Flashback 1992: Making a Tombstone, Sending Out a Message

Hosea Knox, 1992 (Photo for the Sun-Times by Robert A. Davis; used with permission)

    

      Sunday's tribute to newspaper photographers got a lot of attention. One of the shooters I mentioned, the great Bob Davis, wrote on Facebook: "Our mutual curiosity in human interest stories brought value to the readers. There are a million stories in the naked city! Just get on the bus and ride!!"

    "Get on the bus..." conjured up a 30-year-old memory. We did just that. Hopped on a CTA bus, randomly, to see where it took us. It took us to Elmo's Tombstones.

     Knox died last year at 82, incidentally. Elmo's Tombstones Service is still in business, run by his daughters.  The column is quite short: it might have been more of an extended caption for Bob's photo. Actually, its brevity is a blessing; I like to think I wouldn't write "the sign boldly announces its presence" in recent years. Though its clunkiness isn't the central flaw: I should have gone back, talked to customers (which, I can tell from the photo captions, Bob indeed did, to continue our theme of photographers as goad and pole star).  

     You can't miss the little building on South State Street. The signs boldly announce its presence, as a monument of sorts, to Chicago's casual familiarity with sudden death, from gang fights, guns, drugs and other causes.
     "Tombstones Made While U Wait," a huge sign declares. "Be 4 You Go Call Elmo."
     Inside, Hosea Knox, who took over the business when founder Elmo Williams retired eight years ago, is buffing the surface of a fresh tombstone for a 17-year-old boy. On one part of the tombstone it says: "Son-Brother" on another, his nickname "Lil Key `G' " and a Star of David.
     "That's a gang symbol," said Knox, pointing out the star, which the family selected from a book of patterns. Knox was uncertain how the teen died. "You really can't tell what happens to them, for sure."
     Knox makes five or six tombstones a day, sometimes while people wait.
     "I usually say, `Get a cup of coffee, or something,' " says Knox.
     While he has no way of knowing how many of his customers are from the fraternity of murder victims—about 700 so far this year—he has his suspicions.
     "What I try to do is, I try not to ask them what happened," he says. "A lot of the time that opens up wounds and they are trying to forget. But I can see the date of death. If they're a teen, unless they were sick, they were killed."
     The shop blares with the noise of the Ingersol-Rand air compressors and it's heavy with the smell of enamel paint. Fresh gravestones wait to be engraved, while others, with the names newly carved, wait for the families to pick them up.
     Knox points out that oftentimes the tragedy of a teen's murder is compounded by the grim practical reality of the cost of burial. Even his budget tombstones cost about $350, plus there is $200 or $300 more to prepare the gravesite for the stone, not to mention all the other costs of burial.
     "A lot of people don't have the funds to do what they had in mind," says Knox.
     Knox said that people spend months paying small sums toward a tombstone. "If I get half, I'll cut (the stone)" he says, although he doesn't let the stones out of the shop until he is paid in full.
     He says he doesn't spend too much time speculating on his position in the tragic chain of violence in the city.
     "It's just a business," he says. He doesn't think that gang members, driving past his business, ever view the stacks of tombstones as a warning sign. They never think the tombstones may be waiting for their names.
     "People don't believe they will get shot," he says. "You show it to them. They see it. But they just don't believe."
             —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Sept. 20, 1992

Roseland Community Hospital vs. Omicron: ‘People are exhausted’

Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin. 

     Jean Joseph’s patient is struggling against him.
     The respiratory therapist is in one of 19 small rooms ringing Roseland Community Hospital’s busy emergency department, each occupied by a COVID case, each room’s air negative-pressurized to keep droplets of infection from wafting back into the ER. Joseph is trying to draw blood from the man’s right wrist to get a reading of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
     But the 79-year old twists and writhes.
     “He was fighting with me,” said Joseph, coming out, peeling off a yellow plastic protective gown. “When you get COVID, you cannot function. The carbon dioxide makes you lethargic and confused.”
     “Cannot function,” “lethargic” and “confused” are apt terms to describe our national response to COVID, a roiling, contradictory crisis: medical disaster intermixed with scientific triumph. The selfless, exhausted labors of skilled doctors and nurses here, butting up against selfish, stubborn public resistance and ignorance there. A roller coaster disaster of peaks and valleys, with no end in sight as our nation finishes its second year fighting COVID-19.
     The first case in the United States of what the World Health Organization dubbed 2019-nCoV, for “2019 novel coronavirus” was diagnosed Jan. 20, 2020. 

