Walk the dog

   

Kitty

     "I can't walk the fucking dog."
     Spoken in a kind of amazed, compressed, staccato anger. "I can't ... walk the ... fuh-king ... dog!"
     Late December. The occupant of the White House bracing himself in the doorway of the Oval Office, leaving claw marks in the lintels, howling about stolen elections. The Last Lie. And the biggest, and most damaging.
     As if that weren't bad enough. Our little dog Kitty hurt her leg. Running figure eights around our living room, pure enthusiasm, unaware of political developments. Adding injury to insult.
     She had needed a bath. Because her coat had gotten too long. Because there is a global pandemic and getting the dog groomed seems a thing that can be put off. Because I had administered the dog bath, and set her down, and she did her yippee figure 8s, and I let her because, well, she's been doing it for a decade and maybe it would help her dry off, encouraging the evaporation process. So it was sorta my fault, when she let out a shriek, and came up limping, her little back right leg curled up. Hurt. There was nothing to do but pat her and stroke her and let her rest.
   "We'll see how she is in the morning," I said. But that night, about 9 p.m., gently scooping her off our bed, intending to take her outside, she let out a yip of pain, and we hustled her to the animal hospital instead. Because I'm not going to go to sleep and leave the dog in pain. They gave us some doggie aspirin and told us to see the vet in the morning. Probably a torn meniscus. $225 please.
     "Like Derrick Rose," I said, exhausting my Bulls knowledge.
     We took her to her regular vet the next morning. Probably a torn meniscus—x-rays are pointless, since they wouldn't show the ligament. Have her keep off it as much as possible—no long walks. No stairs. Another $225 please.
     We blocked our stairways off—our house has four levels—with broken down paper boxes.
     I would carry her down the front steps of the house, a half block to one of her favorite spots. And this is the heartbreaking thing. She wanted to go. Go go go. Pulling the leash. Wanted to do our usual walks. True grit. 
     Dogs are heroes of routine. It broke my heart to see her surging forward, all determination, her little back leg curled up.
     "She can go as fast as three legs as she can on four," I marveled to my wife.
     I worried about her. About having to drop $5,000 on dog knee surgery. About not being able to walk her for two months. She'd get fat. I'd get fat. It seemed the final indignity. I can't go to the gym. Or restaurants. Or see friends. Or travel. Or see my parents. The country is dissolving before my eyes and NOW, I can't ... walk... the ... fuuuuuucking dog!"

      It seemed too much. And a reminder that distant abstract woes, no matter how enormous, do not register the way small private ones do. I'm sorry that 450,000 Americans have died in the past year, and try to use that fact as a rag to stuff in my mouth whenever I feel inclined to complain about anything, which is often. But nothing sliced through this whole COVID nightmare like watching that 15 pound bichon-shihtzu mix powering forward, its little leg back right leg curled up, useless.

     But time passed. I carried that dog up and down the street, scooping her up after she did her business, imagining my neighbors tisking and tutting from behind their curtains. "That strange old man is carrying his dog again. He must have completely lost his mind. They say he drank, you know."

     And then after a span of days—four, five, a week, two, hard to say now. Less than a month—she started tentatively putting her weight on her right rear foot. A few steps at first. I sobbed, I'l admit it. Briefly, out of relief, and joy. The leg works, and it's getting better. Thank you thank you thank you.

      And it has. Two months in, she never curls it up. She boldly powers through what we call the "used ta" walk—the walk my wife used to take with her before she—my wife—got her current job. Eight blocks round trip. About a mile. The spheres returned. Things go wrong, but things get better. If you let them, if you listen to the vet and crumble the little cylinders of joint herbs into her food and are patient. Recovery is possible. You never know how precious ordinary life is until it's yanked away. Someday I'm going to be sitting in that Thai restaurant on Madison Street, as the waitress slides my beef and broccoli before me and shake my fists in exaltation and cry out, "Yessssssss!" But not yet. You just have to wait.

Texas notes: Dark Knight

    I've been to a number of vegetarian spots around town, from Blind Faith to the Chicago Diner to Raw, and I've never run into ... well, I'd better let our Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey tell it.

