The day time stopped, and 365 other tales of Chicago

Clocks being tested at the Chicago Lighthouse clock factory in 2015.

     Today's column could be seen as slightly chutzpadik, as my people say. Ballsy, writing about my own book. But the truth is that the media has shrunk: Robert Feder is gone, the Tribune is a shell of its former self. There aren't as many outlets around to notice. The paper used to run excerpts, ballyhooing previous books — we once bought a thousand copies to give away as subscription promotions — but with the move and the consolidation with WBEZ and other various distractions, none of that was happening. So I figured, might as well beat the drum myself. As I tell young writers — or would, if any ever asked — if you don't care about your own work, then nobody will.

    Time stopped in Chicago. On Nov. 18, 1883. Twelve noon arrived and the pendulum of the main clock at the West Side Union Terminal was stilled for nine minutes and 32 seconds, while trainmen stood around, pocket watches in hand, waiting for the future to arrive with a decisive click.
     Solar time continued unabated, of course. High noon sped westward during those nine minutes and 32 seconds from the lakefront to Rockford. But solar time, which had guided human endeavor since the dawn of humanity, would never again matter quite so much in Chicago. The second noon of the day, coordinated with Central Standard Time, arrived with a telegraph signal from the Allegheny Observatory at the University of Pittsburgh.
     Why is this worth knowing today? Well, besides being a cool story unfamiliar to most, as we grapple with advances in technology, it helps to remember just how difficult even the most mundane changes were when they were new. Not everyone accepted Central Standard Time. Not even all the railroads. The Illinois Central, worried the change would confuse suburban commuters, held out for a week.
     And because today, speaking of time — if you are reading this on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022 — is also the day my new book, “Every Goddamn Day: A Highly Selective, Definitely Opinionated, and Alternatingly Humorous and Heartbreaking Historical Tour of Chicago” is being published by the University of Chicago Press. I figure, if I don’t notice the event, who will?
     The book divides Chicago history into 366 daily vignettes. Some famous, like the Great Chicago Fire or the Leopold & Loeb murder. Some obscure, like the Day With Two Noons, or the surprising number of technological firsts originating in Chicago: not just the cell phone, which many already know about, but a host of developments from videotape to jockey shorts to controlled man-made nuclear fission, from pinball machines to blood banks to malted milkshakes.

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"Witty, economical and often whimsical"

     The would-be writer longs for the book itself, the tangible object, with his or her name emblazoned on the cover. To hold in his or her hands, to see in store windows. Often it seems, based on the self-published efforts that cross my desk, they don't care how greasy or handmade the book seems. So long as it exists in the world.

     As an established author, however, I've turned that logic on its head. To create a book takes so much work, years of effort, and offer so little compensation, relatively, that the work itself has to be the reward. It isn't that you don't care what the thing looks like. You do. But you also, if you're smart, learn to take your satisfaction from the doing of the thing, and not its reception.

    With my ninth book published, ah, tomorrow, I'd pretty much convinced myself the real pleasure is behind me: the research, the writing, the editing, the process.

    As for the rest? Publication of a book is the punishment you endure for the joy of writing one. Because really, what happens? General neglect, interrupted with flashes of misunderstanding.

     However. There is room for surprise in life. The new book, "Every Goddamn Day: A Highly Subjective, Definitely Opinionated, Alternatively Humorous and Heartbreaking Historical Tour of Chicago," based loosely on this blog, doesn't officially drop until Wednesday. But it's already defied my expectations.

     First there was the Printers Row Lit Fest in September. Of all the moments I've had after writing books, from being on Oprah to seeing the book reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Book Review, I don't think anything will match having people line up in a driving downpour to get their books signed. That was humbling.

     And now Mary Wisniewski's review in NewCity, published Monday. Wow. Yes. Really, you should just read the piece. It begins:

     Writing history is a fascinating, frustrating business. You must construct a narrative out of so much that is unknown and incomplete. It’s like working a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing, and only a vague or wrong idea of what it should look like. Or it’s like creating an animation — you must assemble many little pictures, to give an illusion of reality and motion.

