Back to, well, not normal, per se....

     I visited a museum for the first time in over five months —since catching the El Greco show March 9 at the Art Institute. On Wednesday, I stopped by the Chicago History Museum to do some digging in its archive, and left myself some time to see the exhibit of Sun-Times photography. It was like a visit with old friends, not only photographers I had worked with—Bob Black, Robert A. Davis, Bob Ringham, Bob Kotalik (you had to be named "Bob" to shoot photos for the Sun-Times, apparently). Kidding, there were non-Bobs as well: John H. White, Al Podgorski, Rich Chapman. 
     While I was at it, I took in the rest of the museum. That felt very normal, as much as anything can feel normal anymore. Yes, there were more guards than patrons—I counted three museum goers: a couple and their child. But some interesting new exhibits: a look at Chicago design keyed to the 1933 Century of Progress Fair, and "American Medina," a thorough exhibit of Muslim life in Chicago. 

The Pioneer

     

     In the permanent exhibit, they have what has to be one of the key artifacts in both the commercial and technological history of Chicago: the Pioneer, the very second-hand locomotive that arrived here on a ship—since there were no tracks connecting the train-happy East with the train-free Midwest—and chugged west, from Kinzie Street, on Nov. 20, 1848, heading 10 miles to what is now Oak Park, carrying the first men to leave Chicago by train. On their return, one passenger, Jerome Beecher, spotted a farmer driving a load of hides and pelts, negotiated a purchase, and took them back to the city. And so it began.
     It's a miracle the train survived and is here, so small and colorful and cute, compared to the giant locomotives to come. The Pioneer worked for about 25 years, then was tucked away. Someone must have recognized its value; the Pioneer was displayed at both the 1893 and 1933 fairs.
   That was the highlight. The research itself was a dry well: searching for a needle in a haystack that did not in fact contain a needle, at least not anywhere I could find it.  Ah well. If you caught a fish every time you dropped a hook into the water, you'd eat well, but what would happen to the joy of fishing?

Dems manage not to screw up convention, yet

     If Republicans gambled their souls that they’d be able to control Donald Trump and lost, forfeiting everything they once valued, Democrats seem committed to beating them by doubling down on who we are and what we represent.
     That’s a bet I’ll take.
     Because if we’re gonna lose, let’s lose wagering on our best selves.
     If the United States of America is really going to deal itself four more years of tinpot demagoguery, conspiracy craziness and whoops-somebody-broke-it incompetence — don’t kid yourself, Donald Trump is still president and presidents usually get re-elected — Democrats can comfort ourselves that, at least on the first night of their 2020 national convention, we bet on who we are.
     In a display of messy inclusiveness, the typically marginal and dispossessed were shoved front and center. Those who still, despite everything done to them, insist on believing that America becomes great, not because of a slogan sewn on a hat in China, but by doing great things.
     Yes, being Democrats, we stumbled out of the blocks Monday night.
     “Eva Longoria?” I thought, settling before the TV. “Why am I seeing a ‘Desperate Housewife’?” For a terrible moment, I thought we had stolen a page from the Republican playbook, and she would Vanna White us through two hours of politics as reality television.
     But Longoria radiated dignified conviction, or at least a good imitation, and soon the screen was broken into a Brady Brunch grid of pledging, singing faces, then cut to a prayer to Jesus — which I suppose we can let pass. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
     This festival of inclusion seems a pre-emptive counterbalance to next week’s Republican “It’s a Small, Small (White) World.” It’ll be interesting to see, as the convention unfolds, if this is indeed a tone-setter, or a one-off, something gotten out of the way. Whether the message continues, or is the convention version of the old schedule-the-public-policy-program-at-5-a.m. Sunday gambit.

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Flashback 2011: Neither snow, nor rain, nor Congress . . .

     While I don't want to suggest that the Donald Trump era is anything other than a flaming swan dive into unprecedented widespread disaster, it isn't as if we didn't cope with these issues before, to a lesser degree. The government certainly was busy kneecapping the postal service long ago, while President Clownshow was still hosting "Celebrity Apprentice."

