No wrapping paper for YOU!

     The wife and I popped into Target for some last minute essentials, including scotch tape and wrapping paper. The store had lots and lots of wrapping paper, and we hurried down aisles lined with red boxes crammed with the stuff at the way reasonable price of $3 a roll. Neither of us had to tell the other what we were looking for, and not finding.

     "Maybe the penguins are supposed to be Jewish," I ventured.

    Not that the wrapping paper was heavily Christian. "Joy" surrounded by a pine wreath. A shark in a Santa hat. It wasn't like they were Three Wise Men Adoring the Christ Child at the Manger paper. But still harkening back to a holiday other than the one we were celebrating. 
     My wife said perhaps they had Hanukkah paper earlier in the season but were cleaned out. But Hanukkah begins on Christmas Day this year, and there would be no reason that Jews would clean out Target while the store groans under Christmas paper five days before Christmas. Hoarding against changes in society? I doubted that. My thought was that we just didn't clear the bar anymore, as a body of customers. They don't sell wrapping paper aimed at the Shakers either.
     "Jews are only 1 percent of the population," I said.

     Or maybe Target's wrapping paper buyer is a 28-year-0ld who went to Oberlin College, who struck us off the list to light a candle for Gaza.
     Gauging one's status in society from the holiday wrapping paper sold at Target is either invalid or inspired. It's probably a better gauge, not of them, but of us. Of unease. Between Israel's reaction to Oct. 7 becoming the oxygen-laden whirlwind that stoked every spark of anti-Semitism into a brush fire, and that person who glided back to the presidency on thick ooze of bigotry, there are reasons aplenty to be uneasy.  The Jews aren't in the crosshairs, yet. But prejudice is practical — it oppresses whomever it can get away with oppressing.

     Liberals get slammed for being inclusive — we kept accepting trans people, it freaked out a chunk of the traditional Democratic base, and they voted for a liar, bully, fraud and traitor instead. There is sense lurking there. In 2016, British people were so worried a Turk would move next door that they left the European Union, shitcaning their whole economic system. Half the country is stretching to include everybody in one big happy family — well, not Jews, of course, thank you Gaza. We don't get a booth on the quad on Oppressed Peoples Day. And the other half is scanning the horizon, looking for someone to beat up. Not Jews, yet. But our number does have a way of coming up.

      On Friday, Elon Musk, dissatisfied with being the shadow president elect in this country, entered German politics as well.

      "Only the AfD can save Germany," Musk wrote to his 200 million plus followers on X. AfD is The Alternative for Germany, the racist, far-right party. Or, if you're in a rush, Nazis. I haven't deleted my account, yet, but I haven't posted there in weeks. I went on and unfriended Musk. Striking a blow for equality. So now he has 208,299,999 followers. Progress.

     Target did offer a quite attractive snowflake pattern wrapping paper, in wintery aqua rather than Christmassy red, and as that wasn't tied in with the celebration of a faith not our own, we bought some.

      For me, it isn't so much fear — I really don't think I'll be strolling down Michigan Avenue this spring, admiring the clouds, when a bunch of grinning jackbooted Red Hats will surround me and pluck out my beard, or force me to scrub the street with a toothbrush. Though the prospect comes to mind easily enough. It happened before.
 

Saturday guest: Bob Katzman Didn’t Disappear Forever

      Saturdays are a day to sleep late, kick back, and let the gears of modern life grind without you for a few hours. As someone who works continually, I like to offer the Saturday slot of EGD to worthy writers who cross my path. Today we feature an essay from a Chicago stalwart who will be known to many of you, Bob Katzman:

     I am that Chicago guy from long ago. Your parents or grandparents knew about me, if you are under forty.
     Maybe if you are old, you may remember my original 4x4 foot wooden Bob’s Newsstand which opened in Hyde Park in 1965 when I was 15, to pay my tuition at The University of Chicago Lab School.
     I ran away from a terrifying, violent home at 14 and had to rebuild my life somehow.

"You weren't kidnapped, were you?" I 
I asked after Bob sent this photo. He 
was illustrating how to fold a paper.