     In his new, odd Chicago history, “Every Goddamn Day,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist and author Neil Steinberg creates a kind of animated flipbook, putting together many pictures, one for each day of the year. By filling each story with startling detail, he creates a moving, living picture of Chicago’s past. The ambition of the project and the tidy economy of each one or two-page vignette means he packs a lot of Chicago into one book. It goes way beyond the clichés of pizza, Al Capone and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. Like a civic Scheherazade, Steinberg offers a vast variety of tales...

     "Odd" gave me pause. Uh oh, I thought. Here it comes. But the book is odd, unusual — what's the point of writing an ordinary book? And then she proceeded to do what every writer of books wants done: understand what I was trying to do.

      I don't want to seize her work. You can read the rest by clicking here.
     If nobody else says another word about the book, I'll be able to tell myself that at least it was comprehensible, that someone was able to grasp what I was doing. And yes, I was lucky to draw Mary, who is accomplished writer herself, who wrote "Algren: A Life," an acclaimed biography of Nelson Algren.
     All told, off to a good start. There's the Sandburg Awards dinner Wednesday, and the official book launch party next Monday. Writing books is a largely private endeavor — not entirely, particularly in this case, where the impetus for the book came from my friends at the University of Chicago Press. But beyond occasional suggestions and course corrections, you work by yourself, pretty much, plodding toward your own solitary star, for years. Then suddenly the thing tumbles out into the public, for a few days or weeks. I'll keep you apprised and, of course, if you want to see what the fuss is about yourself, you can order the book here.

Happy birthday to us!

     I’ve been away a couple weeks. In Spain. Didja miss me? No? Not even a little?
     Sigh.
     Can’t say I’m surprised. We exist in such a howling media pandemonium nowadays, a continual cacophony of bugles and brasses blaring all the time. Who can even notice if a particular tin horn drops out or joins in?
     Did I miss anything? Of course I did. A city like Chicago is a Niagara of news, a never-ending cataract of information roaring past. Blink and you overlook something important.
     So what did I miss? Let’s see ... the past two weeks ... Lori Lightfoot? Fact-finding in Mexico! People being shot? Already covered like a damp shirt. For the record: It’s bad.
     There was the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Sun-Times — actually the Sunday Sun and Times, the hyphen came five months later — on Oct. 5, 1947. That could be viewed as a big deal, at least by people who work here. The folks still left at the Tribune certainly felt their 175th birthday was an occasion worthy of note, with a six-week celebration last spring penned by my pal Rick Kogan, the ghost in their increasingly stripped-down machine.
     I like that image. The once mighty Trib sets up circus tents and holds a month-and-a-half-long jamboree to mark its anniversary. While here at the scrappy Sun-Times, some crusty oddball who’s been wandering around, blinking in the Iberian sun, his absence at home unnoticed, comes scurrying back, drops his luggage, raises a finger and trills, “Umm, sorry, we, ah, missed that ...”
     Though my timing is perfect. (It’s better to be lucky than good.) Because just last week the Sun-Times announced a big change in our business model. Instead of covering your eyes until you cough up for an online subscription, our online content is now free, thanks to voluntary contributions, the way it works with our bosses, whoops, partners, at WBEZ.
     This is a perfect time to remember the newspaper’s founding, because it took place for exactly the same reason: to survive and maybe thrive in a changing media landscape. To glance at how Mr. Sun wed Miss Times 75 years ago is to see ad hoc adaptation at its finest. Department store scion Marshall Field III had created the Sun in 1941 with the sole purpose of pushing back against the isolationist, xenophobic, Hitler-canoodling Chicago Tribune. The first issue was published Dec. 4, 1941. Three days later, its entire reason for existence vanished after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America entered the war. We came into a world mooted, with darkness setting in and two strikes against us.
     But we came out swinging.
     By 1947, the morning Sun had never made a penny of profit, and Field, obviously slow on the uptake, had purchased a second newspaper, the afternoon Times. A grubby sports-fixated photo tabloid founded in 1929, out of the ashes of the Chicago Journal (a paper begun in 1844, which is why you sometimes see claims that our roots pre-date the Trib. It’s a stretch).
     In its first issue, Sept. 3, 1929, the Times ran a manifesto describing its average reader, who of course was assumed to be a man, and a semi-literate man at that:
     “He wants the news at a glance, because his life is crowded and he hasn’t much time to waste on words.”
     Hasn’t ... much time ... to waste ... on words. Ouch, that stings. It’s like they saw Instagram almost a century before it appeared.

