Wilmette Notes: Life Passing By

 

"Chicago Taking a Beating" by Roger Brown.

    Our past follows us wherever we go like a pull-toy duck. North Shore Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey's has been quacking particularly loudly of late, as she relates in her Saturday report:

By Caren Jeskey

   Living in a tiny rental home in Wilmette means that I am up against memories of childhood that I haven’t had in decades. It’s as though I’m watching my life pass by slowly through a train window, vignettes flickering past while I try to ponder them. I’m seeing myself probably too clearly now in this COVID navel gazing solitude complicating my return home. 

    It was nice to be in Texas for those 7 years, where there was no chance of feeling that I had stepped into a time machine filled with youthful (well, ok, some not so youthful) mistakes.

     Now, in the past few weeks, four people I know have all gotten BA.2. So for now, I'm back only dining in pods at Napolita in Wilmette or Fiya in Andersonville, or in dining rooms where vaccination cards are still required like Jerry's Sandwiches in Lincoln Square. As if life weren't strange enough, I'm eating in plastic bubbles.       

     I started studying flute at the Music Center of the North Shore, a mere mile and a half from my current home, when I was in 3rd grade or so. Once a week, a parent and I would ride in a station wagon from Chicago to the school on Green Bay Road so I could have a lesson. My mother became intrigued by the charming school also housed on the same plot of land, North Shore Country Day. By the time I’d graduated from a Chicago public grammar school, my folks had me enrolled at North Shore Country Day for high school. I felt heartbroken and a little scared to be stepping into freshman year with only 47 other students, far from my grammar school buddies. Going to North Shore turned out to be a great gift, as far as education and culture. It’s funny that it took me this long to live close enough to walk to school.
     I thought I was much bigger than I am. Tucked away in the comfort and safety of one of the safest places to live in Illinois, and probably one of the safest places in the country, I see that I’m simply the same person I have always been, and things are much more simple than I had figured. I thought life was about adventure and fun, collecting experiences. Staying on the move. I didn’t realize that all I need to feel alive is having healthy plants to tend, a satisfying career, and peaceful relationships with my family and friends.
     I don’t have much clutter anymore, since I’ve worked for the past few years to pare down. Somehow I’ve managed to hold onto a small carry-on sized suitcase full of letters, cards, and moments that date back to the early 70’s.
     Looking back at some of them this week, I can see things even more clearly. Egad. It’s right there in ink. I’ve always been the kind of person to value kindness, but I’ve also been too hungry for excitement. Rather than settling in with stable, life-long friends, I was drawn to drama. Intrigue. I took a lot of the good ones for granted over the years. I'm grateful to have a small number of true friends, most of whom I met about twenty years ago, but I did not nurture my high school connections very well. Perhaps now is the time.
     When I was lucky enough to be attending a gem of finer education, I kept my eye out for things I should have probably shied away from. Became close friends with a transfer student who stole my father’s phone card number from me and had charged up hundreds of dollars before he discovered what was happening. She later got involved in drugs and sadly, a much darker side of living. Fortunately, we reconnected several years back and she is doing quite well.
     At school, I snuck clove cigarettes in the gymnasium bathroom when no one was supposed to be in the building, which were given to me by a big stoner in our class. She also once got me super high— well OK, it was my choice to say yes— on a drive during a lunch break. As a novice, my tolerance was low and I was baked. I passed out on the Senior Homeroom couch and recall the face of a kind jock looking down at me, concerned, as I slept it off. I remember how scared he looked as he grappled with getting adult help, or leaving me be, as I had asked.
     I feel strangely young and vulnerable these days as I look back at my journey. As a good friend said, the battle is done and the war has been won.

Bee careful what you pretend to be.

 

     Well, this is awkward...

     Regular readers will remember that, at the height of the COVID lockdown, I took it upon myself to delve into the Illinois beekeeping community. The column wasn't a joke, per se. I would never do that. These are real people keeping real hives of actual bees, making real honey. 

     Like all people, they deserve respect, and I treated the whole thing seriously. I was interested. I have an affection for bees—"stout warriors in their waxen kingdom," to quote Virgil's marvelous summation. 