     I grabbed the chance to open a newsstand. I was a good enough carpenter to build it, using tools inherited from my Byelorussian-Jewish grandfather Jacob, who was a carpenter in Chicago.
     That tiny shack eventually became an international newsstand, with 3,000 world periodicals, famed across America with five stores across Chicago. One of the five was that now-vanished newsstand at Randolph and Michigan atop the IC steps, on the north side of the old Chicago Public Library, now a landmark.
     The five stores employed 55 employees at its brief peak, and as Fate turned on me, the stores closed one after another, with the original Bob’s in Hyde Park being the last to go. Turning out the lights in that place was for me the beginning of two years of damning unemployment. No one would hire a former entrepreneur. Many told me, I would leave them the minute I had “two nickels to rub together.” My former fame turned into an anvil.
     I got two jobs, regular jobs – horrible jobs with dress requirements, the worst being after meeting with a head-hunter whose blind ad I’d responded to, and I was hired to manage, of all things, a limousine company.
     But at the end of my tortured year there, through an old friend, I was hired, then bought the old Europa Bookstore at Clark & Belmont. It was a dirty, shabby place; a dimly lit store carrying cheaply printed paperbacks from Europe in five languages. But after 17 years in business, it had very few customers.

     I figured out what to do with it, now Grand Tour Bookstore, adding bright lights and air-conditioning. It had 100 language-learning systems, thousands of travel books from 150 countries, 200 world flags, foreign candy, imported cigarettes, international newspapers and magazines. Then I got this idea: Printed coffee mugs that would say, “Kiss Me I’m Greek”, etc. It was easy to find Irish mugs like that, but what about Kiss Me, I’m Ethiopian? Queer? Lithuanian? Luxembourgian?
     That idea, unique in America, became mugs about 70 nationalities. I sold thousands of them. Then I made matching buttons and T-shirts. Everything sold. I received publicity and my sales tripled.
     But then came the Black Death for bookstores, from the east. The giant chains rolled across the country killing 5,000 independent stores, including mine, there from 1988 to 1994. At 44, I felt damned. Now what?
     After some scrambling among childhood friends, I acquired enough jack to open a 600 ft. back-issue magazine store at 6400 W. Devon. This grew and grew and grew and then became Magazine Memories in Morton Grove. 5,000 sq ft with 150,000 old periodicals and newspapers back to 1576. 30,000 old posters.
     I ran it until cancer cursed Joyce, my fine wife of 40 years. At 66, I closed my last store in Skokie in 2016. I cared for her for 13 months. Joyce died in 2017.
     Long before all these parts of my life happened, I’d always been a writer, a poet beginning in 1958, at 8. I should mention that between 1951 and now, I’ve had 42 surgeries. As I grew older, my sometimes emotionally wrenching experiences gave birth to story after story – never any fiction.
     Then after brain surgery – twice — in 2004, I was terrified that I’d lose my memory.
     A lifetime Chicago friend, Rick Munden, told me to write down my extraordinary life story.
     When I protested to him, “Who would care about my miserable life?”
     He responded, “Many people are like you. They too have fallen down, then gotten back up, no matter how hard their struggle. Like you, they never gave up.” I was stunned. He offered to pay for printing my first book. This led to book after book after book, selling 7,000 of my first four books from 2004 to 2008. Some first editions of them are still available.
     Neil Steinberg kindly gave me 800 words. I am now 74. Quite forgotten. I’ve completed 25 new books. With my amazing wife Nancy, I created a cool website. I’ve written about Chicago corruption, fighting back against bullies, child abuse, love, sex, Judaism, cops, friendship, Queer rights, anti-Semitism, my Deli-Dali Delicatessen, how to create a store, and more. My Facebook site is Bob Katzman. I’m also a speaker for hire.