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One dozen destinations #12: The Grand Canyon

     Well, that's it. Thank you for indulging me over the past two weeks. Or, if you didn't indulge me, thanks for circling back. I've enjoyed revisiting these places and like to imagine that, maybe, you did too.

      Hey, it's possible. Either way, I'll be in the paper with fresh material Monday.

      One thing that struck me plucking destinations out of "The Quest for Pie" is the short shrift I sometimes give places that deserve better. The Grand Canyon for instance. That's the trouble when you're focused on your interior life and your relationships. You can skip past far more significant phenomena. Then again, as I tell writers, or used to tell writers back when anybody asked, is that Rule #1 is you have to be who you are. And, obviously, John McPhee I am not. Here is my complete treatment of the Grand Canyon in the book.

     The Grand Canyon? Having Edie aboard made it easier for us to split up. Kent could barely be coaxed to get close enough to the Grand Canyon to gaze into it. Ross appeared as if he wanted to leap into the abyss. So Edie and Kent lingered over their breakfast, while Ross and I marched dutifully along the rim. We took pictures of each other. Ross would stand at the very edge, where one more step backward and he would tumble off a cliff and die. I opened my mouth to alert him, but didn’t want to scare him. That’s where he was standing. My fingers tingled just to look at him. 
     I would stare across the vastness and think, “The Grand Canyon. I am looking at the Grand Canyon.” 
     Words fail me; it would be laughable to even try. “The Grand Canyon is very … ah … grand.” Go see it yourself. I was 49 years old, and never considered going, and might never have gone except for the accident of this trip. Stupid of me. But you know better, now. Go see it.

Northshore Notes: Accidentally Perfect

     I'm back, after a pleasant break overseas, just in time to read this lovely ramble into Chicago by EGD's Northshore correspondent, Caren Jeskey. (I wonder if your takeaway will be the same as mine: "Joan Cusack has a store?") One of the delights of Chicago is there are always new things to learn about it.

By Caren Jeskey      

 

    Keeping up with professional licensing boards is one of those joyous tasks of life. For those of you in regulated professions, you know what I mean.
     Every two years, LCSWs (licensed clinical social workers) must acquire 30 hours of continuing education units. Required CEUs are a good thing. Therapists such as myself ought to be keeping up with education. It connects us with experts in the field and helps us keep up with the times. Attending these classes with fellow clinicians reminds me of the importance of our vocation. It also gives me cutting edge information that I can use to enhance my own well-being.

     Eight weeks ago, one client felt they were spiraling out of control and had hit rock bottom. Just a couple of weeks later, they were feeling less depressed and more hopeful. This past week they shared feeling “a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I am feeling ease. I am not all the way fine, but I have some peace.” Yes, a plug for therapy. There is no shame in asking for help. Not only does it take a village to raise a kid, it takes a village to care for ourselves sometimes.
     I dotted all of the i’s, crossed the t’s, and paid the fees for my Texas license. (Illinois’ comes up next year). Renewed for two more years. Yee-haw! Or so I thought. Late last Friday afternoon I received an email, letting me know that my TX license was delinquent as of the next day, October 1, pending fingerprints and a criminal background check. This a new requirement, which I had missed.
     I panicked briefly then pulled myself together. I put on my big-girl (work from home) comfy lounge pants and read through the instructions. I was given one option —  IdentoGO on Roosevelt Road, just east of the river, with a boastful 2.4 star rating and lots of scary stories about rude, disorganized staff.