     My opening sentence, however, "But how has COVID affected beekeeping in Illinois?" well it has a certain—what?—a wink, a sparkle. That opening word, "But..." designed to convey a sense of picking up the action in mid-story, in medias res, as the classicists put it. Enough with the vaccines and Trumpies and lockdowns and social turmoil. What about beekeepers!?!?
      Perhaps that was reckless of me. Perhaps I should have foreseen the risk involved. That I was setting myself up, pigeon-holing myself. Kurt Vonnegut wrote a line I feel is very true: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (from Mother Night, It's important to cite the exact source since, like Mark Twain before him there is a tendency to ascribe any half witty line to Vonnegut, whether he wrote it or not).
     A couple columns about bees—there have been others— doesn't make me the beekeeping reporter, not yet anyway. But money is being infused into the paper, which encourages specialization. We're hiring more beat reporters. A classical music critic. A science reporter. Editorial member Lee Bey was just named the architecture critic, a slot that went unfilled for years. 

     So I was having a conversation with my editor the other day, and he said, out-of-the-blue, "Have you thought about circling back to the beekeepers? What's up with them, bee-wise?"
     I said something about it being only a year and a half since I last wrote about bees, and that it was the sort of topic that one examines every 20 years, if that.
     "I think readers really like that kind of thing from you," he said. "Beekeeping. Robotics clubs. Cheesemaking. Stamp collecting. You're so good at that. People get bored with the political stuff, and that's everywhere anyway. Embrace your uniqueness. Why drive readers away when you can draw them closer?"
     Something shifted in my gut. A sinking feeling. A kind of a shiver. An "Oh, I'm so screwed" dread. You spend enough time in an organization, you begin to know its ways. How things are done.
    Remember when WBEZ acquired the Sun-Times last fall? Some were concerned that it meant the paper, now a 501(c)3 charity, could no longer make political endorsements, through some quirk of law I never did figure out. Not that I minded particularly. As someone who sat on the editorial board for five years, I remember what an enormous pain-in-the-ass assembling those recommendations are, tracking down obscure suburban candidates, getting questionnaires to them and then from them, arranging your face into a look of interest while they prattle on about issues you neither know nor care about.
     So farewell to that stuff, and I'm not on the board anyway. Not my table. But I did kinda wonder if it would end there. Or is there another shoe to drop. When would the after echo of the sale reach me? What form would it take? 

     Now here it was, veiled by unmistakable. Bees. And maybe cheese. The oddities reporter. He kept talking while I sort of tuned him out, lost in my own reverie.
     Why not bees? A fascinating subject. Endangered. Our entire ecosystem depends on them. A complex social system: a queen and her Amazon army, the hive, entirely female, which makes them very of the moment. In a way I'd be returning to my roots—I was the paper's environment reporter for a few years in the late 1990s. And WBEZ is certainly within their rights. It's their newspaper. Why shouldn't they move the chess pieces around? Nobody ever bought a bike and  didn't ride it. The check clears, of course they have a say in the coverage. It's to be expected. Some part of the paper are hands off. I'm sure WBEZ isn't planning to give a lot of direction to the Tim Novaks and Andy Grimms and Frank Mains on the staff. Just sit back while they kick ass and take names and wait for the eyeballs, clicks, plaudits and praise come pouring in. Hard news. Exposes. Deep dives into the financial records of bad guys. That's what people talk about when they talk about the importance of journalism.
     But what about me? Staring with clonic fixation at the trivial, the mundane, the off-base and off-kilter. Occasionally pulling my gaze away from insects to regard the national and international scene with a cry of outrage. Maybe that's what drew this unwelcome attention, if that is what this is. My sense of alarm. It can be so ... visceral. Maybe too visceral for National Public Radio, which prefers to be more zen, shoeless in linen pajamas, sitting cross-legged in a meditation room, pinging whalesong burbling in the background, eyes half mast, murmuring into a microphone, remote, removed, steeped in that make-a-cathedral-with-your-fingers and intone approach. Nobody screams on NPR. Or pants. Or cackles. Nothing extreme, or Rabelaisian about NPR, they aren't crawling through the sewers and making rude noises and bringing you exposes on men who have difficulty peeing in public settings, as I have done. They don't drive to Madison to meet immigrants who open jars of shit for a living.