     E-mail robertmkatzman@gmail.com Contact: dontgoquietlypress.com

Tales from the propeller beanie trade

Charlie Wheeler

     Charlie Wheeler was walking south on Rush Street Tuesday morning as I turned the corner from Chicago Avenue, heading north toward the Newberry Library. On his head was a gray beanie with an orange propeller. For all the cartoons I've seen featuring guys in pinwheel hats, I'd never had the chance to actually speak with one before. The exhibition on the influence of immigrants on printing in Chicago would have to wait.
     "Do you mind if I take your photo for the Chicago Sun-Times?" I asked.
     Wheeler did not.
     He is 68, from Crown Point, Indiana, and has been in the propeller beanie business for six years. Before that?
     "A little bit of everything," he said.
     How does one get into the pinwheel hat trade?
     "Somebody gave me a baseball cap," he explained. "I don't wear baseball caps — the visor gets in the way. So I removed the visor and looked at it a minute."
     Inspiration struck.
     "And then I thought, 'Oh, no! I know what that needs,'" he said.
     The typical pinwheel beanie, Wheeler said, is a shoddy affair. His creations sell for $40.
     "There's a very high-end hat," he said.
     Juan Bolanos came hurrying over, a big grin on his face.
     "Are those for sale?" he asked. Wheeler admitted they are.
     "I usually charge $40," he began, slipping into his salesman's patter. "But as you seem to be a working-class guy, I'll take 25% right off the top, bringing it down to a paltry $30."
     Bolanos, manager at Devil Dawgs across the street, laughed.
     "You don't have a solid black color?" he asked.
     Wheeler did not.
     "These things are hilarious," Bolanos said. "I love it."
     "This is the closest I have," said Wheeler, producing a two-tone gray.

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Flashback 1999: Cranes lift city's profile

Atop the future Park Hyatt in 1999 (photograph by Robert A. Davis)

     Stories can resonate for a very long time. More than 25 years after this was written, I stopped by the Park Hyatt Hotel Tuesday and had a friendly talk with the front office manager, collecting information for an out-of-left-field follow-up that will run ... at some point in the indeterminate future. 

     In our conversation, I mentioned having been on a tower crane atop the building while it was being constructed. I assumed that this article had been posted before. But it hasn't. Which is surprising, because I remember reporting it so clearly — how could you not? Particularly the moment when I suggested to ace photographer Bob Davis that he needed to climb into the little car that held the tower crane's hook lowering mechanism, have himself run out to the end, and shoot the crane operator down the length of the boom. Normally the hardiest of collaborators, in my memory, in this one instance, Bob demurred, wordlessly handing his $2,000 motor drive Nikon to me. What could I do? It was my idea. I climbed into the open car, held tight to a metal bar with one hand and to the Nikon with the other, and was shot out to the tip of the crane. That much I expected. Then the operator swept the boom in a wide arc out over the street, 700 feet above Michigan Avenue. Not a moment that leaves a fellow.

    Enough preface. The following piece is 1300 words long, almost twice the length of a column today. I hope it merits the time it takes to read; this is my favorite kind of story, filling readers in on the fascinating details of something they've seen many times and perhaps wondered about.