     I cleared my Monday morning calendar and headed out down Hunter Road in Wilmette, which turns into Crawford Avenue. The road where “a streetcar conductor who announced ‘Crawford Avenue’ was slugged by a Polish passenger” in the 1930s. Oh, Chicago. You’re so scrappy. At that time a battle between those who wanted the street to be named after Casimir Pułaski, and those who wanted to preserve the history of the road, which was named after pioneer Peter Crawford (who founded Crawford, Illinois— now known as Lawndale), ensued. It’s nice to see that both sides kind of won.

     What a great way to start the week — rolling down the street in my trusty steed (aka Cosmica, the Honda Civic), windows down on a sunny day, with the sights, sounds and smells of the city. Orange vested construction workers and cement trucks peppering the road. Cars with thumping bass overtook me from the bike lane. Men on bicycles with white buckets bungee corded to their two-wheelers, off to find windows to wash for a buck or two.
     Entering the city from the north on a diagonal street is exciting. I followed Elston past the iconic Morton Salt warehouse that’s now slated to become a music venue. As I rounded another bend, there she was. Lady Chicago. Glass skyscrapers sparkling with mid-morning sun. I almost stopped for a hot dog. Taking DesPlaines Street is the perfect antidote to the bumper to bumper traffic I’d have found just a bit east in the Loop, which dead ended me to “the only national furniture store that started because of a motorcycle crash” on Roosevelt. I turned east. Once over the river, I turned north on Delano Court. I felt I was on vacation somewhere new, no idea the area had been so developed. After an hilarious venture into IdentoGO, where there seemed no rhyme or reason to the “system,” I now had hours to roam.

     Walking over the Roosevelt Bridge made me feel small, in a good way. The skyline view to the north is impressive, and the steel bridge to to the south speaks to the power of the iron and hard work that has built the bones of our town. I stumbled upon a blanket in a plastic bag, tucked away behind the piss soaked watch tower and decided not to spend too much time back there, alone. I headed to the well-stocked Whole Foods and got a snack, contemplating my place here in this big city.
     After day-tripping for long enough, Cosmica and I headed north down Michigan Avenue, then skirted onto the inner drive. I realized that Joan Cusack’s store was close by, a place I’ve always wanted to go. I popped in, and there she was behind the counter. I resisted fan-girling— she is one of my all time favorites — and said “hi! I am looking for a rubber chicken.” Without missing a beat, she said “I may have some in the back.” I told her that I wanted to buy a small gift for a friend who works around the corner at the Latin School. They had a bomb threat a few weeks ago, and I wanted to bring her a little pick me up to undo some of the stress.
     Joan came back out with a small bag of mini rubber chickens. Perfect. She also handed me a bag of orange jelly candies, the kind my grandma always had. Just the right touch to add to a small paper goodie bag. I suggested that she carry Neil’s new book, and she seemed interested. (I embarrassingly fan-girled a bit, took my bumbling leave, and headed to Latin). A very nice day in our very cool city.

One dozen destinations #11: Pie 'N' Burger

    Spoiler alert. We are getting toward the end of my unpublished and probably unpublishable memoir, "The Quest for Pie." And yes, we find it.

    The sun was high. The day felt torpid, silent. The boys were wilted, staggering along, supremely bored. Edie didn’t complain but her expression said it all. Maybe, I though sadly, they wouldn’t be going to Caltech after all. 

     The halls of science let us down. But Caltech was redeemed by Pie ‘N’ Burger, a landmark diner on California Boulevard we just happened to pass on our way out of town, as luck would have it, about noon. It was one of those spots you just love the moment you walk in, catching sight of the pie clock with “Pie ‘N’ Burger’ in orange neon. 

      We ate burgers — buttery buns wrapped in white waxy paper — and big mounds of hot fries. The plates and cups had that thin green line in the china that let you know you are in a Real Place, or at least someone’s sincere approximation of someplace real. 