 

    Karyn’s Fresh Corner was a vegan raw food restaurant that had a longer run than any such establishment in the country— located right on Lincoln and Roscoe in Chicago. Back when I truly treated my body as a temple and was ultra careful about what I put into it, I tried the raw vegan food thing for a while. Karyn’s was a mainstay for me. Raw nut breads, elixirs, and salads so fresh the veggies sometimes walked off the plate.
     For my graduate school party at the 95th in 2002, the chefs went above and beyond to meet my preferences. They prepared plates of vegetables and legumes arranged in colorful complex patterns. I received special dispensation to bring my own dessert. Of course I chose one of Karyn’s delectable pecan pies, sweetened with dates. The crust was made from soaked and sprouted nuts that were ground down into a flour.
     She opened Karyn’s Cooked in River North in 2003 and I was thrilled. It’s not easy to get highly palatable, fresh vegan food and she had it down. (Sadly, they closed in 2016 but I recently found out that Karyn began a pop-up vegan spot at Jam on Kedzie last year).
     When The Dark Knight came out in 2012 my then-boyfriend and I took the Brown Line to the Chicago stop and took the short walk to Karyn’s Cooked around the corner. It was a hot night and the air conditioning welcomed us.
     After we had ordered our enchiladas and polenta, and shot a couple of immune boosting potions, we chatted and drank pink hibiscus tea. Suddenly the whole place stood still. I watched as my boyfriend and everyone else who was facing the door stared, frozen; their eyes popped out of their heads and their jaws dropped.
     I turned and understood. Two women were walking in, one more tall, elegant and beautiful than the next. Each of them wore platform shoes that gave them five or six more inches of height. I wondered how they could balance?

      They strutted over to a small bar I had not noticed earlier. It had two bar stools and was facing a mirrored wall. The best seat in the house. A handsome dark haired man wearing salmon colored skinny pants was their chaperone, and this was before skinny pants had really hit Chicago. I decided he must be Italian.
      A man ran over with a third stool and placed it under the bottom of the woman who had not yet been seated at the bar. I thought “it must be nice to look like that.” I said to my boyfriend, “I am sorry but I will be staring at them for a while.”
     I drank them in. One of the women had long flaxen gold hair with thick braids creating a frame around her face. She was wearing a black bra top, à la Madonna, and a pleated silk skirt the color of butter. A gold medallion of a lion’s face casually hung down from the waist line on a piece of black ribbon. The other woman’s hair was equally impossibly blonde. She wore a dark green and burgundy damask mini skirt with pine trees and deer, the type of material you might see used as upholstery in a log cabin upstate New York. Her top was a black concert midriff tee shirt tailored carefully to look ripped just so. Chanel?
     I whispered to my boyfriend: “do you think they are dominatrixes?”
     When we got up to leave something took over me, like a cartoon character floating through the air towards the aroma of freshly baked pie. I beelined to the bar. Up close I could see that the women were wearing so much makeup that it seemed they were unable to make any expressions with their faces. When they laughed I heard tinkling sounds come out and their mouths moved a little and their eyes shone, but everything else was fixed in place.
     I said “I just wanted to say how beautiful you are.” The man slapped his salmon thigh and guffawed, looking incredulous for some reason. I did not miss a beat— this was not about him. and I just had to know more.
     “I’ve never seen anyone dressed like this in Chicago. Maybe in Milan or Vienna, but not here.” They thanked me and giggled. The medallion lady was wearing black shoes with white polkadots and miles of a platformed sole underneath. She said “thank you. They are Jeffrey Campbell,” whatever that meant.
     I had a couple more questions. “So I know you don’t live here, and I know you both must do something interesting in your careers. Am I right?” Braided blonde looked at her friend and now both were laughing in a pleasant way. “You’re right. She lives in LA and I live in New York. I’m a singer and she’s a musician.” I said “well, thank you for making my night,” and headed towards the door.
     I noticed that a very large bald man and my boyfriend were talking and the bald man looked unhappy. When we got outside into the sultry night air my boyfriend looked at me and said “well. While you chatted up Lady Gaga, her bodyguard was trying to get me to go over there to get my ‘wife’ to leave.” 

