"Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack."

 

     Change is hard. I get that. As one ages, slip-sliding faster and faster down that greased chute toward the tomb aka life in your 60s, it can be difficult to distinguish between a development that is an unacceptable deterioration, and something that is simply new and different.
     Take a look at the new Sailor Jack, the mascot for Cracker Jack, above. I was trucking through Sunset Foods Friday and it stopped me in my tracks. He looks ... what? Like some 1940s tough who didn't make the cut for the chorus of "South Pacific." Crudely drawn, the dog with that same cross-eyed look that is the mark of bad cartooning. Maybe I was unduly attached to his predecessor, the cool blue stylized Sailor Jack at right, windswept, confident, snapping a smart salute, smiling serenely. Look at what he used to be. And then look at this slack-jawed jerk. Is this an improvement?

     Our city does have a dog in this race. Cracker Jack is as Chicago as deep dish pizza. More. The company started in 1872 by a German immigrant, Frederick W. Rueckheim, part of the army of profit-minded entrepreneurs who raced here after the Great Chicago Fire.            He had a snack cart, and opened a shop at what is now Federal Street. He sold popcorn, peanuts and candied molasses, and for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition decided to combine them all in one concoction, which he called Cracker Jack, the story goes, when a salesman sampled it and said, "That's crackerjack!" a slang superlative at the time.
     Ruckheim put his 3-year-old grandson and his dog on the box in 1916, and the boy died, at 7, in 1920. His image was on his grave at St. Henry's Cemetery, but someone pried it off. 

     A big deal? No. Looking closer at the New Jack's right hand, it's almost as if he's flipping the bird to the customers, something Borden began doing when they replaced their actual toy prizes with crappy little booklets and stickers that no proper child would want, a practice current owner, Frito-Lay continues. Yes, to avoid choking lawsuits, but you can choke on a peanut too, and they still include them, or did, years ago, when I last bought a box. They famously skimp on the peanuts until the public complains, and they slip a few extra in.
     Oh well. It doesn't matter, right? Nothing matters. If it's any comfort, the mascot used to be even worse: look at the red-cheeked monstrosity they once used. It's amazing the product survived at all. They'll change him again, someday, maybe even for the better. That does happen. Rarely.
     Cracker Jack has the best product placement of all time, inclusion in the deathless 1908 anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." You'd think they'd get this kind of stuff right. And maybe they do. Maybe the new, idiotic Jack image is in perfect harmony with our current, idiotic times. Maybe I'm the one out-of-step. I'm open to that possibility.

Ravenswood Notes: Savoring

      A good writer channels the zeitgeist, the tone of the times. With August ending and the summer winding up, I detected a certain nameless sorrow in the air, which Caren Jeskey names in her post today.

          Willow Poem

by William Carlos Williams

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.

     We came across an enormous fallen weeping willow on the Northwestern University Lakefill in Evanston. Even laying down, her presence was mighty. Then it sunk in. She’s dead and will never come back. It seems so many things are slipping through the fingers as easily as grains of dry sand these days. Or has it always been this way, and the fact that I am aging, along with the shadow of death that shrouds us is tinting my lens towards a sense of inescapable loss?
     On my morning walk I was crossing Lawrence and Leavitt with the permission of the little white glowing person in the traffic light box. Suddenly a white Jeep SUV decided to jump into the bike lane, pass the cars waiting to go east on Lawrence, run the solidly red light, and come a foot or two from hitting me. His windows were down and the driver, a young man, looked over. Our eyes briefly locked. He may have shrugged. He didn’t miss a beat, and continued barreling down the street. Other drivers held their hands up and shook them in dismay in my direction as a gesture of solidarity. My next thought was “I could have just died.” 