     The arrival of vaccines one year ago offered the promise of getting the pandemic under control. Then last month, the highly contagious Omicron variant jammed hospitals coast to coast.
     “It’s getting worse,” said Joseph, comparing the start of 2022 to last year’s peak. “Because we have more COVID now.”
     Roseland Community Hospital is a reminder that not every hospital is a sprawling, flush medical center like Northwestern or Rush. At 125 beds, it is neither big nor wealthy. The Far South Side hospital’s facilities have been described as “no better than those in Third World countries” without argument from hospital administrators.
     And while there has been improvement since then, put it this way: There is no self-playing grand piano in its lobby off West 111th Street — in fact, there’s no lobby at all; that was curtained off last year and given over to COVID testing and vaccine injection. Recently, the line to be tested stretched out the door, around the corner, down the block, all the way to Wentworth Avenue.

     To continue reading, click here.

Working with photographers

Ashlee Rezin, left, at Roseland Community Hospital on Wednesday.

     One of the best things about working at a newspaper is working with newspaper photographers. 

     I can't begin to recount what I've learned over the years, the insights, the tips, the stories that came my way. Just doing our jobs together. Cruising slowly through a low-rise CHA project with Pulitzer-Prize winner John H. White, soft-spoken and wise. Running out of the newsroom after Brian Jackson because of the Rose of Sharon Church was on fire. After a hose split in the sub-zero cold and my feet got wet, Brian dragged me into a bodega, and the owner gave us tea while I put my feet on the radiator. Covering a candlelight vigil for a murdered woman with Bob Black. Scottie Stewart, himself a paramedic, knowing everything there is to know about fire fighters. Rich Chapman, covering a Playboy photo shoot.

     Bob Ringham and I driving downstate to cover the Mississippi floods, talking, him telling me about lying in a foxhole in Vietnam, severely wounded, after a shell killed the other guys in it.  Then years later, allowing me into his home, to write about a story about his wife Peg as she died of Lewy body dementia.  

     And Bob Davis. We were a team, and really should pull a book together about the stories we did in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That day in 1991 at the medical examiner's office. Him getting up close, right into the face of a corpse that had lain on the floor of a transient hotel for two weeks in August. Clinging to the boom of a tower crane atop the Park Hyatt. Traveling up the Mississippi on a gravel barge after they re-opened the river following the floods. Holding onto the back of his belt as he hung out the window of a cab hurtling through Taipei, capturing the colorful blur of nightlife. 

     During one visit downstate during the Mississippi floods, finding an enclave of Harlan County coal miners who had retired to the paradise of Southern Illinois, only to have the river destroy everything they owned.  "What's it like inside?" Bob called to a gaunt man sweeping off his porch. "Can't get inside," the old man said, and Bob and I put our shoulders to the door and pushed it in—a couch had floated against it. The waterline was a foot below the ceiling, with framed photos face down in the muck. Bob stepped in first, turned, and framed the man looking in the doorway. "A poor man can't get a break in this life," the man said. 

      Then in 2013, the Sun-Times, desperately trying to keep afloat, fired all of its photographers. Twenty-eight people. Reporters were expected to fill the gap with our iPhones. It was a terrible, false economy, like putting out your eyes to save on mascara.

     Working without a photographer began to feel like the regular routine, the new diminished journalistic world we all had to live in, if it could be called living. We got used to it, or tried to.

      But that has been changing, for a long time now, actually. At least five years. Now we have people like Ashlee Rezin. I won't embarrass her by going on about her too much. We've worked together on a number of stories, particularly medical stories after COVID hit. On one, about an overworked head nurse, Ashlee provided so many important details that I wasn't there to see, I shared the byline with her, something that hardly ever happens. She called me Monday and pointed out that hospitals are heating up again. The words "...so get off your ass" were not required—and of course Ashlee would never say that, but I got the message, made the call, and Wednesday we were at Roseland, on the far South Side, which you can read here. 

     I do want to point this out. When I wrote my lede sentence, it was, "Jean Joseph's patient is thrashing around." She read it in the paper's system, and observed that I was overstating the case. I instantly saw that she was right, and dialed it back to "is struggling against him."

      That sensitivity to nuance, and willingness to speak up—hey, this isn't quite right—without drama or fear that it would be taken wrong, is a rare and valuable thing.  We both know we're trying to tell exactly what happened.

     Nor is she alone. The 2013 firing created so much ill-will against the paper, I think some readers somehow don't quite realize that we have photographers now.  Not only is there Ashlee, but people like Pat Nabong—she took the wonderful portrait of Sister Rosemary Connelly that ran on our front page a week ago Sunday. Energetic youngsters—Tyler LaRiviere, Anthony Vazquez, Brian Ernst—I've worked with them all. They're out there, every day, exploring every corner of the city. 

     With the endless COVID lockdown, and all the terrible isolation that comes with it, I think it's extra important to recognize the value of working with other people, for a spectrum of reasons, from camaraderie to a second set of eyes to, with photographers, the resulting pictures, which really are worth 1,000 words. Or more.

