it free if you corral it and move it off at a distance where the speech is not heard by those to whom it was directed?"
     I thought of the Chinese, who made those wanting to protest the 2008 Olympics apply for permits, then arrested anyone who did.
     "All I'm saying is I think the issues raised by the summit are general issues," he said. "Is it possible for the city to orchestrate something where free space remains free, public space remains public, and the agenda of the groups meeting is accomplished and the city comes out like it knows what it's doing? I think everybody agrees with that. Can anybody actually think through this thing without it being a billy club moment?"
     The mayor's a smart guy, I said. Don't you think the city will be doing just that?
     "When it says the police chief can deputize people for service, I remember in the Vietnam War protests, construction workers on Wall street with wrenches wrapped in American flags, beating up protesters. Is that who you're going to deputize?"
     While waiting to see if the mayor would talk to me on this subject, I checked to see what he has said publicly so far.
     "Guys, it's not a big deal," Emanuel said, trying to deflect questions about his preparations. "This is a one-time event."
     That's scary, almost a challenge to fate. "A one-time event." That can be the title of the official inquiry report. So was the 1968 Democratic National Convention. A one-time event, mishandled, can last a very long time.
            —Originally published in the Sun-Times, January 11, 2012

COVID-19 brings out ‘resilience and valor’

Dr. Samantha Peterson

     In the spring of 2020, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields, like so many hospitals, was reeling under the onslaught of that first deadly wave of COVID-19. Patients gasping for air crowded the emergency room. Medical supplies ran low, treatment procedures changed by the hour, it seemed, with no vaccine in sight.
     In the middle of it was a young medical resident, Dr. Samantha Peterson. Her focus was family practice — those generalists treating everyone from newborns to the elderly for everything from colic to arthritis. But just then she happened to be doing her emergency medicine rotation.
     For two months, Peterson did nothing but treat COVID-19 patients.
     “Our numbers kept increasing,” Peterson recalled. “In the ER triage, all COVID patients had these biohazard symbols. In early March, there were a handful. By the end of March the entire ER was full of hazard symbols. I didn’t have a choice.”
     Peterson thought she didn’t have a choice. But more experienced doctors saw it differently, and some shied away from treating COVID-19 patients. The young intern ran in while others drew back.
     “We were a pretty hard hit hot zone hospital,” said Dr. Shanaz Azad, an infectious disease specialist leading the COVID-19 task force at Franciscan. “Sam Peterson was a medical resident. She really stepped up. I’d say 90 percent of the work Sam did, she volunteered to put her life in harm’s way. This is a novel virus. We didn’t know anything about it. She participated in the care of 2,000 COVID patients. She had no business seeing that many. This was all altruism. She was so inspired. So intense.”

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Radio days

      Monday's column mentioned the anticipated merger of the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ which, while it has been reported, still flew under the radar for some readers.
     "I missed that completely!" writes Robert Nanni. "I infer from your writing that you are in 
favor."     
     I wrote him back that indeed I am. While I haven't been on the station much in recent years, I've been reporting on WBEZ longer than I've been on the staff at the paper. When I was a mere egg, in my mid-20s, trying to find a fingerhold on Chicago media after being unceremoniously fired as the opinion page editor of the Wheaton Daily Journal, I started doing regular segments on Ken Davis' show, Studio A, beginning in January, 1986 when I was dubbed, with a healthy sprinkle of irony, their "World Correspondent" and spent most of that year wandering the world of Chicago, an assignment for which I was paid nothing—a reminder that the Internet didn't create the phenomenon of news organizations taking advantage of ambitious young people willing to work for free. The shtick was that once a week I would pop up on the phone in from someplace unexpected.
      My first broadcast was buck naked, from a sensory deprivation tank at Space Time Tanks on Lincoln Avenue—a fad at the time. I floated in total darkness atop warm, heavily saline water, waiting for the call. For about an hour, at one with the universe, an amoeba  on the calm surface of an antediluvian sea. Serenity settled in, just before the door ripped open, there was a blinding light and a draft of cool air, someone handed me a phone and Ken Davis asked me on live radio what I had been thinking the moment before he called.
     "That I ... had to go to the bathroom," I said, frowsily. "Wondering whether I should crawl out of the tank or wait until after you called."
      Somehow they liked it. The next week I broadcast from a pay phone at an early morning bar, Tiffany's, in Cicero, after a wake-up shot and a beer—such places were in the news at the time.          Other vignettes followed, almost random except they were all odd: watching a chicken being slaughtered at John's Live Poultry, its throat slit, the poor bird then dropped headfirst into a galvanized funnel, a thin stream of blood running out the bottom, it's claws scratching futilely on the metal. Northeastern's Human Performance Lab, checking in from a treadmill while undergoing a stress test. From Ragdale, the writer's colony in Lake Forest, where I had gone to finish a novel, a bit of which I obliviously read on the air. From the table of an acupuncturist. From the Playboy Club. That June, from inside the scoreboard of Wrigley Field during a game. Looking at the enormous water cooling system in the attic of the new State of Illinois Building.
     Being live radio, my segment didn't always work. For April Fool's Day, I tried to do a broadcast that was from an entirely white room, supposedly, which struck me as a clever idea. But it fell flat. A few weeks later, I was in the lab of a Chinese engineer working to turn moon dust into concrete for NASA, but the laboratory's switchboard didn't put the call through. To top it off, I walked outside and found I had locked the keys in my car. I was 25. I had to return the following week.
     The broadcasts became so routine that some days I merely noted "WBEZ broadcast" or "WBEZ" in my 1986 Waterstone's Literary Diary. 
     Once Ken phoned me at some ungodly hour—3 in the morning say—and ran a tape. I was so composed, talking with him, that listeners later thought I must have had advanced warning. But I didn't. I was just quick-witted and willing to play along. Still, as the efforts of the young so often do, the whole effort really didn't go anywhere, and eventually we parted ways and I went into newspapering, which paid far better. Some people get their foot in the door and become David Sedaris. Others become, well, me. Still, I remember it being fun, and kept going back to WBEZ over the years—for a while, Eric Zorn and I were regulars on Fridays, recapping the week's news. I know we were hoping to become a cherished radio item, but that never happened either. Given that track record, I can't imagine the station is tapping its foot waiting to get me back on the air, not that I would let that stop me. What's the T.S. Eliot line? About those "who are only undefeated/Because we have gone on trying." Yes, something like that.