      We almost considered passing on the pie — Ross had already drank a milkshake. But we were at the “Pie ‘N’ Burger,” not the “Burger ‘N’ Pie.” The pie came first. And we were on a pie quest, theoretically. We sorta had to. 

      Are the pies homemade? I asked our waitress. 

      “Everything from scratch; nothing comes out of a can,” she said. “We’ve been making pies here for 45 years.” 

      What kind of pies do you have? I wondered. 

     She handed us a sheet of paper titled: “Pie ‘N’ Burger Pies.’’ The choices were: Apple, Boysenberry, Cherry, Pecan, Dutch Apple, Blueberry, Pumpkin, Rhubarb and Custard, for $3.65 for a slice, $16.50 for a whole pie. 

      That was just the start. The next section was “Meringue Pies,” and those included Coconut, Banana, Chocolate, Lemon, Butterscotch, Peanut butter. Then came “Fresh Fruit Pies,” which cost 70 cents more: Peach, Strawberry, Ollallieberry. 

      Ollallieberry? 

      Our waitress, Emily, explained that ollallieberry was a blend of loganberries and youngberries — a hybrid, I later learned, developed by the USDA and Oregon State University 1935. A type of blackberry, the ollallieberry — “ollallie” is Chinook for “berry” so really it’s called the “berryberry” — never took off, and you won’t find them beyond the West Coast. 

      Edie had to try it. Slave to habit that I am, I chose cherry, along with black coffee. The ollallieberry was excellent — I stole a few forkfuls from Edie’s plate. The berries were hauntingly delicate, dissolving at a touch. This was, we decided, the best pie we ever had, and briefly considered buying a whole pie to take away, balking only when we visualized that pie slowly jostling in the back of the Honda as the hours passed and we headed east, homeward. But we had done what we set out to accomplish: found a small place with good pie. So the trip was a success.

One dozen destinations #10: The Exploratorium

     I'm on vacation, which means ... well, you've grasped the point by now. Adjoining San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, which we visited yesterday, is the Exploratorium, and it makes sense to peek around there next.

     Next door is the Exploratorium, a huge, clangorous hall filled with scientific exhibits, puzzlers and optical illusions, like the classic skewed rooms where the objects on the left seem much smaller than at the right, due to the design of the walls and floor. I stood, arms folded, scowling, the boys enormous, seeming to tower over me, heads scraping the ceiling. 

     No need draw attention to the symbolism here. The children magnified, the parent dwindling. Sometimes I will see some other parent kowtowing to their kids — it’s easier to notice in others — and worry parents nowadays are too accommodating. We need more of the toughness of the past, more Great Santini, less Carole King.* 

     But that passes, and looking at my own flailing attempts, I’d say they got plenty of sternness and plenty of indulgence, hopefully not in too confusing and random a blend. 

     The Exploratorium folks tried to inject a sense of menace to keep the kiddies on their toes—a grand piano, suspended directly overhead by wires. One of the more arresting exhibits was a drinking fountain set into a toilet bowl.

     “The water in this drinking fountain is perfectly clean,” a sign read. “And the toilet has never been used. So why do people often hesitate before taking a drink?” 

     Kent took a drink. So did I. Edie couldn’t, Ross wouldn’t. The sign delivered the lesson, as if it were necessary. 

     “Strong emotional associations with objects or people can make it difficult to act rationally around them.” 

     Ya think?

* A reference to a passage early in the book where I discuss parental style:, concluding: 

I try to respect my boys, but you do your kids no favors by continually buckling before their will.  Sometimes they’re wrong, and need to know it.  There is a song, a sweet lullaby by Carole King called “Child of Mine” that contains the line, “You don’t need direction, you know which way to go,” that always makes me wince: I consider it the nadir of squishy, free-form, over-indulgent bad parenting.  Kids need direction, big time. They don’t know which way to go, and if they aren’t to turn into feral animals you had better show them. Demanding that your children stand up every five hours on road trips is not too great of an imposition on their personal freedom, even if you have to threaten bodily harm to get them to do it.