"An overwhelming and devastating experience"

Syd Jerome

      Monday was bookended with unsettling news. Starting at dawn with word of the shocking looting across downtown Chicago, and ending toward evening with a derecho, a line of powerful storms, sweeping in from the west (I'd never heard the word, "derecho"—it sounded like a Spanish dance, and indeed is Spanish for "straight").
     Businesses already on one knee got hit again: Michelle Durpetti posted a video of herself standing in front of her Gene & Georgetti steak house, vowing to open for business Monday, despite having a window shot out and their office looted. She did. 

     I heard from Syd Jerome, the clothing store I wrote about after the post-George Floyd riot at the end of May. The publicist for Scott Shapiro (son of Syd) Megha Hamal wrote:

     The aftermath of last night’s looting in Chicago has left Syd Jerome reeling. The looting comes at a time when Syd Jerome was already getting adversely impacted by the pandemic and riots in June. Last night’s destruction left us with shattered windows and ransacked shelves, and many high-end clothing pieces and accessories were stolen. This is an overwhelming and devastating experience for us and other local businesses.



     In between, I wrote three columns—that's the good news. The bad news, from your perspective, is that none of them are running here today. The first a freelance piece for one of my satisfied commercial customers. Then two, count 'em, two columns for the paper. Which is not my usual routine—I work Sundays, writing my Monday column, so usually kick back Monday.  My plan was to finish the freelance piece and then try to take it easy.
     But I'm driving to Madison to research a story Tuesday, so called my boss to basically tell him that as far as I'm concerned he could consider me "on assignment" and I wouldn't turn in anything, having to leave early and be gone all day.
     What unravelled my plan was this: I'd gotten some heartfelt, informative, relevant emails from teachers in response to Monday's column. And it wouldn't be difficult to get those together into a column. And the looting, well, somebody ought to write something. So in the process of of bowing out of writing one column, I ended up writing two, which is me in a nutshell. 

     "If you're not in the newspaper, you might as well be dead," I said in my defense, sheepishly.
     As to when they'll run, well, that's above my pay grade. Both could run today, or neither, or one Wednesday and one Friday, or never. One element of my job is the surprise factor.

     Honestly, I'm looking forward to a long drive up to Wisconsin with hot coffee and music to work on one of my custom out-0f-left-field stories. Doing color commentary on the world falling apart in big chunks starts to drain a man.

Hope alone is not a success strategy

     Two questions.
     First, regarding Lebanese officials who ignored warnings about the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse in Beirut: Was it smart to do nothing?
     Were they right to just leave the explosives sitting there? Considering the bother of disposing of 5 million pounds of fertilizer. The cost. And when you’ve gone to all the trouble, what would you have to show for it? An unblown-up city. The same thing they started with.
     Inaction worked, for a while. For six years, nothing blew up.
     Given that, would doing something have been worth it? I’d say yes, but then I am a cautious sort, by nature. Cope with explosives before they blow up, that’s my motto.
     To the second question:
     The Archdiocese of Chicago is sending 70,000 Catholic students back to school this fall, to in-person classes, in the face of the raging COVID-19 epidemic: Is that a good idea?
     Maybe it is. New York City, the largest school district in the nation, seems to think so. Like disposing of explosives, keeping kids at home is difficult, on both parents and children. The former have to care for the latter, or pay for them to be cared for, or leave them unsupervised. Education suffers.

     It could work. Keeping kids in cohorts is smart — rather than changing classes and mobbing the halls, each classroom will be its own unit. Everybody will wear masks, in theory, and when people get sick — as they inevitably will — they’ll go into quarantine.
     The virus, which isn’t under control anywhere, might defer to the authority of the Catholic Church and avoid its classrooms. The famous ruler-to-the-back-of-the-hand Catholic school discipline could keep those masks where they belong.

