Selfish generosity

The Front Lines: (left to right) Phil Rothman, Kier Strejcek, Kevin Bowie and Steve Jarvis.

     What's a memory worth?
     One single burst of sound and energy and image? Still strong after 40 years?
     But I'm getting ahead of myself.
     The first bassist for an Evanston college band calling itself The Front Lines—they might have still been just "The Lines" at that point, since a group of that same name hadn't yet been encountered, requiring a quick fiddle with the name—was a freshman named John. My memory of him was of a solid, quiet guy who stopped attending classes entirely so he could sit in his second floor dorm room in the Orrington Apartments and laboriously teach himself to play the bass in order to join the band. He didn't last long in college or the group, that my roommate Kier started.
     There might have been more bassists—I'll have to check —but by senior year, or just after, they found a kid named Kevin Bowie, a 17-year-old thumb-slapping bassist, a student at Evanston Township High School. It was an epiphany to watch him play, big thumping notes riffing from his flying fingers. It was thrilling.
     You can hear him at the beginning of their song, "Night Napalm." I can't say for certain whether he was truly good or we just thought he was good. It was not a distinction I could conceive of at the time.
     I must have heard that kind of bass playing before, on various disco hits of the 1970s. But to see it being played, up close. There was a tremendous hopefulness to this development. Those rumbling riffs seemed a promise, a thumping pathway up and out of the college town obscurity we all were mired in. The band had been plugging along for several years, success was slow in coming, as success usually is. But suddenly they had this kid, and oh man, he could play.
     But it didn't work out the way they hoped. Life seldom does.
     Jump ahead 40 years. I saw on Kier's Facebook page that Kevin, now in his late 50s, is battling some terrible medical situation and living in Florida. His wife began a Kickstarter campaign, trying to help the family get by. They haven't raised much. I might still have not pitched in—the memory remains whether I pony up or not. But I happened to be feeling particularly crappy Saturday afternoon, despite the sunshine. The fucking war in Ukraine. A magazine piece due Monday that is sprawling instead of gelling. The general isolation and langor of a pandemic now in its third year. I figured, maybe sending fifty bucks Kevin's way might make me feel a little better. It did. Doing good for others is often doing good for yourself too. I recommend it.

Wilmette Notes: Rusty

Photo by Caren Jeskey

      Today is Saturday, which means it's time for the weekly update by our intrepid Northern Suburban Correspondent, Caren Jeskey, who isn't about to let even the briefest window of pre-spring good weather slip by without seizing the opportunity. Her report:

By Caren Jeskey

     Sunny and 67? Yes! Last Saturday I was overjoyed to have a day of warmth to interrupt the long abyss of winter. I have to hand it to anyone who manages to stay active during a Midwest cold season. I thought I would, but I’ve had more days cozy on the couch than not. To celebrate, I decided to hop on my bike. Poor thing’s not had a turn of the wheel in too many months. It took longer to get out than I’d expected. Finally, tires pumped up, helmet on, bike lights with fresh batteries, backpack with water and snacks, I set off from home for the big city.
     I biked east to Sheridan Road, eager to see the melting mini glaciers on the lake. I pedaled past a kindly looking older man on a brisk walk, his spine curved into a deep C. I wondered how much it bothered him to get such a good look of the ground these days. I rode onto the concrete overlook at Kenilworth Beach and peered over the edge. I felt proud to see a small chunk of ice still clinging to the pier. Well done, you!
     I snapped pictures of the last vestiges of the big freeze and got back on my bike. I had 8 miles or so to go to reach Loyola Beach in Chicago where I was meeting a friend. Spandex clad riders swooshed past me. I admired their sinew, camaraderie and chutzpah. I thought “maybe one day that will be me!” though that's unlikely.
     There was a gale wind advisory which made the trip a little more challenging.
     When I made it to the fieldhouse on Greenleaf I got a text from my friend. “I have to go home and change socks and shoes. A wave totally got me.” This gave me time to silently marvel at the straw colored prairie grasses flapping in the wind, surrounded by rippled sand dunes and the bright blues of the lake just beyond.
     When my friend made it back, we ventured out onto the sand and spread out the tablecloth I’d brought, listened to some music and stared at the waves.
     I noticed a big purple claw in the sand and felt all of the excitement of a childhood treasure hunt. I wondered if someone had eaten a meal in this spot earlier, leaving the dismembered leg behind. Then it sunk in. There are creatures, many creatures, that I know nothing about in this fabulous Great Lake system, right under our noses. There is much to learn. I put the claw in my fanny pack.
     There was a bit of excitement when a man placed his jacket down on the pier, and a strong gale took it right into the lake. He was quite upset, as it was his nice down parka and had a good bit of cash in it. A small crowd gathered and an avid swimmer let us know that there was no way anyone should wade the 50 feet or so into the lake to retrieve it.

