Midwest Notes: Flying Monkeys

Paducah, Kentucky (Photo by Caren Jeskey)

     Like you, I always learn something new from Ravenswood Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey. Today that includes Calgon moments, which somehow eluded me, and allostatisis. Her Saturday report:

     We’ve all had our "Calgon, take me away!” moments. The world seems to spin around us at a dizzying pace. Just as we’ve taken a breath, another wave washes over our heads. Then another. This may result in days of feeling uneasy. We rant, we rave. We are right! They are wrong! If not put into check, the days can lead to weeks, months, years, and even a lifetime of misery.
     With a conscious effort to heal what’s ailing us—whether through standing up for ourselves, letting go, choosing battles, wise counsel, medical care, finding unconditional support from those who love us, listening to a podcast that brings hope, taking a nap, taking a deep breath, going to sleep early and knowing tomorrow may look better with fresh eyes— we can turn the tide. Humans have evolved to adapt, but it’s not always best to take adaptation lying down. Things can get better.   

     One way to prevent getting sucked down the wormhole of despair is practicing gratitude. Granted, sometimes feeling grateful when worn down is asking too much. For some it’s harder than others. Your inability to right the ship may be related to a heavy allostatic load, which I think of as a backpack one carries around. It might have an illness inside. Financial stress. The effects of intersectionality. Grief.
     What are you grateful for? A cup of coffee? Education that provided you with the ability to read and comprehend these words? Maybe you are the type of person who bursts with gratitude for things large and small every day.
     I guarantee that today we are all luckier than the folks down in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Illinois who lost everything this week. Having spent the month of May in those three states, this global warming catastrophe brought me to full blown tears. I pictured the beauty of rambling vine and moss covered countryside. The kind folks along the Ohio River. The Shawnee National Forest and all of its critters and greenery.      

     Trailers, mansions, cemeteries, and revivalist churches peppering the Arkansas hills. The Airbnb where I stayed for one night in Winslow, a house up on stilts overlooking a lake, wind howling though the night. I wondered if everyone was OK? 

Calvert, Arkansas

   I reached out to my hosts and was relieved to find out that they, their homes, their pets and ranch animals all made it through. Sadly, with the exception of a kind host who was terminally ill in May, and has left this earth. Their spouse is besotted with grief, and I’m glad I reached out. I hope I was able to provide words of comfort. I tried.
     The worst of the Kentucky storm in Mayfield is a 23 minute drive from where I had stayed in Paducah. While I was there, I worked sitting at a little table overlooking a placid pond. It was the picture of serenity. How precarious it all is.

     On the first leg of my trip, back on May 2, a tornado touched down at the airport near the tiny house on a ranch where I was staying. I was white with terror. Shaking uncontrollably. It was too late to go out into the Oz-like winds and find the storm shelter. Friends got on a group text and stayed with me until the threat was over. “Go in the tub!” There was no tub. “Go into the hallway!” There was no hallway. “Go into he basement!” No basement.
     I cannot begin to imagine the shock and horror of December 11th, especially in Mayfield KY. Here is one way we can help. A tornado touched down right here in Chicago last year and removed almost all of the trees in the field of my childhood school. We will not be untouched by tragedy and pain in our lives. But we can find comfort in many different ways, including connecting with others, helping where we can, and not being too proud to ask for help when we need it.

     Or as a typically cool-headed friend commented recently “don’t ever say ‘nothing else can possibly go wrong.’” Because it can.

Paducah Seawall

Mayor takes aim at your pudgy children

Barbara Kruger (Art Institute of Chicago)

  

     Pop quiz!

     Which has more calories, apple juice or Coca-Cola? Take your time. Weigh the options: pure, natural apple juice, pressed from God’s crunchy red ripe apples harvested from lovely orchards? Or carbon dioxide-infused, artificially colored, sugar-laden soda pop, concocted in dark, clangorous factories?