     The view between Mike Femali's feet will cost condo owners $1 million or more when they finally move into their luxury suites atop the Park Tower after it is completed next year.
     But for Femali, the view is not only free, he's being paid $29.60 an hour to look at the sweeping panorama from the top of Water Tower Place to the coast of Michigan on a good day.
     When he has the time.
     "It's beautiful, but to tell you the truth we never have time to even look at the view," said Femali, a veteran tower crane operator who at the moment is working 700 feet above the street, ferrying concrete panels to the roof of the new hotel; condo high-rise going up just west of the corner of Michigan and Chicago.
     These are boom times for cranes. The red-hot downtown high-rise market has brought a flock of them to roost, like their namesake birds, upon the growing steel skeletons of buildings citywide.
     "This is the most I've seen in 10 years," said Bill Tierney, vice president of Imperial Crane Services in Bridgeview.
     "There's still more going up_that's the unbelievable thing," said Mike Regal, Midwest sales manager for Morrow Crane Co., the nation's largest supplier of tower cranes. "They'll probably be 30 to 35 tower cranes in downtown Chicago by the end of the year."
     Morrow, based in Salem, Ore., has 450 tower cranes and rents them throughout the world. They're not cheap, ranging in price from $600,000 to $4.5 million for the largest models. Most construction companies rent them, though that isn't cheap either, costing up to $70,000 a month. Crane rental, erection and operation can add $1 million to the cost of a building.
     Like wine auctions and $750,000 one-bedroom condos, cranes are a sign of a robust economy.
     "Cranes are usually a pretty good indication of how the construction industry and the economy is going," said Don Sheil, of Gatwood Crane Services in Arlington Heights. "Five or six years ago you'd see maybe one or two on a rare occasion. Now you go through the city and see a dozen, 15 of them."
     There are two basic kinds of crane.
     Tower cranes are fixed — they either sit on top of a building, or are anchored three or more floors into the structure rising around them. They rise with the building, "jumping" several stories at a time through a complicated process in which the crane is jacked up with a hydraulic ram and new sections inserted. Other tower cranes rise alongside the entire length of the building.
     Mobile cranes, or crawlers, are more common and cost less to rent. They can lift heavier loads, but obviously not as high. They'd never reach, for instance, the top of the 67-story Park Tower.
     They also take up room. A construction job, particularly downtown, is a headache of logistics. Even if a crane would be large enough to reach the top of the Park Hyatt, the city would be loath to shut down Chicago Avenue so it could sit there for months and months while the building was going up. Atop buildings, tower cranes are not in the way.
     They also are safer. By law, tower cranes must "weather vane," that is, be free to spin into the wind, 360 degrees, when not in use. While the cause of the crane collapse at Illinois and Rush hasn't been determined, the long, non-spinning booms of crawling cranes take more stress from winds because they can't swing.
     That's sometimes a problem when it comes to tower cranes. Across the street from the new Park Tower is another hotel, the Peninsula, which is just starting to be built and will rise 25 stories above the Ralph Lauren store at Michigan and Chicago. One large crane in the center of the job might be cheaper to use. But because it couldn't reach all the way around the building and still weather vane without hitting the apartment building to the west, two smaller cranes are being used.
     Like every other of the 18,000 crane operators in Illinois and parts of surrounding states, Femali belongs to the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, based in Countryside.
     "I've been in the union 30 years," he said. The biggest change has been the pumping of concrete on construction sites. Cranes used to haul concrete up in large cauldrons.
     Femali's crane — made in Germany, like most big cranes — can lift 22,000 pounds. To try to lift more is an invitation to pull the crane off the top of the building. Cranes today use special sensors to automatically refuse to hoist anything too heavy. "It shuts off," Femali said. "These cranes are smarter than their operators."
     Crane accidents are rare but not unknown. One man was killed at the LTV Steel Co. plant in 1996 and another seriously injured when a crane dropped some roofing material on them. A concrete bucket once fell to the street during the construction of Water Tower Place. When 900 N. Michigan was being built, the heater in a crane cab caught fire. No one was hurt, but firefighters watched helplessly from the street while it burned.
     The most significant recent accident occurred in Milwaukee in July, when a 567-foot crane lifting a section of roof onto the Brewers' new Miller Park stadium collapsed, killing three workers and delaying the opening of the new ballpark.
     Even when hauling a load within limits, the end of the crane (called the jib; the part at the back is the counter-jib) can dip three feet.
     "That tightens you up a little bit because you might think it's not going to stop," said Jim Miller, assistant to the president of Local 150.
     Also scary is the occasional lightning strike.
     "We all get hit by lightning," said Femali. "It's loud. But you don't feel anything. It's all grounded."
     The hardest part about the job is that, most of the time, the operator can't see what's happening on the ground below and has to operate the lift by hand and radio commands.
     "Every time you move a load you could hurt somebody," Femali said. "Working in the blind, you don't know what they're doing down there. You have to have competent people down there — it can be stressful."
     They work in teams of two, an operator and an oiler who makes sure the bolts are tight and lines are lubricated.
     There is a lot of winking dismissal of oilers. "It's just a union thing," Regal said. "In some places it's not required."
     But oilers allow the operator to take breaks, and they play an apprentice role.
     "One of the primary things is training," Miller said. "The oiler can get to break in as an operator of the rig. Otherwise, there's no real way to get on-the-job training."
     It is an odd sort of job, but those in it tend to stay. Mike Femali's son is an operator. Ken Doogan, 49, has been one for 32 years.
     "My wife thinks I'm crazy. My twin brother wouldn't come up here," he said, standing on the windswept counter-jib of the north crane of the Park Tower. "But you should see the sunrises. They are beautiful."