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Book end

     "Do you have a bookend for me?" my wife asked. 
      We were in the kitchen. Some cookbooks needed to be moved and then, I suppose, propped up.
     "Sure!" I replied, turning on a dime and trotting upstairs to my office. No time like the present! Plus, I'm a sucker for a really good bookend, and as the newspaper office has moved and downsized a couple times, they're always being discarded by my less bookend-o-centric colleagues, and—I am ashamed to admit—I am not beyond lifting a couple out of a rolling bin of discarded office chairs and tangled telephones and law directories. 
    Let's say I have more than I actually can use, tucked in my closet. I grabbed a solid industrial steel bookend that would keep the Gutenberg Bible from toppling over.
      Though heading downstairs with a good bookend, a little daylight entered into that question. Not "Do you have a bookend?" But "Do you have a book end?" 
    I realized—damn!—that I had missed an opportunity. Blown my line, as it were. I did have a book end and a good one. Do-overs are never the same. But I couldn't help myself. The temptation was too great. I arrived in the kitchen. 
     "Ask me again!" I said, twirling the the bookend in my hands.
     My wife, the poor woman, is used to this kind of thing. More than she or anyone ought to be. She paused only a second.
     "Do you..." she began, bracing herself for the inevitable, "have a book end...for me?"
     "I sure do!" I said, grinning. "'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past.'"
     I smiled. "The Great Gatsby." The last sentence. 
     I'm not sure what I expected. Applause maybe.
     She took the bookend and went to see to her cookbooks.

Texas Walkabout: Magic

    The Saturday report from EGD Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey:  

   Abracadabra, what I speak is what I create. That is one definition of the word we’ve heard hundreds of times in our lives, as white-tipped wands wave and bunnies are suddenly pulled from dark and previously empty top hats. Remember those days of miracle and wonder? Squealing with delight when tricked into believing that something lovely and impossible just happened? In the spirit of being live on this earth for a limited time only (this phrase taken from the album name of my favorite yoga singer Krishna Das)—and mortality firmly pressed against the plexiglass partition these days—I am hellbent on grabbing every moment of awe and joy that I can.
     This morning I woke up, put on my battered Birkenstocks and stepped out of my tiny house into a pleasant 80 degree morning (it was 98 by the time I got home a few hours later). Cloud cover made it even less Texas-like and more delightful. It took a few miles before I realized that I did not have to spend any more time entertaining the shitty committee in my head. Walking has been proven to improve vitality, memory, creative expression, and health. I don’t set out on my walkabouts with this in mind. My body just seems to leave the house on its own accord. The boon of job loss, and now working only part time from home, is that I finally have time for such extravagant walks for the first time in ages. After a while my thoughts slow down and I notice ladybugs on tree leaves and orange-beaked waterbirds that were always there but seldom seen in the melee of pre-COVID life.   

      Reality can be difficult. Even in the best of times we face challenges that seem insurmountable. The enormity of our new normal is just starting to hit us. It’s a runaway coal train full of pollution and our world will never be the same. On top of the staggering greatness of the global situation we also have our own personal, day-to-day struggles. Yesterday I received some difficult financial news that pulled the rug out from under me. I felt I’d been slapped or punched and promptly felt the tug of fear and the burn of tears. Right in that moment, a long-lost and now rediscovered friend Tana texted and asked if I was free to Zoom. I cried for a few minutes until she hocus-pocused me with empowering words. I was reminded of my gifts and resilience, and all of the tools and resources at my fingertips to gracefully navigate this obstacle.
     I went to sleep last night feeling better than I have in a while. I hadn’t realized that something I was trying so hard to hold onto was not the right thing for me. Once it was removed from my life I felt more myself than I have in a while. This prompted the energy and time for the 7+ mile walk I embarked on today, where I saw a man climb out of a sub-basement covered in mud with a big smile on his face. I chose to take the route right past the Ney museum (mentioned in two previous EGD posts, Badass Women and Shadow of Death) to get a peek of her majestic castle, which always boosts my spirits and fixes me with its artful power.

     If George Orwell is correct,“thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” Sometimes it's impossible to see a silver lining and feels like a lie to say "I’m okay." But when a brighter path is accessible I am all about taking it. On my walk today I found myself singing "In Spite of Ourselves" by John Prine and Iris Dement, loudly. It felt great and made me laugh. “In spite of ourselves we'll end up a-sittin' on a rainbow against all odds, honey we're the big door-prize.” Then I remembered that Mr. Prine died of COVID and I burst into tears. I sobbed as I walked down a quiet residential street with zero self-consciousness. It was not a self-pitying cry. It was grief. Real grief. Then I remembered that I sang that song with my friend Steve at my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary party a few years back. I tried to remember if we've lost anyone since that party. We have. When will I see my family again? When will I see my loved ones, my lifelong friends? As I write this I realize that they are the meat of my existence. Chicago is in my bones. I will make it back soon, I just can’t say when.

Men have long shunned protective gear

A.G. Spalding

     Albert G. Spalding was a fine specimen of a man: 6-foot-1 with dark hair and a thick mustache. He was also a heck of a pitcher: 47 wins, 12 losses for the Chicago White Stockings in 1876.