     Bzzzzzzzt, time’s up! Of course, the apple juice is far more fattening. Coca-Cola Classic has 140 calories for 12 ounces, while the same amount of Mott’s Apple Juice has 180 calories. About 28% more. Quite a lot really.
     Which is only the first reason to shake your head, sadly, after Mayor Lori Lightfoot introduced an ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting — let’s call it the Make Our Kids Even Fatter law — requiring restaurants selling special meals to kids to favor apple juice over Coke.
     The worry, the mayor said at a news conference afterward, is that kids are “reflexively being given really high-caloric, or very high sugary drinks.”
     Her solution? Unhappy meals. Of course, the law is more complex than merely swapping juice and soda. There is a litany of city-approved beverages — sparkling water, 100% vegetable juice — that can go into children’s meals. The ordinance reads like the dietary laws in Deuteronomy.
     Conjuring up the specter of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s notorious soda tax. You remember, the summer of 2017, when Preckwinkle told Cook County residents they were too fat, so she would be charging more for the sweet drinks they guzzle.
     Everyone recalls the tax was really a money grab disguised as good nutrition (making Lightfoot’s current stunt even worse, as it costs money to enforce and doesn’t collect any). The fiasco is part of the reason the snappish Lightfoot was able to crush the once-respected Preckwinkle in the 2019 mayoral election.
     Less remembered is that, besides being ineffectual and insulting, the soda tax was also a bookkeeping nightmare for grocery stores, which suddenly had to categorize every single can of beverage and weigh whether this new tax applies. Now, thanks to our mayor and clerk, every employee at Wendy’s is going to have to suss out what juice box they’re tucking in — is that Sunny D or orange juice? Because running a restaurant just isn’t complicated enough.

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Flashback 1994: Group Serves Up Hope for Disabled Residents

Server at the Greenhouse Inn

    Having just written a blog post Tuesday about putting my suit jackets away, it makes sense that Wednesday I found myself slipping into my blue Lauren blazer to go to lunch with my old friend, Sister Rosemary Connelly, at Misericordia, the revered Chicago residence for people with development disabilities. 

     I thought I might feature that conversation Friday but, honestly, she was so inspiring, I think I'll save it to closer to Christmas. It'll perk up the holiday.

     In the meantime, we reminisced, and I mentioned how I first heard of Misericordia. I was the charities, foundations and private social services reporter, and called them for an article I was writing about charities that go door-to-door. I cold-called Misericordia, which does not collect door-to-door. But while I had someone on the phone, I asked, "What is Misericordia anyway?" I had no idea; it could have been a disease. (The word is Latin for mercy).

     She mentioned the various programs they have and then added that they also have the Greenhouse Inn, a restaurant fully staffed with people with Down Syndrome and other challenges. I asked if it was some kind of training restaurant, something to help residents learn skills, and was told no, it is a public restaurant, with a sign and menus and customers who pay money. I had to see for myself. It's been closed due to COVID, of course, but this will give you a sense of the place until it reopens. Misericordia now has 600 residents, and their bakery will turn out 10,000 gift baskets this season. I've sent them to friends and relatives, and if you are stumped as to a great Christmas gift, their Hearts and Flour Bakery is the answer to any dilemma. 

     The Greenhouse Inn at first glance seems to be a regular, run-of-the-mill family restaurant, perhaps a little nicer than most.
     The decor is sea-foam green and pastel pink, with cheery if not quite inspired artwork and hanging plants. The napkins are linen, and slices of lemon float in the ice water. There's a salad bar with melon slices and hearty soups, and even a little bakery section, where customers can take home specialty breads and delicate pastries.
     But the Greenhouse, 6300 N. Ridge, is one of the most unusual restaurants in Chicago. You get a hint of that before you even have a chance to sit down.
     "Hi, I'm Rhonda," says a waitress, earnestly, extending her hand to shake.
     Rhonda is a slight woman, 23, and her features have the distinctive cast of a person with Down syndrome.
     So does Richard, in his chef's hat, filling orders back in the kitchen. And Brian, washing dishes. And Bill, clearing tables.
     In fact most of the employees of the Greenhouse Inn are people with disabilities, either Down syndrome or some other type of condition.
     "The restaurant reminds me of a tea room, so light and cheerful and happy," says Lesley Byers, a spokesman for Misericordia, a residence run by Catholic Charities housing some 450 people with disabilities at two locations. "It shows such a positive feeling, and is so non-institutional. It surprises a lot of people here for the first time."
     The Greenhouse Inn, reopening today after its summer hiatus, is one of many businesses run by Misericordia, from a crafts and ceramics manufacturer to a greenhouse to a full-size professional bakery.
     All are designed to give residents job skills and, not incidentally, offer the public a chance to learn that people with mental and physical disabilities are capable of functioning in productive ways.
     "You think, `This is the '90s, people are more open and understanding,' " Byers says. "But there is still such a stigma against people with any type of disability—minds are closed against them."
     The Greenhouse differs in a few ways from a regular restaurant.
     Since some of the employees can't read, patrons mark their own orders on brightly colored order slips. The restaurant cannot advertise because of its nonprofit status and, perhaps most unusual for an urban eatery, the workers are not all aspiring actresses or playwrights, but people who really want to work in a restaurant.
     "I like to serve food and drinks," Rhonda says. "It's fun."
     "It helps me with my confidence," Bill, 25, says. "It's also good for friends and volunteers. And the free lunch."
     That is not to say that the job is without its drawbacks. Like anywhere else in the food service industry, the pace sometimes gets to the employees of the Greenhouse.
     "Stress," Bill says, asked about the drawbacks of the job.
     "Walking around too much," Rhonda says.
     Another waiter, Scott, looks weary as he trundles toward the kitchen and, asked why, slaps the back of a hand to his forehead and says, "I'm a wreck."
     About 40 residents work for the restaurant daily, aided by Misericordia staff and volunteers, who do some of the more dangerous tasks, like working the grill.
     Like any restaurant, the Greenhouse attracts a particular clientele. No sharp guys in Armani suits with cellular phones stuck to their ears here. Patrons tend to be older and many are from the neighborhood, such as the Bible study group that was having a going-away luncheon for one of its members. "We like to come here—it's always fun," Don Breting says. "The servers are happy people."
     The Greenhouse Inn is open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