      “What did you say?” I asked. He said “she’s not my wife and I don’t tell her what to do.” (What a cool guy). Then it hit me. “That was Lady Gaga? Wow. What does she sing again?” He asked me if I was serious and I was. “Poker Face?” he told me. “Oh my god! I love that song!” I said as we danced down the street heading to a movie in much simpler times.

Sky’s the limit for new science museum chief

Chevy Humphrey in front of the Burlington Zephyr at the Museum of Science and Industry

     Forgive her office, Chevy Humphrey says, gesturing to the clutter of plaques and paintings, sculptures and awards, covering tables and propped against the walls.
     “It’s a mess, because I’m just moving in,” says the former head of the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix. “I worked 22 years in a basement. I didn’t have windows.”
     She does now, windows big time. Or rather, one enormous mullioned semi-circular window, oh, 20 feet high, looking out of what was once the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World’s Columbian Fair, and for nearly the past century has been repurposed as Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive.

Chevy Humphrey

     Humphrey is the MSI’s new president and CEO, and the first Black woman to hold that post. She arrived on the job in mid-January, her work cut out for her, professionally and personally. To get the MSI, shuttered like most everything else worthwhile by the COVID pandemic, back open and running, visited by streams — whoops, make that properly masked and socially-distanced individual raindrops — of awestruck visitors. And, at the same time, to adapt herself to a new climate, region and city after a lifetime — she’s 56 — in the sunny Southwest.
     Which leads to the first, obvious question: How could a person leave Arizona in mid-winter and come to Chicago? What were you thinking?
     “You know, it’s hard to leave my family and my team, but this was the right job for me,” she replies. “I’ve worked my whole career to be at this iconic institution, and when the opportunity came, I had to jump on it. I’m leaving a beautiful grandson, and my daughter. When I first got to Phoenix, 25 years ago, just me and my daughter, I didn’t know one person. I took a pay cut because I knew I wanted to be a CEO of a non-profit organization. I wanted to give back. I couldn’t do it in Texas, so I moved to Arizona.”

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Flashback 1998: What a way to make dough

The Cohen Brothers (Sun-Times file photo)

     Many years ago I was a card-carrying member of the Division Street Russian Baths. While taking the heat, men tended to converse, and I found myself talking with Terry Cohen.

     "What do you do?" I asked. He said he owns the Maurice Lenell Cooky Company.
     "Oh," I said. "I'd love to visit."
     "You can't," he said. I asked why.
     "The machine we use to make pinwheels, it's proprietary. We wouldn't want our competitors to find out how it works."
     "How about this," I suggested. "I'll come visit. You don't show me the machine, and I'll promise not to describe it in any way, and between my not seeing it, and not writing anything about it, your secret will be safe."
     That worked, and I got to visit, and taste a pinwheel warm off the line, surely a highlight of my career. The story, which came to mind earlier in the week, when Carl Swede wrote complaining that I'd dissed his native land, hasn't been posted before today. But with Lenell out of business since 2008, and everyone trapped in an eternal present, I figure we could all use a visit to a cookie factory.

     Like a liberating army, they come.

     Relentless. Unstoppable. Up to 10 million a day.