     If you read the above and thought, "That's a lot of games" you're right. Spalding pitched 61 of the team's 66 games that season. Most teams only had one pitcher. Spalding not only threw every pitch, but caught every ball, eventually, whether thrown back to him or hit. Unsurprisingly, Spalding’s hands were beat up with “severe bruises.”     

     So Spalding noticed that Boston first baseman, Charles C. Waite. wore something on his hand — a leather glove that matched his skin tone because he was “ashamed to wear it” and hoped fans wouldn’t notice. Men were aghast at the idea of protective equipment. In his 1911 book on baseball, Spalding notes the first catcher’s mask was ridiculed as “babyish” and “cowardly.”
     Spurning personal protective equipment didn’t begin with COVID-19. When you look at the history of PPE, the current uproar over wearing cotton face masks is simple to understand: it’s a guy thing.
     Men take risks. A 2012 National Institutes of Health study found that while toleration of risk has no effect on whether women working on farms wore PPE when spreading dangerous pesticides, it does affect whether men do. Men are prone to underestimate the hazard of any activity and to exaggerate the bother of safety measures, such as seat belts.
     Masks are indeed a bother. Most protective devices are. They diminish the pleasure of an activity: motorcycle helmets and condoms, for instance. Women have an easier time trading comfort for safety: about 60 percent of women wear motorcycle helmets while barely half of male riders do.

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Flashback 2006: Chuck E. Cheese

     Lord & Taylor went bankrupt this week, the oldest department store in America. Ann Taylor—no relation—too. Just a pair of dozens of retailers—J. Crew, J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus—seeking bankruptcy protection in the COVID-19 era.

     Despite popular perceptions, going bankrupt does not necessarily mean going out of business: just the opposite, it's a last-ditch strategy to survive, using a court to keep your creditors at bay while you try to get your act together. 
    So not the end. But not a good sign either.
     All part of our changing pandemic world, with outsized impact because of the emotional factor. It isn't as if most of us want to rush to Lord & Taylor. Rather, I imagine, many Americans have a little knot of associations with these famous names. I still remember cringingly buying a black polyester suit with my mother at Penney's—where, now that I think of it, I worked, in the catalogue department, pairing product with orders, for one extremely unhappy month when I was 17. So a feeling somewhere between "good riddance" and the death of a high school classmate you knew sort of.

     Then there's Chuck E. Cheese. There was a distinct How-Did-I-Get-Here? hellishness to finding oneself in a Chuck E. Cheese, the kind of sudden realization that makes you want to return to infancy and start life over and see if you can do a little better so as not to end up here.
    At least there was wine...

    Though I did have a memorable moment there, on my son's 3rd birthday. I figured I probably wrote about it in the paper, and did. It's from when the column filled a page, and I've left a few of the earlier items on the page, and the original subheads, as a set up and in case you have time to kill. Or you can just jump to the end.

     Speaking of religion's stranglehold on America, I read Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation this week. The brief polemic is well worth the hour or so it took to read, if only for his neat dismissal of the Ten Commandments, which are neither the basis for our legal system nor even particularly moral, at least in the sense we understand morality today (the first four are about the need for religious intolerance).

    "It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail," Harris writes.
     Strong stuff. Though I'm not sure who is supposed to benefit from Harris' book. The supposed audience -- zealous American Christians -- are not known for entertaining heretical ideas. They will certainly dismiss this book as mere prejudice.
     And those who sympathize with Harris don't really need further evidence that the country is in the thrall of our own mullahs pressing their beliefs on the unwilling.
     Still, it is bracing to see reality so clearly enunciated and defended, and to be reminded of just how automatically our culture kowtows to the whims of certain faiths.

FILL THE TIME SOMEHOW
     There is a counterargument that Harris overlooks, and however unlikely a defender of faith I might be, I feel strongly enough to not only point it out, but to label it the Steinberg Codicil.
     It goes like this:

     Life, despite its brevity, is actually quite long, and often filled with tragedy. One must occupy oneself with something, preferably something that offers comfort and meaning. Religion, despite all the harm it does, is no more delusional than a range of other recreational activities, from following sports to engaging in hobbies. Take thimble collecting, for instance. It, too, is based on a tissue of fantasy: the belief that the collection means something, that it is aesthetic, that the thimbles reflect both your personality and a kind of permanence, that they won't just be promptly sold off on eBay by your shrugging heirs. Whether you believe in angels or Charlie's Angels seems a mere matter of style.