                        —Originally published in the Sun-Times, August 8, 1994

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The weather is good, but the news is bad

     Sometimes I forget what country I’m living in.
     What country we’re living in.
     Because like you, I’ve been ignoring the national political stuff lately. Why? Just tired of it, I guess. And distracted. Between the brief window of Thanksgiving — 28 people for dinner at our house — and the unexpected warm weather, there was fun to be had. It was just too dreary to turn away from local life, blink hard, lean in, squint, and take a good hard close look at the proceedings out in Washington.
     I’m sure I’m not alone here.
     But the past couple of days ... there’s the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection holding former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt for defying its subpoena. The panel’s releasing emails of various Fox News hosts urging Donald Trump to call off his mob.
     “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Fox News incendiary Laura Ingraham texted Meadows. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
     By “us” she didn’t mean the media. Nor did she mean Americans, generally. Ingraham meant die-hard Trump supporters like herself and Fox News. That night she led her newscast by suggesting that Antifa might be behind the insurrection.
     Even Donald Trump Jr. urged his father to do something.
     “We need an Oval address,” Donnie texted. “He has to lead now.”
     But Trump was leading. Leading a mob into the Capitol to overturn the election he lost by 7 million votes.
     So he stood by and smirked at the fire he set. When that didn’t work, he hammered the big lie of voter fraud. And most Republicans bought it.

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Into deep storage

 

     The end of the second year—"anniversary" sounds too festive—of COVID arrives in February. But it's not too early to start brooding—"reflecting" sounds too upbeat— about the loss. Not just the 800,000 dead. That's impossible to fathom; how do you comprehend just one life, never mind nearly a million? None I knew, thank goodness. Luck, combined with lots of mask-wearing, vaccine-getting, social distancing and good old fashioned staying at home.

     Much, much staying at home.

     There's also the loss, or temporary suspension, of a future. What with omicron showing up, which we don't yet understand, and other variants no doubt waiting in the wings. A lot of Greek alphabet left. What are you doing this week? Nothing. Work. How about next week? The same. And onward into eternity.

     So the path ahead seems at best hazy. Except for the staying at home part. That's crystal clear. Lots more of that. Stayinghomepalooza.
     I don't think I quite realized how much I'd been out of circulation until I looked deep in my closet, at my suit jackets, and saw that dust. Ah. Nearly two years of neglect will do that. Not worn because there are no events when I might wear them. Or maybe there are, but I didn't go. 

      I've worn a sports coat three times in the past two years. Twice on Zoom calls—one with the head of the Taiwanese economic development office in Chicago, because the Taiwanese tend to be formal folks. A second when I made a video for the Chicago Journalist's Association, to be shown at their awards dinner. And a third time, last month, into the living world, to Evanston, to a party at a mansion on Sheridan Road, previewing the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival.  

     I couldn't not go. I like puppets. It was a swell event, and I'm glad I wore it. The puppetry they previewed was marvelous. People were masked, though would dip their masks down to nibble on hors d'oeuvres, like these little cigars of confit, served in ash trays, the wrappers grape leaves, the ash being, I'm not sure, special poppy seeds or some such thing. I had never seen that before. Tasty and whimsical. 