     As many as five production lines sending forth neat, geometric rows, 16 to a row, marching from the giant ovens at the rate of one row per second into a world hungry for their arrival. Hungry for their comfort. Hungry for cookies.
     You know their names: Pinwheel. Jelly Star. Almonettes. And those are just the most popular of some two dozen varieties of cookies baked each day, two shifts a day, at Harlem and Montrose in Norridge, at the Maurice Lenell Cooky Co. plant.
     Yes, that's "cooky" with a "y," for reasons obscure. "That's the way they spelled it on the incorporation papers," says Wayne Cohen, Maurice Lenell president, whose father, Sonny, bought the company in 1987.
     Like many cookies, the distinctive small, hard, sugary Maurice Lenell cookies originated in Scandinavia.
     Many of the recipes used at Maurice Lenell today were brought to Chicago by a trio of Swedish bakers—Gunnar Lenell, his brother Eric Maurice Lenell and their partner, Agaard Billing—who started the company at 3352 N. Milwaukee in 1937. The company moved to West Belmont Avenue in 1940 and built the current Harlem Avenue plant in 1956.
     A big moment for Maurice Lenell came in 1954, when its advertising firm, Isker & Adajian, designed the company's distinctive logo of a boy in a cookie jar. The cost was $150.
     Maurice Lenell doesn't advertise much anymore, though the company was featured in a local Chevrolet commercial in 1996. It advertised more in the 1950s and 1960s, sponsoring early TV shows from Chicago, and its radio ads, with folk singer Win Stracke, were familiar to many Chicagoans.
     By the 1980s, however, the company was sagging. The Stracke jingle was gone. Sales were flat, and the third generation of Maurice Lenell owners was shopping for a buyer.
     "They weren't too interested in running the company," says Cohen, who was raised in Skokie and went to Niles High School. "We grew up in the bakery business. I grew up with these cookies; there are a lot of positive memories. It is our responsibility to carry on the line the way we remember them so other people can enjoy it."
     The cookies are made in 1,500-pound batches, in massive Peerless mixers with rotating paddles. Bulk ingredients such as flour and sugar are piped automatically into the mixers; other ingredients—baking soda, salt—that kitchen cooks add by the pinch are added at Maurice Lenell with big scoops.
     After mixing for 10 minutes, the three-quarter-ton clump of dough is forced through strips of die cutters—outlined like stars or circles or crescents—and onto a conveyer belt. Adornments— sprinkles of sugar, the red jelly center of the stars—are added just before the cookies roll through the 100-foot-long ovens.
     The jelly sits in a long, rectangular trough that rocks above the conveyer line as the raw cookies pass underneath. The jelly-application process is surprisingly loud; BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! the device goes, the gallons of jelly jiggling and undulating as neat gobs of crimson are placed at the center of each star-shaped cookie.
     The raw dough takes about 20 minutes to become a finished cookie. The conveyor belt has occasional gaps to let crumbs fall through.
     A stroll through the factory plunges visitors into and out of wonderful smells: zones of almond, areas of hot sugariness, whiffs of vanilla and complex aromas that defy description.
     Cohen has owned the company with his older brother, Terry, since their father died in June. The Cohen brothers—and there is no way to say this politely—both have prominent bellies, a fact not entirely unrelated to their business. Asked about quality control, Terry Cohen merely pats his stomach and smiles.
     "Everybody is involved in quality control," says Wayne, who adds that the cookie that really catches people's interest is the Pinwheel. Unlike most mass-produced cookies, the Pinwheels differ from cookie to cookie. In some, the chocolate and vanilla doughs are loosely swirled, much like a yin-yang sign. In others, they are tightly swirled like, well, a pinwheel.
     "Making them is very labor-intensive," says Wayne, who stopped a photographer from taking pictures of the Pinwheel manufacturing. "It's a secret process. We had to have the machinery custom-made."
     About 200 people work at the company, many of them hand-packing the cookies in little corrugated paper cups. "It keeps the cookies from breaking and makes a nice presentation," Wayne says.
     "Our job is to make sure products are the same today as yesterday and past generations," Wayne says.
     The only innovation on the horizon is a 2-ounce pack of cookies, which will be introduced early this year.
     A decade after going through hard times, business is booming.
     "In the last six years we've gone from predominantly a Chicago company to shipping all over the United States to now shipping all over the world," Terry says. "We're one of the largest family-owned bakeries in the U.S."
     Spread of Maurice Lenell cookies over the globe might someday end one of the more distinctive Chicago traditions.
     "People stop by to pick up cookies on their way to the airport to visit relatives," says Terry, referring to the popular Maurice Lenell factory store where prices are rock-bottom. "When you leave home, it's like getting a piece of Chicago brought to you."

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 1, 1998

History isn’t here to make you feel good

     The mistake people make about history is to treat it as a crutch to prop up their sagging egos. It starts in childhood, when kids meet a parade of airbrushed heroes. But you grow up, or should, and the pretty story learned in second grade must become a jumping-off point, the branch you fly from, toward the stars of what actually occurred. 