     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, October 17, 1999

Kennedy calling for study of polio vaccine isn't skepticism, it's rejectionism

 

     Study! I love to study. A pot of coffee, a comfortable chair and a deadline that isn't today — nothing makes me happier than to dive into a subject, stacks of books around me, obscure databases on the screen. It's perhaps the most appealing aspect of my job.
     One day, I'm digging into the circumstances behind Oscar Wilde's famous line about the Water Tower ("a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it" — not a quip, as commonly described, but premeditated provocation). The next, I'm exploring solar eclipses (if you are ever stumped as to where helium was first detected, remember helios is Greek for "the sun," where the gas was noticed spectrographically during an eclipse in India in 1868).
     So study is good. However. I also know that "study" can be a code word for wanton dismissal of facts that don't serve your personal narrative, and I'll give you an example. If someone says they are studying the Holocaust, trying to determine what really happened, then you can be sure you are not dealing with a scholar, but an antisemite. Your immediate answer should be along the lines of: "Well, I hope your 'study' involves reading a few of the thousands of meticulously documented books outlining the precise enormity of the crime, you odious bigot. Sticklers for bookkeeping, those Germans were. Fifteen minutes in a library should lay it out pretty clearly."
     With anti-vax advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. up for the role of secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, whose spine occasionally stiffens before going soft again, warned that nominees hoping for Senate approval should "steer clear" of undermining the polio vaccine.
     Prompting a classic weasel response from Katie Miller, RFK Jr.'s transition spokesperson.
     "Mr. Kennedy believes the Polio Vaccine should be available to the public and thoroughly and properly studied," she said.
     Proper study! What a good idea. Let's look into it! How about taking 1,349,135 children and submitting them to a blind trial at 244 test areas around the country, with half getting the cherry-red vaccine, and half a placebo, or nothing. Then we'll really find out if this vaccine is any good.
     Oh wait, we did that. In the spring and summer of 1954. To this day, it's the largest medical experiment in United States history. Thousands of doctors, nurses, principals, teachers, parents and other volunteers banded together, working for free — the government wasn't paying because that smacked of socialized medicine.
     Gosh Neil, you might ask, being yourself an inquisitive sort, just like me, why did thousands of doctors, nurses, principals, etc., all supposedly with busy lives, drop everything to help run this giant medical test for no compensation? Possibly because polio was scything through their children: more than 57,000 cases in 1952, with over 3,000 deaths. A child could be healthy at breakfast and dead by dinner. That catches the attention of the neighbors and dials up public spiritedness.

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International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago.

"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

Laocoon and his Sons, by Francesco Righetti (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

     "Their reward for enduring the awful experience was the right to tell about it," J.K. Rowling writes in her novel, "The Casual Vacancy."
     And in that sense, I'm blessed to have a newspaper column, since my dire downs — and happy ups — can be whipped into a wordy froth and spooned to the public. Those without such an outlet sometimes write to me, and Monday's adventure ordering coasters and shoelaces inspired a number of readers to share their consumer travails — including several whose woes involved subscribing to the Sun-Times. Those I tried to help. And since I've got this maw every goddamn day to fill, I thought I would share John F.'s ordeal:

     As a regular reader I can sympathize with you on your recent foray into the world of AI and the shoelace incident. It really hit home as I reflect on my recent encounter with Comcast. Not long ago, Comcast lost the NBC Sports Channel. I know you are not a big sports guy so in case you did not know (I'm sure you do) was the home to the Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox.  
     Originally, there was no price adjustment to customers for losing local professional sports in a major market while they negotiate with a new channel similar to the Cub's Marquee network. To date, these negotiations are still ongoing in spite of the fact that promises were made that a solution would be announced by the end of November.