     The man who’d lost the jacket did not speak English. Turns out he is one of the recent Afghan refugees who’s moved to our shores, and spoke only Pashto. A nice synchronicity is that I know Pashto speakers, and had one on speaker phone to explain to the young man what was happening. We called 311 and the coast guard actually said that after roll call they’d send a boat out to retrieve the jacket— all the way from 9800 South. Sadly, we were let down when an officer called back to say that due to the wind advisory, it would not be safe for them to send a boat out. He wanted us to know that if it had been a person, of course, they would have already been there.
   All was not lost though, since a group of volunteers (via the phone tree) procured a new parka and a bit of cash for the man who relinquished his coat to the wind.
     When I got home I did a little claw research. Turns out the purple beach find probably belongs to a Rusty Crayfish, which is invasive and dangerous to our waters. It’s such a hardy and strong fish that it was able to “hop a continental divide and invade a new region” according to aquatic scientist Julian Olden of the University of Washington. It seems that there is nothing that can be done to stop them. The cat is out of the bag. Some terrible and tragic things are simply beyond our ability to stop.

‘This is what we do: we build robots’

Jacob Hoyt, left and Aiden Cohen with their team's robot.

     The robots do not fight. Get that straight. No buzzsaws, no sledgehammers, no flame throwers.
     To grasp what these robots actually do, or try to do, you should watch the eight-minute animated video by sponsor Raytheon Technologies. It takes focus just to understand what teams are required to do; now imagine having to conceive and fund and build and program and operate a robot that can perform those tasks in a competitive setting.
     This year’s competition is called “Freight Frenzy.” Having been to an Amazon procurement center, I couldn’t help but feel that, when no humans work at those places in 10 years, these little robots — each must fit within an 18-by-18-inch cube — will be part of the reason.
     Last season, when the FIRST Tech Challenge was virtual due to COVID, the robots fired small rings at a target. This year? Well, let Jacob Hoyt, captain of outreach for Highland Park’s 18529 Rust in Piece team, explain:
     “This year’s objective basically boils down to picking up balls and blocks and ducks.”
     Little rubber ducks, not big live ones. For the first 30 seconds of each match, the robots must work autonomously — that is, without influence from their operators. Then a two-minute guided scramble to grab the aforementioned balls, boxes and ducks, then place them on “hives,” three-tiered towers that tip over if not balanced correctly.
     Meanwhile, three other robots — two operated by opponents, one by an “alliance” team — try to do the same thing on the same field. Your robot can lose points if it gets in their way.
     Rust in Piece is one of 36 teams in FIRST Tech Challenge’s Illinois Championship Tournament at Elgin Community College on Saturday.

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Flashback 2001: Younger Brent keeping dad's bookselling alive

 

    When I first heard that someone had spent $10 million to locate the wreck of the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's famed ship, on the bottom of the Weddell Sea since 1915, I couldn't understand why someone would go to the trouble. They can't salvage the wreck—by law a historic site—but only take pictures, using submersible drones. And the photos from the Endurance, taken from glass plate negatives, are some of the most haunting and beautiful in the history of exploration. How to improve on that? Then I saw the video. Astounding—you can read the name on the stern, see the wheel, all preserved in the frigid Antarctic waters. It's money well-spent, if you've got it, and reminded me of when I first encountered Alfred Lansing's classic book, back when there were independent bookstores on Michigan Avenue, and in the Loop, and people actually went downtown and visited them.