      Could we use additional photographers? Sure. But that doesn't negate the constant, gerbil-on-a-wheel work that the newspaper's photographers are doing every day. If you haven't seen the best of their 2021 photos, give it a look. Chicago should be proud to know they are out there, capturing our reality, today and for all time. I know I am. I wrote Monday's Roseland story. But Ashlee gave the push that got it written.

Ravenswood Notes: Natty Dreadlock

     "How's your yoga going?" our dinner guest asked last week.

     I looked at him blankly.

     "Yoga?" I asked.

     "You wrote about it on your blog...." He smiled encouragingly.

     Ah. On Saturdays, I explained, a tad acerbically, for the past year and a half, EGD is written not by myself, but by writer/social worker/free spirit Caren Jeskey, who sent an essay for my feedback and stayed with a clockwork tenacity approaching my own. 

     "I always point that out in a little introduction," I added. 

      Today's offering is even more clearly not written by me than most of hers. But just in case. Here is CAREN JESKEY'S SATURDAY REPORT.

     A white lady meets her daughter’s fiancé for the first time. When she sees him, she turns even whiter and starts to stutter, not a normal condition for her. He looks concerned. He’s a doctor. He says to her “I’m medically qualified so I hope you wouldn’t think it presumptuous if I say you outta sit down before you fall down.” Her perky daughter, the good doctor's fiancé, chimes in. “He thinks you’re gonna faint because he’s a negro.”

     You may have seen this scene with Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier and his fiancé played by the less well known Katherine Houghton in "Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner."  The movie came out in 1967, and as I’m sure you know, also starred Spencer Tracy. He clearly gave it his all, and died 17 days after the film wrapped.
     In the long line of famous and not famous deaths that have occurred just this year alone (yes, horrifically, the last 8 days), Poitier is a notable loss to our planet earth.
     I have a friend who lives on Eleuthera Island, not too far from where Poitier was raised on Cat Island in the Bahamas. In what seems to be another galaxy, far, far away, I once taught yoga and chilled on the pink sandy beaches there.
     I asked my friend Edgar what he knows about Mr. Poitier, in honor of his passing. Edgar sent me a couple of social media posts from his friend, filmmaker Leslie Vanderpool, who Sidney Poitier mentored:

“‘Love you.’ He would say. He loved and respected himself, he loved and appreciated life, and he loved and encouraged others. The rain washed down on your island nation today. Was it a sign? I will continue to listen to the instincts and the calling you saw for me. Shine on dear friend.’”

     She also posted: 

     “I have no words. Sir Sidney added to this life and was too advanced for our world. He was beyond any measurements and he will forever be my beacon. Thank you, for our conversations and moments shared, which I will never forget. Rest well, my friend, mentor and role model.”

     Sidney Poitier's role affected my life in a personal way. As a white girl, then woman, who dated black men throughout my life, the movie had a special impact. I recall one day in my adolescence, when a suitor came over after school—we were in 7th grade. He was black, and had an afro so big it was sometimes hard for him to fit through doorways. I loved it. We also had everything in common and talked for hours on end. He lived on the very same street that I did, just east of Ridge whereas I was west. It was 1982.
     One day he walked me home from school, unbeknownst to my parents who thought I was heading right home alone to start the Hamburger Helper. There was a rule: no boys in the house when they weren’t there. Period. Marcus and I sat on the concrete steps of our house in West Rogers Park, on Birchwood near Albany. I knew I was pushing it, since my Dad would be home at any minute. Sure enough, Marcus and I lost track of time flirting with each other and my dad pulled up. He came to the steps, and Marcus copped a bit of an attitude. This did not go over well with my father, and the two of them exchanged words.
     I remember Marcus yielding to my father, and taking his leave, a bit of a bemused, mocking look on his face towards my father. I was horrified. Looking back I realize that my dad was just trying to protect his 12 year old daughter from bad choices a boy and a girl alone might have made.
     Years later, when I was in my 20s, Marcus called me at my parents house while I was visiting for Christmas. Their number was in the white pages. That teenaged feeling came over me, and I went to see him. After all the years that had gone by, I was no longer smitten. We had a nice visit and I left, my crush over evermore.
     When I was a bit older I got into reggae music, and the song Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner Natty Dreadlock was often on my playlist.
     As a white person who grew up in the true diversity of East and West Rogers Park, I am one of the chosen few who doesn’t have to stretch in any way, shape or form to know that a black man is just as much a potential partner for me as a white man, a brown man, or any man. For that, I am grateful.
     It's tragic and true that rather than moving towards equality, it seems our world is on a path towards totalitarianism and no amount of idealism can stop it. I will still hold true to living the life of an ethical humanist to the best of my ability, no matter how unpopular it gets.