    I heard a buzzing in my ears, and realized he was still talking. I tuned back in.
    "...and the pieces you did on Fresca," my boss continued. "Those were excellent. People loved those. We need more of that."
     "Ummm, I...." I began. That's how they do it. No orders. No memos. Nothing in writing. Just a series of gentle nudges, water wearing away the rock. 
     "No need to discuss this now," he said brightly, wrapping up, confirming my worst fears. "Just think about it. More Fresca. Less of that other stuff. And more bees. There's a hive on top of the city hall. And a number of top chefs have their own apiaries. What kind of honey trends are coming up for spring? I've sent you a list of bee-related stories you might want to look into."
     You can see the list yourself here.
     I told him I would have to think about it.

Relax: Chicago has done this before

     When news broke Wednesday afternoon that Chicago is being considered as host of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the reporter behind the scoop, NBC News national political correspondent (and my former colleague) Natasha Korecki tweeted out my story about the 50th anniversary of the disastrous 1968 Democratic convention, which so scarred the city and sullied its reputation.
     While it’s nice to be remembered, I’d hate for that tumultuous event to once again define what happens whenever Chicago hosts out-of-town guests. That disaster isn’t the only convention we’ve had. Chicago is the most popular city in the country for such events, having hosted 11 Democratic and 14 Republican gatherings including the first one in — did none of you pay attention in school? —1860 when the newly-formed Republican Party, worried that huddling in an Eastern city would “run a big chance of losing the West,” picked Chicago as a symbol of “audacity.”
     They gathered at a large log building at the corner of what is now Lake and Wacker Drive and nominated, indeed rather audaciously, a homespun downstate lawyer and failed senatorial candidate named Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was tempted to hurry to Chicago, but his cronies waved him off, worried he would undo the backroom deals they struck to get him the nod. “Honest Abe” was a fine campaign slogan, but could be difficult in practice.
     I won’t go through all the conventions, there are history books for that. Though Chicago can boast that our conventions tend to stand out, and not just because of rioting. There was the 1920 Republican Convention nominating nonentity Warren G. Harding, basically because he looked like a president and nobody knew he had an illegitimate daughter, the deal putting “smoke-filled room” into the political vernacular (actually smoke-filled rooms, 408-10 of the Blackstone Hotel).
     Or the 1932 Democratic convention where Franklin D. Roosevelt helped usher in our modern campaign age with two political firsts: being the first nominee to show up and accept in person, and the first presidential candidate to fly in an airplane. The flight was delayed due to storms, and FDR explained, apologetically, “I have no control over the winds in heaven.”
     Our next convention could very well instead reflect the 1996 Democratic convention, sending Bill Clinton on his way to re-election and helping revitalizing the West Side an in general allowing the city to shine instead of screw up.

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Tempestuous tenure of ‘Jane Byrne’

    This Saturday it will be exactly three years since Lori Lightfoot crushed the once formidable Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and was elected mayor of Chicago by an almost 3-to-1 margin, taking all 50 wards.
     A post-mortem would be premature, as Lightfoot’s still got a year to go. Maybe she’ll manage to pull the ripcord before hitting the canyon floor. I’m rooting for her.
     Yet it’s safe to say that, despite the singular role race plays in Lightfoot’s rhetoric, as a 1,001-uses solvent to be sprayed in all directions, trying to squeeze out of whatever jam she finds herself in, few critics compare Chicago’s third Black mayor (not to forget Eugene Sawyer, though many people, myself included do) to the first, the ebullient Harold Washington, who faced fierce opposition with very few Lightfootian cries of “poor me.”
     The mayor who seems most relevant to Lightfoot, alas, is Jane Byrne. Like Lightfoot, Byrne was female. Like Lightfoot, being mayor of Chicago is the only elective office Byrne ever held. And as to whether Lightfoot will also serve a single term and be shown the door in favor of someone who can actually do the job, time will tell.
     Until then, WTTW is debuting an hour documentary Friday, “Jane Byrne,” kicking off the new season of its “Chicago Stories” series. It’s a solid introduction to Byrne for those who might be unfamiliar. Even those well-schooled in her story — I read her fine autobiography, “My Chicago,” and wrote her obituary for the Sun-Times — will find new nuggets they hadn’t known before.
     In 1960, Byrne was a young military widow. Her husband, a Marine pilot, had crashed approaching what was then the Glenview Naval Air Station. Plunging into campaign work for fellow Catholic John F. Kennedy, Byrne came to the attention of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who found her a role in his administration.
     Her presence was supposed to be a sign of mid-1960s progressivism. The trouble with Janie Byrnes — as Daley called her — was that she didn’t resign herself to being window dressing, proudly displayed in her sinecure as the commissioner of sales, weights and measures.
     Instead, Byrne took her job seriously.