     The other day my brother— who moved away to the glistening West Coast before he was 20— commented “looks like we’re going back to the bad-old days in Chicago.” He was referring to the peak of murders in the city in 1974, when the number hit 970. A quick Google search shows that we are, in fact, going in the wrong direction. We had 506 murders in 2019 and an uptick to 774 in 2020. A crying shame.
     I am loath to admit I have not been feeling very safe since my return to Chicago in May. I almost never feared for my life in Austin where I lived for seven years. It felt so good to know that the chances of a random act of violence towards me were slim to none there. Here? I’m not so sure.
     I used to traverse the city with wild abandon, and those days are over. I find myself being hyper-vigilant, whether walking or driving, especially since I am usually alone. I have been harassed countless times on my walkabouts, which is to be expected. That’s just what a lot of guys do when women are alone.
     Yesterday a man biked past me on the sidewalk, way too close, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He turned and said hello. I held a “don’t mess with me” look on my face and immediately crossed the street where there were a few other pedestrians. I looked back in his direction to gauge my safety. He had stopped his bike in a driveway and was looking back to find me. Ha ha. I was gone. He quickly realized I had fled and he sheepishly biked away.
     Ever since I was a kid growing up in the city I’ve had to be very savvy about my safety, and as a result I have only been assaulted by strangers twice. The first time in the '90s at the Belmont red line the guy managed to grab me. I knocked his hand away and used my voice to bellow at him. Fortunately there were cops with dogs downstairs and he was promptly arrested. My father came to court with me and the guy got community service, plus time-served. I hope he cleaned up his act after that, but who the heck knows.
     The second time was near Foster Beach, and fortunately I had just taken an Impact class and knew what to do. I got away. When he was arrested a month later after a friend and I spotted him at the lakefront, I learned he had 18 previous convictions for assault on his record. He did not show up to court so continued to roam the streets.
     I stay away from local news these days because whenever I read it I become more scared. Carjackings, shooting on the expressways, and other crime seems to be out of control right now. I just hope that you, me, and everyone we know remains unscathed. Additionally I plan to use my voice and ballots to affect change in any way I can.
     I kept walking away from the runaway Jeep on Lawrence after the near-miss, and found myself in a field of trees. I ducked under the canopy of a healthy willow tree, and the world felt right. I found bright orange pinecones and a prairie grass trail. I saw vibrant mushrooms popping up around tree trunks, and got a second cuppa joe at one of the plentiful and tasty coffee shops in the area. I bought some meatloaf and a Sprite for the guy who lives on the bench near me.
     Women in Afghanistan are being terrorized, humans seem to be such a threat to each other, and I feel helpless in so many ways. I realize how easy I have it, and I am grateful. I will continue to find beauty where I can, and stay focused on continuing to create a meaningful life during my limited time here on the planet.

‘Food Americana’ has the goodies we love

     The setting, an unadorned wood table in a tent next to a parking lot. No plates, the food came in cardboard boxes. Service consisted of setting down a tray holding our order. Still, we were in heaven. I bit into a St. Louis rib at Smoque BBQ and my brain let out a squeal of joy so distinct I could almost hear it. I pulled the rib back and regarded it, agog. I almost kissed it. It was that good.
     “Oh ... my ... God,” I said.
     The United States has lately been marinating itself in shame and incompetence. A plague rages while our fellow citizens retreat into infantile terror and mass hallucination. Even the planet itself at times seems to be trying to shake humanity off, like an angry bull bucking a rider.
     But you know what can still be depended on? Food. The cuisines we’ve loved all our life do not let us down. Like a band of superheroes, they show up to save the day. Or save many days, anyway.

     Thus publication of “Food Americana: The Remarkable People and Incredible Stories behind America’s Favorite Dishes” by David Page is a welcome, well-timed field guide to the goodies that keep harsh reality at bay. With chapters devoted to the cast of our nation’s love affair with food — hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken — it takes us on a quick visit to each of our favorites, both its history and noted practitioners today. Sushi is there, as well as Mexican and Chinese food, a reminder that while millions of our fellow citizens do not know what kind of place our country is, our bellies still do.
     The first sentence — ”When I was a child, my grandmother use to make me something she, for some reason, called Jewish spaghetti” — sent my mind tumbling into the past. Page’s grandma was making pasta, boiled, then fried with onions and ketchup, which sounds gross, to me. But it reminded me that my mother used to serve spaghetti with creamed cheese melted over it, which may sound disgusting to you. I remember it being delicious.
     As a wordsmith, I was gratified by how many new terms I learned reading “Food Americana.” Page calls the charred spots on a properly-cooked pizza crust “leoparding,” the dough in a tortilla is “nixtamalized,” or “cooked in an alkaline solution usually containing lime.” (Lime the mineral, not lime the citrus wedge you stick on the rim of your margarita).