     I'm passing this along to offer some background, and as a nostalgic look back at when folks still worked downtown and bumped into stuff, a dynamic I fervently hopes returns very soon, along with good government and an operative mail system.

     Like you, I didn’t think much about it when the U.S. Postal Service announced it might need big cuts.
     Who gets mail anymore? When was the last time you got a letter you were eager to read? Junk mail, bills — we pay most of ours online. The volume of first class mail has dropped 25 percent in the past four years.
     Sure, people feel residual affection for the local postman, whose job harkens back to an era when there was a milkman and a butcher and a baker and a candlestick maker.
     But postal carriers (I’ve always disliked that term; PC, sure, but it makes them sound as though they’re transmitting postalosis) are like Congressmen: you have affection for your own, but as a group they can go hang.
     Then I turned a corner this past Tuesday and saw 500 postal workers gathered in front of the Thompson Center, a crowd of zippered blue sweaters and sensible shoes.
     I might have kept going, but they seemed to be chanting to reduce funding to their own retirement health care. That made me pause.
     In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, designed to increase the post office’s flexibility. Tucked in was a provision forcing it to fully fund its retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, which costs the postal service $5 billion a year; another payment was due Friday. In the past it borrowed — this one it missed.
     Now a bill, HR 1351 — stalled in our gridlocked Congress — would end the obligation to fund health care for employees the service might never hire and audit the situation.
     “We don’t want no handouts, we don’t want no bailouts,” said Sam Anderson, president of the Chicago branch of the American Postal Workers. “All we want is our money.”
     The postal service has about 600,000, down 110,000 through attrition. Earlier this year, it floated a report suggesting the work force will have to be decreased “more aggressively,” according to Chicago district spokesman Mark Reynolds.
     “It suggested we need flexibility in terms of layoffs to stay alive and hopefully profitable again.” Layoffs would need Congress’ approval, which is pending, in the form of HR2309, which would allow the postal service to void its union contracts, fire people at will, close post offices and contract delivery.

     “It would destroy the postal service,” said Mack Julion, president of the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
     It would also be a kick to the struggling African-American middle class. The protesters at the Thomson Center were overwhelmingly black — Julion estimated that some 70 percent of letter carriers in Chicago are African American. This potential impact is one area where management and unions agree.
     “The postal service has been a gateway to the middle class for generations of Americans; my grandfather used to work for the post office,” said Reynolds. “When the American economy sneezes, the black economy catches a cold.”
     “It’ll hurt,” said Julion. “It is a very diverse workplace.”

     The unions insist that, without the funding obligation, they would be profitable, to the tune of half a billion since 2006. Eliminate the funding requirement, problem solved.
     Not so simple, says the postal serivce.
     “The unions believe if we get money back we’ll be fine, that we don’t have to reduce delivery [to] five days and close retail units,” said Reynolds. “We don’t believe that. We want long-term legislation to address operational ability. We could save $3 billion a year by going to five-day delivery.”
     The post office is a national resource, and to simply let it fall apart seems risky.

   “We’re still important because, No. 1, everybody isn’t online and everybody isn’t going to be online,” said Reynolds. “No. 2, we deliver everywhere. We serve the bottom of the Grand Canyon, we serve people living on summer cottages in Lake Erie islands, we do it through rain and sleet and snow — that’s 150 million delivery points we service. When the post office was created 200 some odd years ago, the notion this would bind the nation together, as the nation has grown we have continued to fill that purpose. We are additionally the straw that stirs the drink of a trillion-dollar mailing industry. Two of our biggest customers are UPS and Fedex — they’ll deliver packages to local post offices and we take the packages to the customers. America still relies upon the postal service and we still want to be here for America.”
     The future, though, can’t be chanted away.
     At the rally, a reader from Indiana came up to say hello. I asked her why she was there. “I got an email telling me about it,” she said.     
               —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Oct. 2, 2011

