Real men can laugh at themselves

     My mother laid the trap.
     “So what are you doing today?” she asked.
     I fell in, telling her, in my naive, Lucy-and-the-football fashion.
     “We’re going to see the ‘Barbie’ movie,” I said.
     “Not ‘Oppenheimer?’” my mother replied.
     “No,” I said. “We’ll see that later.”
     “Oh,” my mother said. My blood ran cold.
     That afternoon, my brother told me that, in their conversation, our mother was perplexed as to why I, the son of a nuclear physicist, presented with the choice between a movie about the father of the atomic bomb and a movie about a plastic doll for girls, would choose the latter.
     I was not surprised. All that meaning had been compressed within her single syllable: “Oh.”
     In my defense, I’ve already lived “Oppenheimer.” Among my earliest memories is being held over a bubble chamber in my father’s lab to see the subatomic particles flitting around. I’ve watched people use real manipulators — those robots arms at Homer’s nuclear plant in “The Simpsons” — to handle radioactive material at NASA. The linear particle accelerator at Fermilab? I’ve been inside it.
     “Barbie” was my call because ... the movie sounded fun. I wanted to do something fun. To celebrate finally giving COVID the boot.
     And “Barbie” is fun. It reminded me why people go to the movies in the first place. For two hours, I really was somewhere else, Barbie Land (though not so fully as to fail to notice the movie also spells it “Barbieland.”)
     Margot Robbie should win the Academy Award. And Ryan Gosling is Ken. Barbie’s neglected boyfriend, exiled to the periphery of the endless girl’s night dance party. This buff, superfluous figure sadly flexing on the beach for his fellow Kens. I felt for him. As someone who, in my day, has looked into the eyes of my share of Barbie types and realized they were just not into me, I could relate to Ken.

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Wrangle carts, earn quarters

     Whenever I hear of "food deserts," those urban neighborhoods without access to grocery stores and fresh food, I feel a pang of guilt. Because whatever the opposite of a food desert is — a food oasis? — I live there. 

     A marvelous, if pricy, grocery, Sunset Foods, is within walking distance of my house, and another half dozen supermarkets are within a 10 minute drive: Jewel, with its bargains ($7.99 a pound for steak, I mean, c'mon!), Whole Foods, not as pretentious since Amazon bought it, plus you can bring your unwanted Amazon packages there to return. Trader Joe's, with its quirky corporate identity and ephemeral store brands, products that appear, catch your fancy, then vanish forever. Over on Milwaukee Avenue, Fresh Farms Market, with its Polish candies, fresh-baked dark Eastern European bread and juice oranges. Not to forget Costco and Target.
     You'd think that would be enough. Sunday we went shopping at Kohl's, and had to pop next door to Aldi — a chance for my wife to get her shopping done. I'd never gone before.

     Immediately we were confronted with a dilemma. The shopping carts are chained together, requiring a quarter to free one. It seemed too much trouble.

    "Let's just grab a basket," I said, already feeling my humor curdle. Paying for carts? But there were no baskets inside the store. We weren't in Sunset. My wife fished for a quarter, came up empty — who carries quarters? For what purpose would anyone do that? — and a kind woman passing by simply gave her a quarter. They're basically worthless.
     Aldi was new and kinda empty, not enough products filling the void and what they had were off-brands that I'd never heard of. Millville? I'd have left immediately, but my wife declared the prices low, and wanted to walk every aisle, exploring. 

    "Have you no pride?" I muttered, immediately realizing that I have enough for the both of us. I wondered where "Aldi" came from, and later found it to be an abbreviation of "Albrecht-Diskont," a discount grocery chain founded in Germany in 1962 by brothers Theo and Carl Albrecht. It has over 10,000 stores in 22 countries. The place didn't seem very European.