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Allelopathic

 

Black Hills Spruce, left, with branch from Black Walnut, right.   

     You never know when you are going to learn a new word, or a whole new concept for that matter.
     The guy from Advance Tree Care was poking around our yard estimating what it'll cost to do some work—take out a dying pine threatening to topple over onto the back of the house, prune and treat an ash that we may just have shepherded past the waning emerald ash borer disaster. We found ourselves by this black hills spruce I had kidnapped from the property of my pal Rick Telander in the wilds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The tree grows like a weed and I like to point it out to visitors. The Advanced Tree Care man observed out how the black walnut nearby has grown toward it, and the spruce has shrunk away from it.
     "The black walnut is allelopathic," he said. "Notice how the spruce has fewer branches on the side near the black walnut."
    Ah. I hadn't noticed that. Plants developed 10,000 or so various chemicals that have nothing to do with their growth, per se, but part of a group called "allelochemicals," toxins that keep them from being eaten, or prevent pathogens from taking hold, or make the surrounding soil inhospitable to organisms other than themselves. Ironically, the compounds that give herbs flavor are mostly allelochemicals. They're basically chemical "KEEP OUT" signs designed to discourage the competition. More water for us.   
     And the black walnut—who knew?—is the Boss Daddy Bad Ass of allelopathic plants. It has a chemical called juglone that's so strong, it's used as a herbicide. Juglone is in the leaves, the heartwood, the bark, the roots, the nuts (causing their orange stain) even in the tree's Latin name, juglans nigra. The spruce is particularly sensitive to what the Morton Arboretum calls Black Walnut Toxicity, but my little tree seems to be placed far enough away that it isn't being affected, yet. Still, I'm going to go hack the black walnut branches away, and make sure the walnuts don't roll in its direction. Tree books encourage you to minimize the contact of black walnut debris with the soil.
     My columnist's sense tells me there is some kind of allegory waiting to be drawn out of this—if our benign friends the trees are hardwired to poison the competition, well, that might explain humanity and its we-don't-want-you bigotries and stay-away biases. But I don't want to go there. We're smarter than trees, supposedly.

What if wearing masks makes us more free?

     The funny thing is ...
     Not “ha-ha” funny, but sad and ironic funny, which is about the only funny we get nowadays.
     Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, by myself, the funny thing is, if Americans actually cared about their freedom, they wouldn’t manifest that care by throwing these you-can’t-make-me, blue-in-the-face toddler fits over convenience store policies requiring masks.
     Rather than refuse to wear masks, as the extra contagious Delta variant rips across the country, they would insist on wearing masks in public, not merely to ward off infection, but to escape the net of cyber surveillance tightening around the public every day. They would wear masks now, and keep on wearing them should COVID-19 ever recede, an increasingly remote possibility approaching “when pigs fly.”
     Masks not only screen out viruses, but also add a fig leaf of anonymity that might be helpful soon. This week, the Illinois State Police, joined by the city and state transportation departments, announced they will install cameras to read the license plates of every car on the highways, in the face of a surge of expressway shootings. The idea is: it’s enough of a hassle to drive the Dan Ryan from Point A to Point B without also having to worry about another motorist shooting you and getting away scot-free.
     Will it help? More cameras doesn’t seem to be translating into more safety, just less privacy. Add highway license plate cameras to the police, business and municipality security cameras already in operation, plus private residence doorbell cameras. Sooner or later those cameras will all be hooked up to a central location. Mix in face-recognition technology, and we’re nearing, if not already at, the point where you can’t scratch your ear in public without risk of the moment ending up on a flatscreen monitor in some basement control room with your name flashing underneath. Someday, you’ll rub your lower back on the ‘L’ platform and your Twitter feed will start recommending Bengay.