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Michael Madigan: The Man Who Ran Illinois

Mike Madigan, far right, at the 2013 signing of the Religious Freedom and Fairness Act .

    I love writing freelance, and have done so for some of the top publications in the world: Esquire, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Granta, The Washington Post ... quite a long list really.

    The reasons hardly need mentioning. Other publications provide an outlet for stories that the paper isn't interested in—there was no way the Sun-Times wanted 6,000 words on being disfigured. But Mosaic, the London website did. It also sent me to Japan for a teddy bear's birthday party, which the paper wasn't going to do either. Esquire asked me to shadow Rahm Emanuel for three days. Men's Journal once hired me to paddle a canoe down the Chicago River. Stuff like that.

    The money's nice, of course. There's also a sense of validation. For a moment, I'm not just a local oddity, but a local oddity echoing faintly in the larger world.

     The requests haven't come in much lately, which I took to be the gathering isolation and irrelevance of age. So I was glad when the Washington Monthly asked me to read Ray Long's new book and write something about the disgrace of Michael Madigan. I asked the editor why he chose me—I have not exactly distinguished myself with my Springfield coverage (the lede is a sly way of saying, "This doesn't generally interest me, but...") He replied that I spoke to Dick Babcock's class at Northwestern seven years ago, and he was in it. A reminder: always be nice to young people coming up, because you never know when you'll be working for one.

 

    State legislators are like ants on a log. There are too many of them and they are too small, running around too fast to recognize as individuals, let alone track their efforts. Even if the log is in your backyard, why bother paying attention? Given the typical statehouse task—dragging bits of legislative leaf around—only the most dedicated political junkies even bother to try.

     Occasionally, though, one leader plants himself in the center of the action long enough to offer a pathway not just to understand what’s going on in one colony, but also to illuminate the general calamity poisoning our increasingly toxic national political culture: the money, influence, rule bending, and self-dealing that deform government at every level.Meet Michael J. Madigan, the tight-mouthed enigma at the center of the Illinois legislative anthill for more than a third of a century. Nicknamed “the Sphinx” for his expressionless silence and windblown longevity, Madigan was the last operative drive shaft from the old Daley Democratic machine—forged by Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s infamous mayor from 1955 to 1976— where clout was built on a system of mutual support: You vote the right way, and I’ll make sure your son gets a park district job. Throughout his career, Madigan was chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, committeeman of Chicago’s 13th Ward, and speaker of the Illinois House for 36 years, the longest-serving leader of any legislative body in American history.
     Reviled by Republicans as “the center of all evil in state government,” Madigan endured while governors came and went. When Republican Jim Edgar became governor in 1991, Madigan didn’t return his phone calls for months. Madigan didn’t need him; he was served by a patronage army of 400 drones beholden to him for jobs, raises, and promotions, who would leap to campaign, knock on doors, and buttonhole commuters to sign petitions. (Or, in one infamous ploy, the opposite: hectoring residents of Madigan’s district to sign affidavits retracting their signatures on the nominating petitions of a 19-year-old who dared run against the state’s most powerful politician’s chosen alderman. The lad had no chance of winning, but so ruthlessly had the speaker’s operatives clawed signatures back that some 2,600 voters agreed to renounce signatures they had never given.)
     Madigan was an accepted reality of life in Illinois, like the weather, or, more accurate- ly, like God, a mysterious force in His Heaven, spinning works and mysteries.
     Then it all changed.
     First, the #MeToo revolution of 2018 rattled the Madigan organization, taking down his longtime chief of staff, Tim Mapes, and top aide, Kevin Quinn, amid accusations that Madigan didn’t do enough to stop them from sexually harassing their female colleagues. Sunlight started pouring through the cracks. Madigan gave the first deposition in his life. The U.S. Department of Justice’s federal investigation into Madigan’s alleged corruption circled nearer. For years, Madigan had used an electric utility company, Commonwealth Edison, as a “crony job service” that issued direct payments to Madigan’s allies, such as the $4,500 a month it funneled to the Cook County recorder of deeds, Ed Moody, for “consulting.” In return, Madigan advanced legislation that was favorable to the utility. He would also steer business to his private law firm, including clients who had business before the state.