     To stay on that branch, preening your feathers, is to risk ending up an affirmation junkie, able only to process another hit of flattery.
     And we know what that looks like.
     In September, Donald Trump denounced as a “twisted web of lies” the simple reality that racism is baked into the crust of our American apple pie. He created the 1776 Commission to promote a happy gloss of American history to help his supporters feel better about themselves.
     But before we sluice away the plagiarized slop that Trump’s commission squeegeed together, since this is Black History Month, it might be worthwhile to wonder if the inclination to sugar-coat the past is limited to unreflective white folks.
     It is not.
     Which is too bad. Because once you break free from the need for history to lick your hand like an affectionate pup, you are primed for a clearer understanding of what went on back then and, as a bonus, what is going on now and what might occur in the future.
     For example. The election of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, is generally presented as a seismic breakthrough and triumph. The power structure that previously served up an unbroken chain of 41 white mayors bowed its head and deferred to the rising might of African American Chicagoans as manifested in the personhood of the joyful “Here’s Harold!” Washington.
     Pretty to think so.

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Something about Sweden

Metropolitan Museum of Art

     The mail has been filled with fine distinctions lately. This exchange doesn't require any explanatory set-up. 

Mr. Steinberg;
     Me Again, that Medill kid who sat behind you saying newspapers exist to preserve democracy.
     “I have no particular interest in seabirds, the Baltic Sea or Sweden,” you wrote recently.
     Well, you just knew that would come back to haunt you. I view it as your cleansed version of Trump’s “shithole countries.”
     What a slight on my ancestors!, who created a large part of the “built environment” you now park yourself in before spreading your carbon footprint on the Metra run to suburbia. Back in the days, WTTW says, Swedes built Chicago.  

     Then, your recent column on poetry and politics further revealed your anti-Swedish bias.
     How could you totally ignore a fellow Chicagoan: one of the greatest, a three-time Pulitzer winner (how many on your shelf?) named Sandburg who espoused social justice long ago. He had a few words to say about Lincoln.
     This is more than a mental fog arriving on little cat feet. I bet you’d be first in line to rename Sandburg Village in today’s cancel culture, claiming Sandburg had a thing against barbers.
     There must be some anti-Scandinavian prejudice at work here; otherwise how can you explain denial of a guy whose politics certainly would resemble yours.
     I won’t go into Walgreen and some of the other Swedish ancestry notables who graced your fair city. You’re probably a CVS shopper anyway.
     I bet you think Andersonville was named for Anderson Cooper and that you never set foot in Ann Sather’s restaurant, or the Kungsholm for that matter!
     Next, like those in San Francisco, I suspect you’ll call for the renaming of Leif Ericson Academy on the West Side, claiming he was no more than a Viking plunderer.
     Makes me think that “You Were Never in Chicago.”
     Thank God, or Odin, that WTTW can set you straight.
     I suggest sampling the Ann Sather sticky bun recipe provided below and then engaging in some remedial history while watching You Tube videos of Burr Tillstrom and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, another great Chicago Swede.
     I won’t go into a discourse about Sweden itself: You can freshen up on the Nobel prize, Volvo, Dag Hammarskkold, Olof Palme and Astrid Lindberg and the mystery writers Stieg Larsson etc.
     If I were you, I’d start with Vilhelm Moberg, “The Emigrants,” who wrote about the Swedish diaspora to the US, a topical subject today.
     Hard to understand that a fellow who makes a career on knowing Chicago was so dismissive of its Swedish heritage.
     Hope to see you June 22 at Swedish Days in Geneva.
     Stay healthy and don’t get carjacked. 

     Carl Swede

     Not his real name. The last name, that is. His real first name of course is Carl. I might have pointed out that I not only have read Dag Hammarskkold's diary, but also owned a Volvo. But, manfully resisting getting into particulars, I replied:

     Dear Mr. Swede:

     I hope you're joking. But in case you're not, I would draw your attention to the word "particular." I said, I have no particular interest in Sweden, which you, again assuming you are, alas, in earnest, manage to conflate into some kind of slight. As if you expect, no demand that everyone be especially interested in all things Swedish. Why? It's a big world. Why not allow Sweden the average amount of interest given to other Scandinavian countries?
     I think my point is made. Just in case you are serious—email is a cold medium, and it can be hard to tell—would you mind if I ran your letter on my blog? They might also tend to not give the Elongated Country its full measure of attention, and I believe it would enlighten and educate my readers.
     Thanks for writing.