     She picked up tangerines and canned pears and tomatoes and such. While she paid, I stepped outside to take a few photos and examine the cart system. Signs that I hadn't noticed before — I should have, there were two big ones — revealed you get your quarter returned. That was the point. They weren't charging for the carts, they were extorting a quarter from their customers to corral the carts. "You better bring our cart back if you ever want to see your quarter again, buddy." Thus saving on hiring a cart wrangler, like the man Sunset has stationed full time in the parking lot. I watched a shopper return his cart, the quarter poking back out the same slot it had gone into.
     My wife came out with the cart and a small pile of the groceries. No bags. Just like Costco. The no bags situation irked me at first. It seems rude. I briefly contemplated scooping up the groceries in our arms, in order to leave the cart there. But there were a few too many. We'd parked at the far end of the parking lot, away from other cars. We rolled over. I got in and started the car, and my wife volunteered to return the cart. I hit the stopwatch on my phone.

     Two minutes and 50 seconds, to return the cart and come back as opposed to stranding it on the little raised oval of grass next to the car and letting somebody else do it. Call it three minutes. For a quarter. Or, times 20, $5 an hour to be temporarily dragooned as an Aldi cart wrangler. The psychology of the thing was interesting. It obviously worked. The parking lot, empty of carts, while at Sunset they accumulate.
     My wife came back, and told me that after returning the cart and getting her quarter, she again encountered the helpful woman who had given it to her, and returned the woman's quarter, the kind of small human encounter that embroiders life and makes it bearable.
     Still, my wife announced that Aldi would not join the rotation of grocery stores we patronize. Not because of the cart system or the weird unfamiliar brands, but because there weren't enough of them — the store didn't have a wide enough range of foodstuffs to make going there worthwhile. You save money but don't get your shopping done. 

    Editor's note: given the huge reader reaction to a post on Aldi — this was the most read thing I've written over the past 12 months — you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be back. Until then, those who are confused over what is happening here might want to avail themselves to the concept of the Dunk Tank Clown. 

No stupid history, no crime scene kitties

Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin

     What is it about stupid people anyway?
     You can believe the most god-awful nonsense — factually incorrect, self-flattering, steaming kettles of BS — and parade that stupidity around to the delight of your fellow idiots, cheering and high-fiving one another at big rallies, celebrations of toxic dumbness.
     Yet let somebody point it out, let them cough into their fist and mutter, “You’re stupid,” and suddenly the stupid fall to the ground, clutching themselves, declaring their injury to heaven.
     It’s so ... for want of a better word ... stupid. How can some people get upset if you call them stupid when they’re perfectly happy being stupid? It’s a mystery.
     Say your house were on fire — a situation even more dire than being stupid. And I say, “Your house is on fire,” causing you to collapse in a heap and declare yourself insulted, insisting that your house — obviously ablaze before us, thick black smoke pulsing out of the windows — is fine and how dare I suggest otherwise? Rude!
     Who does that? Stupid people, I suppose.
     I haven’t written much about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, honestly, because I still suspect he’s some kind of a sham — a performance art piece perhaps — designed to make Donald Trump look good, between his daft war on Disney and his imbecilic assault on history.
     Maybe you haven’t heard. In its constant quest to make white people feel better, the state of Florida’s No. 1 priority, apparently, is downplaying race when teaching American history.
     Florida’s new curriculum, unsatisfied with presenting racism as a dusty relic of the 19th century, is taking the next step and redefining America’s original sin, slavery, as something akin to high school shop class.

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Central European bike

 

     I've owned two bikes in my entire life.
     As a teen, I had a bright green Schwinn Typhoon, with two large baskets on the back for delivering the Berea News Sun. No idea what happened to it — my mother probably threw it away when I went to college.
     And about 30 years ago, I bought a black Schwinn Cruiser, a transaction I recorded in my book "Complete & Utter Failure" in the chapter on the impossibility of perfection — I bought the bike, wheeled it out of the store, saw that someone had scratched the finish on the bike when affixing the screws holding on the "Schwinn Quality" plate, and took it back.

     It's a lovely vehicle: pure lines. Fat whitewall tires. Perfect to ride to the supermarket. Which I do often. If I'm not picking up too much, it seems silly to fire up the car for the four blocks to Sunset Foods.
     So I bike over the the post office Friday. Stop at the bookstore and Sunset Foods. I'm walking back to the bike and look at it afresh. Why? Maybe I think because I had just read about Schwinn in "Now, When I Was a Kid," a self-published memoir sent to me by its author, Dan McGuire. A nostalgic look at his Chicago childhood in the 1940s, with scatterings of business history.
    "In 1895, on the near West Side of Chicago, Ignatz Schwinn and Adolph Arnold founded Arnold-Schwinn & Co," McGuire writes.  "By the 1950s, one in every four U.S. bikes was built by Schwinn."
     But trouble loomed, and in 1992 Schwinn declared bankruptcy. 