     The most thrilling book I ever read in my entire life was placed into my hands by Adam Brent. This was years ago, back when he was working at his father's famous bookstore on Michigan Avenue. I had gone in looking for books about Mt. Everest, and this young guy, whom I had never met before, suggested I might enjoy Endurance, by Alfred Lansing, the tale of Shackleton's star-crossed voyage to the South Pole. "Enjoy" was too weak a term--it is the sort of book that you not only read while walking, but walk into walls while reading and don't care.
     What young Brent did is called "hand selling." It is not the sort of thing mega-bookstores do well, but rather the personal alchemy that cleaves a certain group of people to independent booksellers, permitting us to patronize stores even if they don't also sell coffee and stuffed animals, and makes us fret over their futures like a worried mother hen.
     His dad's store, Stuart Brent Books, went out of business in 1996. And while I disapproved of the shriek of moral outrage that Stuart Brent emitted when he went under—a bookstore is still a business, after all, and ya gotta make money, cultural landmark or no—I was sorry to see him go, and rooted for his son, glad that he is trying to keep the Brent name alive in Chicago.
     Adam Brent has two stores, one in the Loop on Washington Street and another newly opened in Highland Park. He tried to make it on Michigan Avenue, in the commercial kill zone south of the river, but was quickly driven out of business there, which made me worry about his Washington store. I quick march by there nearly every day, hurrying to and from the train. When I have a moment I stop in to buy books or shoot the breeze with Brent, 37, who is the antithesis of his father, personality-wise--subdued and pleasant with none of the chest-thumping that, to be frank, did not make his dad universally beloved.     
     "I don't think I'm really as outspoken as my father," said Adam, as we sat on folding chairs in his store. "Give me another 10 years."
     My plan was to bring out the violin and play a sad song of Brent desperately trying to copy his father's success while gazing at an empty store. It always seemed I was the only customer in the place. But the truth turned out to be that 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. are not peak business hours. Despite a downturn in the industry, he says he's doing great.
     "This store gets mobbed," said Brent. "Lots of office workers have been coming for years--it's part of their ritual."
     After Sept. 11, Brent worried that books would be one of the luxuries people crossed off their lists.
     "I thought I was going to be roasted," he said. But it turned out that the opposite occurred--people suddenly craved information, and titles that slumbered for years, becalmed on the backlist, suddenly were in demand--books about Islam, about terrorism, about Afghanistan.
     "One of the most amazing things about the book business is that, in times of crisis, one of the best places you can go is a bookstore," he said. "We are repositories for the knowledge of a civilization."
     I had assumed that Brent Books came out of the demise of his father's store, but actually it is a phoenix risen from the ashes of another grand old Chicago icon, Kroch's & Brentano's.
     "When Kroch's went bankrupt, I saw a vacuum," said Brent, who bought the shelves and fixtures from Kroch's La Salle Street store. "I talked it over with my dad and a potential investor."
     I'm fascinated by men who go into their fathers' professions. My father was a physicist, which killed off any interest I might have in science. As an outside observer, I would have guessed that having Stuart Brent for a dad would inspire a person to become a longshoreman. But Adam Brent says that his own quiet demeanor meshed well with his father's—"My dad and I never clashed," he said--and the passing years have only increased his admiration.
      "I'm in awe of what he was able to build," he said.
     That sounded swell, but I couldn't resist phoning Stuart Brent to get his version. At age 89, he has lost none of his leonine pride or reflexive verbosity. Barely had I introduced myself and my topic, when he said:
     "Considering the tragic consequences of a culture that is in a terrible situation, he's staying alive primarily, I think, because I taught him that if he gives a valentine to everyone who comes in he can make it."
      In a brief talk, Brent managed to call his old shop both "the greatest bookstore in the past 50 years in this country" and "the most precious" cultural landmark on Michigan Avenue, quite a statement considering that the Art Institute and Symphony Center are just down the street.
     But give Stuart Brent credit. When it comes to his son, his legendary self-regard dissolves, replaced by the most admirable paternal pride.
      "I'm very proud of him," said Stuart Brent. "The boy has done a magnificent job. There's absolutely no money in bookselling. It's a disaster—the very last thing a boy would want to spend his life on, selling books. But as a child, he was thrilled with the idea of books. Totally committed. There was a magic in the way he behaved, and I told him that, unfortunately, he was not doomed to be a great stockbroker or a brilliant journalist, but to try to help others get the value and the beauty to be found in the written word. I told him to 'keep that independence of spirit, and that smile, and believe me, Adam, you'll make it.' "

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 21, 2001

‘Why don’t we DO something?’