     This is the point where people usually vanish. But Carl replied, and while you might want to bail out here and go about your business, cutting and pasting takes a moment, so I'll run the correspondence out, with his reply.

     Well, yes, you can run it with the following understanding.
     This probably will be the closest for me getting a byline in the Sun-Times (yes, I know it’s not part of the paper).

     My Dad, rest his soul in Evergreen Cemetery (87th & Kedzie) would be pleased. He was a Sun-Times reporter covering Stevenson and Eisenhower campaigns in the ‘50s and was an early Nieman Fellow.
     1) I’m not on Google Docs or whatever the others writing emails to you use. I don’t want my email address used, just sign it Carl Swede, please. No city.
     2) Yes 93 percent of it was written with my tongue in cheek, or aquavit in throat, but there is a kernel of truth that’s as topical as today’s news about Charles Blow calling for a new black diaspora to the South by blacks to build a critical political mass.
     Mine goes to the loss in Chicago of a vibrant ethnic community (Swedes) now all but forgotten, thus the sensitivity.
     Swedes, when the Chicago story is told, deserve more than your description of the “average amount of interest given to other Scandinavian countries.”
     Gone are the groceries, clubs, bakeries etc. replaced by a museum in an awkward Andersonville location with ever-diminishing connections to Swedish culture. What’s Swedish about Swedish Covenant Hospital?
     Where did all those Swedes go? You can say that about many ethnic communities.
     Like Blow’s nostalgic call, what would it take to bring them back, or those who ran the now-lost Jewish deli, Italian gelato shop or German bakery?
     What have we lost by this loss in our urban fabric? By keeping these communities, does that mean we’re keeping others out?
     Yet we all crave getaways to Holland, Mich., or Frankenmuth, or Solvang, Ca, or Bishop Hill to capture those cultures. But when we arrive, we find ourselves in a romantic time warp with tinsel having no connection to today’s culture and politics in Sweden or whatever country.
     If we were presenting truthfully Sweden today, we’d need a strong Islamic presence and a bow to the Chinese owner of Volvo.
      3) Thanks for pulling your finest Chuck Berry on me. He had “No PARTICULAR Place To Go.”
     4) If you do use it, I hope to invoke Swedish Mrs. Olson, remember her?, and that we can meet at your location, central or suburbs, for a cup of coffee. This isn’t an onerous request because I’m 2200 miles away, and won’t be there for many months.
     Now that you know that my contribution was partly in jest using you as an opportunity to vent, I hope the offer to run it still stands.
     It would go well with a photo of an unshorn Sandburg or Tillstrom with Kukla Fran & Ollie.
    Best,
    Carl Swede

Most important Black History Month ever

 

     Timothy Thomas Fortune was a New Yorker. But don’t hold that against him. Nobody’s perfect, and he faced challenges greater than ours: Born into slavery in Florida in 1856, he moved to New York, where he spoke and wrote — he edited Booker T. Washington’s autobiography.
     In 1890, Fortune gathered 141 delegates from 23 states to Chicago on “the free soil of Illinois” for the first meeting of the National Afro-American League, an early civil rights organization. Fortune gave an impassioned speech, trying to move his audience to action.
     “Apathy leads to stagnation,” he said. “It is a narrow and perverse philosophy that condemns as a nuisance agitators.” Those who stand up, he said, are in fact essential to establishing their people as proud, free, equal and valued American citizens.
     Fortune saw a different path than history took: He thought the violence America used against Blacks ought to be met in kind: “The arsenal, the fort, the warrior are as necessary as the school, the church, the newspapers and the public forum of debate,” he said. “It’s time to fight fire with fire.”
     Were I a teacher, I might ask my class to discuss whether Fortune’s strategy would have worked better or worse in the slow crawl toward attaining the rights the Constitution hints all Americans deserve.
     That isn’t why I picked Fortune to kick off Black History Month. But for what he said when listing the reasons for his organization. The first is: “The almost universal suppression of our ballot in the South.”

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