Fresca’s back! Mystery of its absence solved

     Hooray! Fresca’s back, Fresca is back. At least back at the Jewel in Northbrook. In liter bottles, at first, and now in the way God intended: cans.
     And no, I did not clear the shelves. The sign said “Two for $4” and I limited myself to two of the big green plastic bottles and then, on my next visit, two 12-packs of cans. Why deny others the joy of slugging back that cool, grapefruitish non-calorie beverage?
     For those whose attention has wandered — understandable, between raging pandemic and erosion of every institution and value Americans once held dear — it was late June that I hesitatingly asked: “What happened to Fresca?”
     That column exploded. I heard from frustrated Fresca drinkers all over the country.
     “I couldn’t find it anywhere in/around Sacramento CA and even called the local distributor who gave me no information, no call back, zero,” explained Rebecca Weaver.
    “Here in the Dallas, Texas area, my husband and I covered a 20-mile radius searching for it,” commiserated Jamey Garner-Yeric.
     “After a fruitless search today in Charleston, SC, I found your article on the internet,” wrote John Shilling.

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Jim Thompson, dead at 84

     

     Back when there was such a thing as a liberal Republican politician, James Thompson was the GOP’s rising star.
     “Big Jim” — he stood 6 feet 6 inches — was Illinois’ longest-serving governor. The native Chicagoan was elected four times and served 14 years. Though the most popular governor of the past half century, talk of his running as a Republican candidate for president in the late 1970s was scuttled in part by his strong convictions, beliefs that he refused to abandon merely to achieve his lifelong dream. 

     “I still believe that a reasonable pro-choice position is not only right but is a majority view of my party,” he once said. “But it’s not the majority view of the people who control my party.”
     Thompson died Friday, according to his wife, Jayne Thompson. He was 84.
     As a zealous federal prosecutor in the early 1970s, he sped the collapse of Cook County’s Democratic machine. Early in his career Thompson helped put one Illinois governor in prison and toward his career’s end he worked tirelessly and in vain trying to keep another out of jail.
     As governor, Thompson spurred construction of more highways and prisons than any other governor — he needed those prisons to house all the inmates incarcerated after he pushed through Class X mandatory minimums in his first term.
     Thompson expanded McCormick Place, fought to keep the White Sox in Chicago when the team was practically on a plane to Florida, and built the $173 million salmon-and-blue Loop government office building later named for him. He also supported legislation that cleared the way for what would become the United Center.

     To do all this, however, he had to raise taxes — the largest increase up to that point in state history — which caused his popularity to suffer in his last term, particularly after he arranged for the legislature to double his own pension.

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Texas Notes: Redheads

Trionfo Di Virtu. Libro Novo, 1563 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     As a fan both of poetry and of writing that sets you in a particular place, I especially enjoyed today's essay from Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey.

          I picked up a clumsy log 

          And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

          I think it did not hit him…

          And immediately I regretted it.

           I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!

           I despised myself and the voices of my accursèd human education.

          And I thought of the albatross,

          And I wished he would come back, my snake.

          For he seemed to me again like a king,

          Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,

          Now due to be crowned again.

          And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords

          Of life.

          And I have something to expiate:

          A pettiness.

                                                                      —Snake, by D.H. Lawrence

     Living with scorpions isn’t so bad. The night I moved into a house in the woods I noticed one of the little buggers crawling up my new bedroom wall. I screamed bloody murder and ran and told my sister that she couldn’t possibly leave me there—I’d have to move back into her home where I’d been living.

     It was settled. Being the stoic one, she calmly said “I’ll take care of it,” and she did. Once it was gone she heartlessly left me there, alone. I may or may not have slept that night. This was back in 2016 when I was still a wimp. After three and a half years of living in a heavily wooded lake community outside of Austin, I mastered the art of living with these heretofore dreaded arachnids. Other fun and frequent victors were pinkish transparent geckos, arthropods of shapes, sizes, and breeds new to me, beetles—ok, giant tree roaches to be honest— and even a couple of red headed centipedes. My own little menagerie. 