     Science, on the other hand, can be cold comfort. For all its innumerable contributions, science has seldom inspired a great painting or an endurable opera. A keen mind such as Harris' can cut faith off at the knees, but he provides no replacement.
     My older son and I are 72 cantos into Dante's Divine Comedy, though neither of us believe in the eschatological system contained herein. We are not reading the Periodic Table. That is not a bad thing. The good news about religion is its grip around the throat of humanity has been relaxing for 500 years. When Harris writes "We are building a civilization of ignorance," it is one of the rare times when he is 100 percent wrong. We are not building it, we are tearing it down. Or trying to.

INSTEAD OF BOX SCORES
     I don't know what clump of neurons have been carrying around "eschatological" all these years, but when I looked the word up, I was a little shocked to see that it actually is the right word for the circumstances: "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment and the final destiny of the soul."
     That makes me feel better about not being able to name a current member of the Cubs. At least I'm using the storage space for something else—whether that something else is worthwhile or not I'll leave to you.

SPEAKING OF DANTE . . .
     Critics of the president have a tendency to see signs of his malignancy everywhere—the hidden hand behind the 9/11 attacks, the cynically tumbling gas prices just before the election.
     I thought I was immune from such folly but, speaking of Dante, I was reading Paradiso to the boy the other night and came upon these lines. A sentiment expressed 700 years ago by Beatrice but also one that could have been uttered by Hillary Clinton last week to rebuff the notion of staying the course in Iraq:

Be faithful—not unreasonably so.
Like Jephtha when he made his offering.
Better that he had said, 'I have done wrong.'
Than keeping faith to do a greater ill.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROSS
     When my elder son—whose 11th birthday is today—turned 3, we held the party at a Chuck E. Cheese's pizza parlor. It was difficult, for me, because I view the place as hell without the flames —the clanging games, the shrieking kids, the horrible animatronic creatures grinding through their limited repertoire of movements. Being there struck me as indicative of my low status in life. Though the place did serve wine, which helped.
     We were at Chuck E. Cheese's because that's where he wanted the party held. I subscribe to the theory that children should get what they want, at least occasionally, particularly on their birthdays. I was rewarded by one of those moments of parental joy that burn themselves in your mind, when your child establishes, to your relief and delight, that he is turning out exactly like you. The Chuck E. Cheese character was making his dramatic entrance, to the unfettered joy of the gathered 3-year-olds. At that moment my son turned to me and said—I swear —"Dad, do you think it's appropriate to have a mouse in a restaurant?"
     This year—and I pass this along, not just to brag, but to give reason for hope to all those currently enduring Chuck E. Cheese or its equivalent—we're taking him and a small group of friends to the Symphony Center for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago's "spooky musical adventure." Yes, I know. I have no doubt that five years from now I'll be writing about his desire to tattoo a winged skull on the back of his neck. But we ain't there yet, and I'm enjoying every millisecond until the inevitable.
       —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Oct. 25, 2006

Military could keep Trump from nukes

     A reader forwarded an article, “The messed up truth about the Louisiana Purchase,” recasting doubling the size of the United States, not as a bargain securing our nation’s future growth, but as a disastrous prelude to more slavery and persecution of Native Americans. Which it certainly was.
     Once again I felt like a kid caught between two battling parents.
     On one hand, you’ve got the Make America Great crew, to whom everything America does now or ever did is already pretty great, because we did it. U.S. history is a series of triumphs leading up to today’s apex of glory, the Donald Trump administration.
     On the other is history as a stroll through a slaughterhouse, where the creation of our country is a blot upon nature, like a bag of wet trash split open into a field of flowers. The United States is half crime, half blunder.
     Thursday is Aug. 6, a key stop in the latter view’s stations of the cross, the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. At the time, 85% of Americans felt it was the right thing to do, to win the war quickly.
     By 2015, approval had shrunk to 56%, though that might be deceptive.
     “If people were put in a situation like 1945, public opinion changes,” said Scott D. Sagan, a political science professor at Stanford. “In a survey experiment in 2017, people were asked: If we were at war with Iran, and the president is given the options of attacking the second largest city in Iran with nuclear weapons, to shock the Iranian government, or continue a ground war where 20,000 American troops die, versus 100,000 people die in the air attack, 60% of Americans support the air attack. Increase the number to 2 million dying from the nuclear bomb and that number stays the same, 60%.”

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