     Meanwhile, Comcast decided that they would offer customers a rebate backdated to the date when NBC Sports went off the air. It was to be just over $8/month. I received the first rebate of just over $6/month on my bill but nothing for the first 2 months so it was not backdated as promised. Add to that the fact that next next bill did not include the rebate so I was right back to the higher rate.

     This is where the AI part comes in. It is virtually impossible to get a live person on a phone with Comcast. Instead you are directed on line to a 'live chat'. I am assigned an agent with what sounds like a human name attached to it. After typing in, at length my issue I am greeted with "rest assured that I am the person who will take care of your issue". Fasting forward, It took four hours and a total of five 'agents' each of whom promised that they were the 'person' to take care of my issue. Each time I was promised that the new agent has reviewed my chat so that they would be able to pick up right where I left off. Needless to say, with each new agent I had to start from Square One. During that time they offered me a new deal that would cost an additional $5/month while still not providing local sports. I chose to reduce my service to the lowest level where I would lose some channels but save me $30/month. This was negotiated on 11/18.

     Then came my next bill which not only did not include the discount for the Sports Channel issue but it reverted to the original price for the higher tier programming. So it was back to the 'live chat'... It turns out that because I have auto pay to save $5/month, that bill which was generated on 11/16 to to paid on 12/12. They claim that that is why the bill was for the higher rate. The bill did show that my next bill would have the corrections for the original issues which included the missed credits and lower programming tier ($151 down from the new rate of $188). So my current issue was that the bill I received for $208 should have been $188). This time, it only took three hours and two agents so I suppose that is an improvement. I was promised that my next bill will have the additional credit and will be $115 as this was negotiated prior to the autopay billing date.

   Had I not called to fix my issues, I wonder how many other people out there who do not have hours to wait on-line end up overpaying. By the way, if there is a local Comcast brick and mortar store it is a waste of time going there for billing issues as that is above their pay scale and they'll just direct you to the 'live chat'.

     Life was so much easier when you could get an actual person the phone. Good luck with your shoelaces.

     

Ordering stuff online is a depersonalized process, until it isn't.

These new Pisgah Range shoelaces had to brave the aftermath of Hurricane Helene to get to me.

     Do you care that a person wrote this?
     If the same column were spat out by a machine, would you read it differently? Would you read it at all?
     I'm not sure.
     We are nearing a time when algorithms can tell a story. Maybe even a good story; why not, since it's scraped from every other story ever written?
     So expect even more thrilling thrillers. Steamier romances. Funnier comedies. Who'll care they were composed in .002 seconds by a computer? The important thing is there is no author to pay.
     Still. AI doesn't replace a person, yet. Not to me anyway. I've had several unexpected human encounters in the anonymous electronic churn of online commerce and am grateful for them.
     First, I had some post-wedding business to take care of. My mother wanted to give a gift to my younger son and his new bride, and since she no longer navigates the online world, I volunteered to do it.
     On their wedding website, I selected a set of lovely coasters and was directed to someplace called Scully & Scully. I took my father's credit card and made the purchase. Lovely embroidered pink elephant coasters. No new household is complete without them.
     A day went by.
     The phone rang. "Scully & Scully" calling. The person on the line pointed out the address where the gift was to be shipped — our home, since the happy couple was honeymooning in Mexico — and the address on the credit card didn't match.
      A security issue. I tried to explain — it wasn't my card but my father's. I was authorized to use it. That didn't fly; the order was canceled.
     The next day, I phoned Scully & Scully, thinking to remedy the situation, and ended up with Carol Tytla, in the registry department. And here is where things got strange — several phone calls were needed to finally get those coasters on their way.
     And at one point, Carol and I were just talking, chatting like friends — about weddings, our lives, what sort of store Scully & Scully is. Like Neiman Marcus? I wondered. No, she said, more like Gump's. Oh, I've been to Gump's! I exclaimed. In Dallas. My sister lives there ...
     Suddenly, I worried Carol might get in trouble. I'd hate to get the woman fired. She said, no, things were quiet at the bridal registry department. Scully & Scully, at 59th and Madison in New York City, is an old school kind of store.
     "Mr. Scully is here every day," she said.
     That seemed worth investigating.

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