     Or around the time I bought mine.  I wondered if my Schwinn was made in America, or if by then Schwinns were manufactured overseas. It seemed to matter, as a point of pride. Maybe, the thought continued, there is some kind of serial number that would tell me. Maybe I could plug it into some Schwinn fan site online and find out.
    I looked at the logical place for such a number, on the tubular body of the bike, and saw, in quite large letters: "MADE IN HUNGARY." 

     I never saw that notice before.  Not in more than 30 years of riding the bike.
     A reporter is supposed to be observant. Taking in his surroundings, noticing and evaluating. Yet this bit of information was right in front of me, between my legs, and I somehow never perceived it. 

     Maybe because it's not important. Who cares where your bike is made? Well I do, now. And Hungary is an interesting place for a bicycle to come from. Who has a Hungarian bicycle? It's not like we're inundated with Hungarian products.  I wondered if it would be possible to find out how that happened.

    Yes, thank you Mr. Internet.
     "Talking Deals; Schwinn Is Building Bikes The U.S. Way in Hungary" is the headline on the March 22, 1990 article that Google found in a fraction of a second. The article describes a "bustling, high-ceilinged factory in Budapest" Nice.

     Why there?

     "In late 1988, Schwinn wanted to expand its presence on the Continent and was looking for a low-cost way to do that. At the same time, Csepel Bicycle, Hungary's largest bike manufacturer, with annual production of 200,000, was seeking a wealthy Western partner to help upgrade its operation."

    A bike from Budapest. Somehow, that makes it even cooler.

     

Flashback 1994: "Kup Hosts 50th Cruise for Vets"

     Tony Bennett died Friday, at age 96. "The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century," in the words of the Associated Press. A thorough pro with a surprising second act — he is the oldest living performer with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart in 2014, his "Cheek to Cheek" collection of duets with Lady Gaga.

     National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
          gift of Everett Raymond Kinstler

     Of course I thought of the time he stood six feet away from me and sang, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and dug out the story that describes the circumstances — the 50th cruise that Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet held for wounded vets. 

    I didn't mention it — I probably didn't know at the time — but Bennett himself was a vet, having served as a teenager in the U.S. Army in World War II, given "a front seat to hell," as he later described it, and was among the American soldiers who liberated Dachau. 