     My friend Vivian and her husband John visited from Chicago once, the night of the Cubs big win a few years back. When we got home I remembered that I’d neglected to shake out the sheets and check under the foam mattress that rested right on the floor. They said “oh no, don’t worry about it! It’s late.” I insisted. My heart leapt when I saw the first telltale sign. A scorpion’s molt under the blanket on the top sheet. Vivian said “oh! Looks like the skin of a scorpion.” Yep. I knew what that meant. “Let’s lift the mattress up,” I said. “Oh no, we’re fine,” they said, not wanting to put me out. “I insist,” I said as I raised the mattress off the floor to see the little guy scurry quickly away. I propped the mattress up and grabbed the nearby glass jar and piece of cardboard one must always have handy in homes like this. I caught the little guy and escorted him or her outdoors and my job was done. I hope they were not too freaked out.
     I learned that as long as you don’t stick your hand in a dark place without checking first and you shake towels, sheets and blankets out, the chances of getting stung are rare. Even if one did sting you it might hurt quite a bit for a while but would heal up rather quickly. Scorpions do not prey upon and attack humans, they only react if startled. Dangerous scorpions are not endemic to Texas.
     I’d run around the house catching geckos in said jar while they briefly joined me as roommates, and escort them gently outside. They were cute as heck.
     The first time I saw a wolf spider in the kitchen I must admit I jumped. When I learned that they are harmless and quite beneficial in eating up the small insects they catch, I left them alone. I’ve heard it said that spiders dwell in the homes of kings, so I take them as honored guests. I learned to identify the violin pattern and extra set of eyes on brown recluses, and luckily never saw one.
     The cutest were the jumping spiders with their big eyes that seemed to watch me. Turns out they are able to see very well since their eyes act like telescopes. They hear well via sensory hairs that take in vibrations, and they sing and dance to woo their mates. Who would kick a jumping spider out? Not me.
     The roaches have such a bad rap that even I, lover of creatures small and large, had to help them find the door. They are not hard to catch as long as you are committed. Some of them fly, so hunting and catching them sometimes involved tall step ladders, patience, and a very quick hand to pop the jar over them and slide the cardboard over the jar while the fast and furious mini armored submarine tried to wriggle its way out. When their long antenna would get caught in the struggle and become casualties I’d feel bad, but hopefully they were able to sprout some new ones once they got back to their homes in the trees where they belong. 

     One day I ran the water to warm it up for a shower and went to grab a towel. When I got back to the tub I beheld a magnificent being. It’s long purple body was partially stuck in the drain, and it’s countless yellow legs were moving the speed of light, trying to break loose. It’s head looked like a mini lobster with long curly tentacles. I went to the kitchen, got the tongs, and gingerly removed it from the drain to a table on the back porch. I thought it was a goner since it looked like a drenched noodle. I left it there, took my shower, and by the time I got back outside to check on it, it was gone. I told my neighbor about it and she scolded me. “Never let one of those go! You should have killed it.” It was a red-headed centipede and can grow to the size of a large man’s forearm. It’s sting is incredibly painful and it can do damage to small pets. I also learned that their favorite meal is scorpions. I wonder what kind of ecosystem I’d destroyed by escorting this guy outside?
     I’m now tough as nails when it comes to critters of the arthropod and small reptile variety. The next frontier will be snakes. Wish me luck.

Field is famous, but Ward’s legacy echoes

"Spirit of Progress" atop former Ward's Building.  

      History is not fair. It does not dole out fame in strict proportion with significance, but instead assigns it haphazardly, based on eye-catching flourishes.
     For instance. Most Chicagoans know Marshall Field, the department store founder whose namesake flagship State Street store became a beloved icon. Field didn’t originate the idea of a department store, he perfected it, forging cherished personal memories for many Chicagoans who made pilgrimages in December to ogle fabulous Christmas windows.
     But the truly revolutionary Chicago figure, whose legacy outstrips Field’s though his name is more remote from public memory, is a clerk who worked for Field: Aaron Montgomery Ward. It was Ward who, in mid-August, 1872, printed out a single sheet of 163 items for sale and mailed it to farmers. Ward created the first mail-order catalogue.
     We forget how revolutionary Ward’s business really was. People at the time had trouble wrapping their heads around it. The Chicago Tribune denounced Ward, editorially, as an obvious crook. “Beware! Don’t patronize Montgomery Ward & Co. They are deadbeats!” the paper warned Nov. 8, 1873. Beside the impossibly low prices and suspiciously wide range of goods, the company “retired from the public gaze,” with no roving agents or actual place of business. What was that?

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