     I suppose I could have pushed myself, found other things to do, other parties to attend. Toward what purpose? Not getting dressed up is only the surface of the social loss. You get out of the habit of human interaction. I can think of a number of people I fancied friends, or close to it, whom I kept up with in the first six months of COVID and then just let go and watched them float away. I figure, if I haven't talked to you in a year, in a year and a half, during all this stuff,  then I never have to talk to you again. No big loss. We'll both survive, if that is what this is, survival.
     Things could change. There could be other occasions. But December is half over, and nothing on the calendar. No need to keep the suit coats handy in my bedroom closet, with the flannel shirts and fleeces and stuff I actually wear. Better to pull them out, dust them off, tuck them in suit bags, and exile them into a closet in one of the boys' rooms. The better to endure the passing years to come, though as I put them away, it occurred to me they'll be out of fashion by the time I finally put them on, assuming they're not out of fashion now. Might as well give them to Goodwill now. No, that takes effort, physical and mental. And there's a shortage of that. So for now, out of sight, out of mind, hidden in the boys' closets. It's not like they're going to be using those closets anymore. But that's another somber reality, and it's best to limit ourselves to one loss at a time.

‘There are a lot of bad clowns out there’

A scary clown mask on display at the paper during the Great Clown Panic of 2016.

     Clowns don’t terrify me. Not the way they do others. But I understand the fear. Clowns have a way of popping out when you least expect them.
     For instance. I had just begun to grind my way through The Economist’s special “The World Ahead 2022” issue, with articles like “Ensuring a fair future of work,” and “Calendar: Our selection of events around the world.”
     The events of world importance move from France becoming head of the European Council in January, to Queen Elizabeth marking the 70th anniversary of her reign in February, when the winter Olympics also opened in Beijing.
     Then bam, clowns, and close to home, too. This March: “Coultrophobics should avoid Northbrook, Illinois, as participants converge for the World Clown Association’s annual convention.” It was the first occurrence of note in North America.
     Did not see that coming. How is that happening in my own leafy suburban paradise?
     “We’re looking forward to it; can hardly wait to get together,” said Leslie Ann Akin, marketing director of the World Clown Association, who estimated that up to 300 clowns will attend. “There are competitions, classes, all sorts of educational opportunities. Vendors— people coming that sell costuming, props, rubber noses, floppy shoes, baggy pants, all the things that clowns love.”
     The public is welcome. How’d they settle on Northbrook?
     “We had it there a couple of years ago,” Akin said. “They loved it and are thrilled to come back.”
      In 2014, though it galls me to admit. Here Chicago politicians can’t have an impure thought without the Sun-Times watchdogs stopping whatever they’re doing and freezing, heads cocked, sniffing the air, sensing something afoot.
     Meanwhile hundred of clowns can slip into my own backyard and hold a big party, and I don’t find out for years. Sorry, chief.

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Do you know these people?

 

     I am not, almost needless to say, an especially good person. Not a bad person, mind you. But very little of my time or energy is spent for the benefit of others. I volunteer nowhere. I give infrequently and stingily to charity. Rationalizing the whole thing by pointing to the writing: the writing is my good work. It brings comfort to people, surely. Maybe.
     Well, it's possible.
     That said, when I find myself in a situation where good needs to be done, and there is no obvious third party I can off-load the doing of the good upon, I try not to shirk my duty. If a person struggling with sobriety reaches out to me, I do what I can to help that person, best I can, a phone conversation or an hour over coffee or a phone call, trying to find a space where they can get help. Beyond that, I love giving directions on the street. I am overjoyed when sat next to babies on airplanes, looking forward to the moment when the baby starts howling, and the parent shoots an exhausted, "How is this going over?" look in my direction, and I get to nod sympathetically and say, "We've all been there..."
     During the hour open mike session at the Uptown Poetry Slam at the Green Mill two weeks ago, one of the poets ended his reading by getting down on one knee and proposing to his girlfriend. I wasn't quick enough to get a photograph of that, but I did get a passable picture when she came up to accept. I was seated right in front of the stage, and as his people seemed further off, I might have been the only one to get a shot.
     I don't know who the poet was, or his girlfriend, and since then I tried to shrug the whole thing off. But had he dropped a pair of gloves, I'd take steps to get them back to him—being, as I said, the kind of person who tries to do the right thing when it lands at his feet and can't be avoided. And I figure this photo, of their romantic moment, might be something a couple might value as the years went on, certainly more than I'll value it being photo No. 44,135 on my iPhoto stash in the Cloud. I suppose I could quiz Slam founder and master-of-ceremonies Marc Kelly Smith about the poet's identity, but my guess is he doesn't have them memorized, and would have no idea. Besides, he's busy, with poetical matters, and I don't like to bother him. So I decided the easiest thing to do would be to toss it up here. Word will probably get back to him, or her, and one of them can ask for the photos. If it doesn't, well at least I tried, which is the low standard that I set for myself.