     Once again, the forgotten men and women gathered. Once again, from lonely hospital wards and modest apartments, they came, on crutches, in wheelchairs and under their own power, on prosthetic limbs and shrapnel-scarred legs.
     All were guests of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet, who on Wednesday, for the 50th year in a row, hosted his Purple Heart Cruise in honor of wounded veterans from American wars both recent and long past.
     "Welcome, welcome," said Kup, shaking the hand of each vet who boarded the Spirit of Chicago, piped aboard by a 25-piece Navy band and given a tote bag filled with presents.
     The ship, escorted by a Chicago Police Department boat and saluted by a quartet of fountaining water cannons from a fireboat, spent nearly six hours cruising Lake Michigan, up the lakefront, almost to Evanston.
     The 600 veterans spent the time eating, dancing, playing cards and remembering the battles they fought in, the medals they won, the wounds they suffered.
     Some of the wounds were readily apparent.
     "I had a grenade blow off my hand," said Joe Kostyk, almost cheerily, displaying his right hand, missing its thumb and two fingers. "It surprised the heck out of me."
     Some of the wounds were harder to see.
     "Post-traumatic stress," said Jerry Gillespie, 45, who served in the infantry in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. "I have the nightmares, the flashbacks. All that. It was a hell of a war."
     Donald P. Blaesing played hooky from his pain clinic to go on the cruise.
     Scheduled to go to Lakeside VA Hospital to seek relief from pain that continues 44 years after he was caught in a North Korean grenade attack, Blaesing, who was dubbed "the human sieve" by hospital workers, instead chose to cruise Lake Michigan.
     "It's enjoyable," said Blaesing. "You meet a lot of buddies."
     "It's great that Kupcinet does this every year," said Steve Glenn, 42, a former Navy avionics man. "All the guys coming back to the alcohol rehab from the cruise last year, they said it was the first time they had fun sober since they were kids."
     The group included one Medal of Honor winner, Richard Bush, who, in the best tradition of Marine heroes, was vague about what he did to win the military's highest prize.
     "I was in Okinawa," said Bush, tall and straight at 69. "I was just trying to do the best I could."
     Not all the talk was of the past. Petitions calling for the military cemetery at Fort Sheridan to be expanded into a national veterans cemetery were passed around for signatures.
     "I got an answer back from (President) Clinton," said Neil Iovino, 76, who spent three years in a Japanese POW camp. He wrote to the president about the cemetery. "He said he'd think about it."
     The highlight of the day was a visit by singer Tony Bennett, who slipped aboard when the ship docked at noon, escorted by broadcasting greats Harry Caray and Jack Brickhouse.
     After signing autographs, posing for pictures and shaking hands, Bennett sang, "I Want to Be Around" and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."
     The day was to thank vets, but as it was the 50th voyage, gratitude was directed to Kup, as well.
     "I'm here to really thank Irv Kupcinet," said Mayor Daley, who went aboard to shake hands and greet vets. "Fifty years of the Purple Heart Cruise shows the type of citizen he is."
     Letters from the president and from retired Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were presented, as well as the Italian American War Veterans' first annual Bob Hope Award.
     "Without Kup, we'd be forgotten," said James Sarno. "Unless there's a war, nobody remembers the vet."

                   —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 28, 1994

Plenty of room in the tent

Kokie Childers

     A friend once asked me to help a sergeant he knew who was being released from active duty with the Marine Corps and needed to find a job. Which can be daunting under the best circumstances. But this particular jarhead was missing part of the left side of his face, including his left eye.
     I wanted to reply, “I can barely keep my own job, never mind get one for anybody else.” But that seemed craven. I said I’d do what I could.
     So I took sarge around, to City Club luncheons and such. We’d meet at restaurants to talk. At one point, I remember sitting across from him, wondering, “Is he getting better? Healing maybe?” Because his appearance, so unsettling when I first met him, now wasn’t as disturbing.
     I immediately realized why. His face was exactly the same as when we met. What happened was, I got used to him. He had become familiar.
     This came back to me last week when an advertisement popped up on Facebook for tank tops from Lululemon, the Canadian lifestyle brand.
     The model was not the standard issue cookie-cutter athletic type seen in such ads, but had large blotches on her face. This is nothing new. Benetton did something similar in the 1990s. Catalogues now have models who are heavy, or trans, or otherwise outside the supposed mainstream. I’m not the first to notice.
     “Classic models are by far more racially diverse,” the Washington Post observed in 2021. “Models are also more varied by ethnicity, size, age and disability ... In today’s fashion ecosystem, an amputee pinup pouts from the pages of a swimsuit calendar and a young woman with Down syndrome stars in a Gucci beauty campaign.”

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No beauty without flaw

     Your phone constantly slides advertisements under your nose as you navigate social media. Most flash by without a second thought. 

     But now and then a pitch gives pause, such as this one, from Hotels.com. I had been looking at airline tickets — I must fly to Phoenix next month, lucky me — and so clearly the algorithm wanted me to stay somewhere while I was there.

     Look at the ad. Does anything pop out at you? Do you see why I paused, thought, and took a picture?
     The dirt. It's like somebody upended a flower pot. Or what seems at first like dirt. On second glance, maybe that's the pattern on some kind of skin rug. It's hard to tell.

    Either way, not quite the pristine hotel room you typically see.
     I have a theory, one I plan to elaborate on in the newspaper Friday: advertisers are deliberately putting intriguing aberrations into their static commercial photos. I've noticed more models with vitiligo, with dense patches of freckles. They not only expand the circle of the acceptable, but they also make the viewer pause, maybe even investigate and buy. Which is the entire point.

    Or am I mistaken?