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Out like a lion

     “I’m starting to really hate the cold,” my wife said, and not for the first time. The sort of thing Midwesterners say after spring dangles a couple of delightful days in our field of vision — 60, 65, even 70 degrees — then rudely slaps us across the face with a wet sock of miserable, damp, penetratingly cold days. It was 21 degrees Monday morning.
     “Me too,” I mumbled.
     COVID-19 seems to have unmoored everyone, in more ways than one. Time expands and contracts like clocks in a Dali painting. Civility crumbles. Reason becomes a bruising dash through our neighbors’ gantlet of speculation, conspiracy theory and outright hallucination.
      We’re battered, tired, viewing the latest news through latticed fingers. We’ve also become unrooted, many of us. Americans are on the move, fleeing the frost, looking for some warm rock to hide under. A United States Census Bureau report released last week shows nine of the top 10 fastest-growing U.S. counties are in Arizona, Texas and Florida, where four of the top 10 fastest-growing metro areas are located.
     Yet, like everything else, it’s a blurred picture. Cities in all climates are losing people — Los Angeles County topped the list of dwindling metro areas in raw numbers, with a 184,465 resident drop from July 2020 to July 2021. (The population of New York County fell by an astounding 6.9% in one year.) The Chicago metro area is down 106,897 people; the Census Bureau describes the metro area as “Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI” (and readers give me grief for living in Northbrook; from a demographic perspective, I’m practically sharing a $10-a-month apartment on Wabansia with Nelson Algren).
     Though if you are looking for something positive, Cook County remains the second-largest U.S. county, with 5.1 million residents, behind only Los Angeles County. (Both benefit from a historical quirk — the five boroughs of New York City are five separate counties).
     Population is dwindling everywhere — nearly three-quarters of U.S. counties, 73%, are in decline. “Natural decrease occurs when there are more deaths than births in a population over a given time period,” the Census Bureau points out. “In 2021, fewer births, and aging population and increased mortality — intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic — contributed to a rise in natural decrease.”

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"Nasty things"

 

     I don't like orchids, I thought, but did not say aloud, when Edie suggested we go to The Orchid Show: Untamed at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We already had four tickets, a benefit of our annual membership. They'd been on the magnetic board in the kitchen for months. I never suggested we go, not being an orchid fan. The show had been running since Feb. 12—last time we went to the Botanic Garden my wife suggested we go, but forgot the tickets at home. The show was closing Sunday. It was now or never; well, now or not for almost a year anyway.
     The weather was rainy and drippy and cold, mid-30s, perfect day to go to the show, which of course is indoors. We got in the car.
     "At least there won't be many people there," I predicted. Sometimes, perhaps because of the pandemic, the Botanic Garden seemed positively packed, at least when you first arrived. Once you get into the garden, toward the prairie and the greenhouses and such, the population thins out. Most people don't want to toddle too far past the entrance.