     “Why don’t we do something?” my relation said, in a tone of anguish over the telephone.
     Ukraine, of course. All news dwindles away in the face of war in Europe: missiles slamming into apartment buildings; desperate refugees picking their way across demolished bridges.
     We wanted to forget COVID; but not like this.
     You know a situation is really getting under people’s skin when your extended family starts calling to talk about it. Reaching out to me, I suppose, the same way you’d call a cousin who’s a plumber when you have a leaky faucet. I’m in the trade, this thinking-about-stuff business; maybe I can share the inside story.
     I tipped back in my chair, put my feet on my desk. This would take a while.
     “Well...” I began.
     It’s human nature to want to insulate yourself from horrors. To exile them safely to the past — hard enough to contemplate cities being bombed in 1944, never mind to think about cities being shelled last Thursday.
     We also like to segregate suffering, not only in time, but geographically, as far from ourselves as possible. The genocide in Myanmar furrowed some brows. But it was in the former Burma. Way off. Not so much video, and what photos was got, to be frank, were not of white folks. That part gets unsaid. But it’s true. Human beings have a proven track record of toughness when it comes to shrugging off the sufferings of anyone unlike themselves. Which is not that easy an option for our kind when forced to see a cute little blonde Ukrainian girl in a bomb shelter singing “Let it Go” from “Frozen” in a small, piping voice.
     “It’s extra upsetting because it’s people like us carrying cell phones,” is what I actually said. My relative agreed: We’re all basically displaced Eastern Europeans. This is too close to home.

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Going to the dogs

     For a supposedly smart guy, I can be pretty thick sometimes. I suppose that's true for everyone, in one situation or another. But each specific instance nevertheless comes as a surprise. Our private defaults must assume we're perfect. No wonder life can be so disappointing.
     I was trucking to my gate in O'Hare a few weeks back, heading to Colorado, and I passed this gate.
     Gate K9. Like the K-9 corps in the Army, thought I.
     Established in World War II. Known as "Dogs for Defense." Training German shepherds and sheep dogs and such for sentry duty. The hope was to also use dogs to sniff out wounded soldiers on battlefields, but that never worked out.
     Also in police departments.
     And here I had the thought that I can't quite believe.
     I wonder how they came up with the designation "K9"?
     Why that particular letter and number? What was their significance?

     I chewed on the puzzle for only a moment.
     And then it struck me.
     Oooooooo. "K9." CANINE. Latin for "doglike." Now I get it.
     How could I not realize that until now? It seems almost impossible. Maybe I did realize it but then forgot. Which might even be worse. Either way, I don't see any harm in admitting it here. In fact, I see a benefit. Admitting mistakes is important, because even though we all make them, many people just can't seem to do it preferring to cling to error, out of habit, despite overwhelming evidence. Because they think that makes them look better, to be in the Never Wrong club. I refute that. Like any skill, admitting error should be practiced, as a kind of intellectual exercise, to keep our minds limber. 

‘The goal is to impact women more positively’

 

Patricia Dzifa Mensah-Larkai

   When it is 9 a.m. in Chicago it is 3 p.m. in West Africa. A fact I learned Friday, chatting with Patricia Dzifa Mensah-Larkai, an administrator at the Ghana Boundary Commission, which tries to keep that nation’s borders and internal boundaries where they are supposed to be and settle disputes.
     “Most Ghanaians speak or understand nine major languages,” she said, ticking them off: Twi, Fante, Akuapem, Ewe, and such. “That doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing. Not everyone is able to understand all the different languages.”
     Mensah-Larkai also speaks French and English, which is how we could communicate. As to why we were talking, thank Toastmasters International, which sent an email introducing “five inspirational females” to commemorate International Women’s Day, which is Tuesday. The holiday was established by the United Nations in 1975 to “honor the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.”
     Toastmasters held their 87th international convention in Chicago in 2018. Regular readers might recall I went and discovered a touchingly sincere, upbeat global organization that seems to exist on a plane apart from the grim chaos of daily life, which goes double for both International Women’s Day and the UN.
     That could be reason to either embrace them or ignore them. I chose the former, asking to speak with the inspirational female in Africa because, really, how often do you get the chance?
     “I love to empower women, in terms of giving value, making sure the skills are God-given, not just on certificates but putting them into practice,” Mensah-Larkai said. “To say, ‘I’m not going to settle for less. I’m going to work and try, not to attain the average, but always strive for excellence.’ To ask myself, ‘What I can do better?’ and then look for the answer.”
     She grew up in metropolitan Accra, a city of 4 million people, in what we’d consider a cop family — her grandfather was a police officer, as was her mother. Her father — both her parents are deceased — was career military.
     I wondered how the public and law enforcement get along in Ghana.

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