‘A battle for the soul of America’

     It took them long enough.
     Those of us desperate to preserve America as a country where facts, votes and character — the Big Three — still matter, have been tapping our watch faces, wondering when the president and vice president would get in the game. The canyon floor is racing up; in one year, it is expected, the Republicans will sweep back into power and try to cement the damage they have done to this country.
     Kamala Harris and Joe Biden chose the first anniversary of Jan. 6, when the mob that Donald Trump called to Washington was set upon the seat of American democracy in his rolling clown coup.
     “Certain dates echo throughout history,” Harris began, speaking from Statuary Hall in the Capitol, where rioters paraded one year ago. “Including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them where they were, and what they were doing, when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory. Dec. 7, 1941, Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 6, 2021.”
     As frightening as that was, even more so was the past year, when Republicans sought to minimize and lie away what they had done, and continue to do.
     “What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed and shed blood to establish and defend,” Harris said. “On Jan. 6 we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces that seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness. The violence. The chaos.”

To continue reading, click here.

Jan. 6, 2021

Cast of George Washington's face made by Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1785 (Smithsonian)

     The mob was summoned. 

     It came, and was dispatched to the Capitol.

     None of that was secret.

     But first they were harangued.

     "These people are not going to take it any longer," President Donald Trump said. "They're not going to take it any longer."

     The crowd chanted: "Fight for Trump!"

      "We will stop the steal," the president said. "Today."
      "We are not going to let it happen," the president said. "I am not going to let it happen."
      The crowd chanted "We love Trump!"
     "You're stronger, you're smarter," the president said. "You're the real people, the people that built this nation."
     "Now it's up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy," the president said. "And after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down. We're going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here.we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer our brave senators and congressmen and women and we're going to probably not be cheering much for some of them."
     Within hours, there was to be much not cheering.
     "Because you'll never take our country back with weakness," the president said. "You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated."
     "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard," said the president.
     Don't let that "peacefully" throw you. Donald Trump also talked about the importance of election integrity, the kind of gas-lighting he perfected, the political version of a bully grabbing your hand and ramming it into your face while sneering, "Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself!"
     Words do have meaning, even in Trump's world, but only certain words, at certain times. The rest is code that must be deciphered or, alas, not. One year has passed, and still understanding is slow in dawning. Democrats lack the vigor and singularity of purpose in saving our democracy that Republicans show in tearing it down. Which is unsurprising, if unforgivable, because it's hard to believe. The whole thing is hard to believe. That's the trick. It's real, and we — patriotic Americans who want to live in a free, small-d democratic country, have to believe it. We must make ourselves believe it. That's the trick. See that it isn't a joke. But real. It happened, is happening. The insurrection of Jan. 6 not only occurred it never stopped, and never will, until somebody stops it.
     "The most corrupt election in the history, maybe, of the world," the president said.
     "We fight. We fight like hell," the president said. "And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
     "And we're going to the Capitol," the president said. "So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue."

     And so they did. The mob, that is. The president stayed put and watched. For hours. Delighted.

You’re not fine and neither am I

     Hi, how are you doing? You all right? Good to hear. I’m fine too.
     But are you? Really? Fine, that is. Because things everywhere aren’t “fine.” Far from it. These are such strange times. That’s what I’ll say to my wife, out of the blue, just to fill the air with words.
     Maybe we’ll be eating dinner, or sitting, reading.
     “Strange times,” I’ll say. And she will agree that yes, these are strange times indeed.
     No need to explain why. We all know. With the plague and the politics, the isolation and inflation. Not to forget school and work, for those who have children or jobs. Or both. All odd for so long it could almost seem normal by now except it’s not normal and will never be. COVID-19 is a threat both to our physical and mental health.
     Though Omicron doesn’t seem so bad. Not as deadly as the Delta variant. I stopped going to the Y when Omicron first struck, because it is so contagious, and all the kids were home from college. Too crowded. Monday, I started going back, shrugging. “Life is to be lived,” I said, figuring, if I get it, I get it. Not so bad when you’re boosted.
     But only 20% of the country have their boosters. Just 62% are fully vaccinated, and 20% aren’t vaccinated at all. More than 60 million people. Quite a lot.
     A vast petri dish to cultivate new strains. Still plenty of Greek letters left. Nor is it just people. One of the more terrifying things I read — as if you need another worry — is that up to 80% of the deer in Iowa have COVID-19. A horror movie twist.
     By the way, that bit about Omicron not being so bad. That isn’t an official medical statement. Nor a denial of all the people who are going to die from it unless they get their shots.

To continue reading, click here.