     I was certain the rain would keep everyone away. But the parking lot had plenty of cars, and obviously a good number of folks braved the showers to see the show. As we looked for a space, I remembered, for some odd reason, going to see the band Bread at Blossom Music Center in Cleveland in the mid-1970s. I'd never go of my own accord—as with orchids, I didn't like Bread—but was tagging along with others, and joked beforehand that no one would be there, that it would be us, alone with the band, playing forlornly on the stage, heads down, ashamed. Maybe they'd give up doing even that, set aside their instruments, come over, sit on the edge of the stage, and explain how they came up with lyrics like, "Baby I'm-a want you...." It didn't even make grammatical sense.

    I was shocked to see the venue jammed with Bread fans. Who could have imagined?
     The Orchid Show: Untamed was quite lovey, with orchids hanging from the ceilings high above the entrance room, and in the smaller greenhouses all manner of shapes and sizes and colors—purples and orchers, yellows and whites. Speckled, and banded and striped. The signage was on-point and interesting. I didn't not know that orchids are hearty survivors—the slogan for the show is "Nature Finds a Way"—and thrive around the globe, practically from pole to pole. After the eruption of Krakatoa, the first plants to sprout in the volcanic ash were orchids, and they're spring up in the most inhospitable places. 
    That isn't a reason not to like them; I didn't know that aspect about them, and lent them a grudging respect. They're the most beautiful weeds ever.

     I wondered if it might be anthropomorphic. There is a certain screaming face aspect to some orchids. Look at the orchid on the top of the page: eyes squinched, kind a bonnet. Something monstrous.
     No, that's not it. I gazed some more. Some are certainly very, ah, vulvic. Maybe not liking orchids is some kind of unconscious hostility toward women. No, that can't be it either—if it were, the idea would never come to me and, besides, I think women are just swell, in general.

     Then what?
     When I was growing up in Berea, the father of one of my sister's friends raised orchids, and I remember, once, visiting his home, with the large greenhouse off one side, which of course we had to admire. Maybe that was it. There was a strangeness to it, with its heat and humidity and its special lights and the hovering father pointing out this prize and that. He was an odd duck.
     So orchids are an oddity, the realm of eccentrics, the crazy aunt of the flower world, with her purple hair and batik. That felt closer.

      Is there an air of weirdness and marginality to orchids? The only product that comes from orchids is vanilla, from one type of orchid, vanilla planifolia. (Vanilla doesn't come from vanilla beans—that's a misnomer—they're actually pods). Vanilla isn't eccentric. Returning to sex, vanilla is the very definition of mainstream and ordinary, though that seems unfair: in ice cream preference vanilla runs neck-and-neck with chocolate in popularity. And everybody thinks chocolate is great. Maybe chocolate has a better PR firm).

     Edie didn't know I was puzzling through this, but she offered an observation closer to the mark. We were reading about the omnipresence of orchids, who they have been on earth for 110 million years, live in every clime and zone: above the Arctic circle, in deserts, on bare rocks—particularly surprising since their tiny seeds lack endosperm, and thus need to form symbiotic relationships with various fungi in order to germinate. (One locale where orchids are relatively scarce, I was surprised to learn in the Britannica, are rain forests).
     "How can they grow everywhere when I can't keep one alive?"
     Could that be it? I vague recall getting an orchid as a present from an admirer, taking it home and trying to keep the thing alive. Which I was unable to do. That seems a mean and petty reasons not to like such a varied and colorful realm of flowers. Because I killed one. Though people do generally have an easier time forgiving the wrongs that others have done then they do forgiving others for the wrongs they themselves have done against them. If that makes any sense. I was close to vowing to do better, and give orchids another chance.

     Then I put the question to my cousin Harry—we talk frequently about diverse topics. He reminded me of the opening of Raymond Chandler's mystery classic, "The Big Sleep," where  Philip Marlowe meets the invalid General in his greenhouse.  You can see the scene from the 1946 Howard Hawks noir film version with Humphrey Bogart here. In the book, the old man complains of his ailments and explains "the orchids are an excuse for the heat." Leading to this passage where the General asks:

     "Do you like orchids?"
     "Not particularly," I said.
     The General half-closed his eyes. "They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute."

     So there it is. At least it's not just me.