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Do we really need to kill them?

     Monday's column on my battle to kill a wasps' nest on my porch drew a lot of reaction, but I want to share these two reader emails. They have a valid point, one that never crossed my mind. I'm still not entirely convinced: you can't have your front porch becoming a gigantic wasp colony. But definitely food for thought....

Dear Mr. Steinberg;

     I just read your article about your wasp encounter in the Monday edition of the Chicago Sun Times and would like to comment. Wasps, like many animals, are a useful part of the ecosystem. If you destroy all the wasps, many destructive insects and grubs will flourish. For example, many people hate the Japanese beetle which devastates fruit trees and numerous garden plants. In addition, if you do not disturb wasps they will not sting you. You must admit you did not know you had wasps until you saw some. They were not attacking you or your plants or pets. They were just killing insects and doing their part in improving the ecosystem. Finally, the insecticides you spray on them introduces poisons into the environment. These insecticides are often long-lasting and kill other useful insects. Many affect hormones in humans and animals.
     So my advice, next time you see wasps, just let them alone and they will do the same to you.
     Sincerely yours;
     Rich Lange

Dear Neil,

     I looked up the benefit of wasps. BBC reports that wasps eat a bunch of insects that can affect plants that are growing. But of course I understand why we are afraid of wasps. I understand your try at handling the issue. And of course, we have to thank God for your wife. I think I was stung once by a wasp, that stung several times in the same area. Not fun at all.
     We move into a natural area and then we cannot abide Nature taking up residence. Just like all those fake dear I see on lawns locally. I sure do not like them. We get rid of Nature at our peril.
     Nature, the PBS program recently had a program on predators, and what happens to an environment when a predator leaves. It started with a scientist picking up all the starfish he found locally somewhere in the world I don’t remember The whole local environment perished. Same when lions and tigers and bears and foxes are removed. Predators make a whole environment whole and lively. Just like when we depress fire because people build homes in Nature. But then we have vegetation that creates wildfires and takes those houses with the fire.
     Mother Natures gets back at us.
     Janice Gintzler

     Thanks everyone for writing.

Wasps, or how to see what’s right there

A wasp.

     Did you miss the warning about this summer being especially bad for wasps? Yeah, me too. Even though our 115-year-old farmhouse has all sorts of eaves and hollows, places where wasps gather.

     Though you believe it, right? Of course you do. If you’re like me, the one-damn-thing-after-another quality of the past year has led to dull acceptance of almost any horror.
     If I ran into a neighbor carrying a bucket of water and a ladle, and he explained, “It’s for the burning frogs falling from the sky. They scorch the lawn, but a quick ladle of water fixes that,” I’d shrug and think, “Oh right, the burning frogs. Better get a bucket ...”

Photo by Tony Galati

     

     Then that’s me. I look at people simply denying one obvious situation or another — COVID, global warming, systemic racism — with blinking incomprehension. It’s ... right ... there. Just ... open your eyes and ... look.
     No? Can’t do that? Not into the whole perceiving-what’s-in-front-of-you game? I guess that’s your way of coping with the stress of bad stuff: ”If I don’t see it, it’s not there.” But c’mon buddy, graduate kindergarten, put on your big-boy pants and join the adults.
     Yes, grasping trouble can be a process. The tendency is to ignore or minimize problems. Most summers, the wasps spout from a chink in the brick foundation in front of our house. Out of harm’s way.
     This summer, naturally, the wasps took up residence under the window box jutting onto the porch, inches from our front door. As we came and went, we’d see wasps coming and going, a wasp parody of our routine. Still, a situation I can handle, or so I thought. I’m not immune to underestimating perils.

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