A note on sources

     A reporter is only as good as his (or her) sources. Usually, that means the contacts that he (or she, or, of late, they) has (or, in the latter case, have) developed, allies who will pick up the phone or, better, call unprompted and pass along some glowing shred of news.
     People (whew, that's easier) have never been my strong suit. But I do have a close relationship with books, which are also sources. Over the years there are certain dependables that I go to when I need a quick, in-depth education. 

     For instance, the calendar drives a considerable amount of journalism, and reporters often find themselves confronted with finding a new spin on a shopworn holiday, and if I'm tryin to fill a blank page about, oh, Valentine's Day, Jack Santino's "All Around the Year: Holidays & Celebrations in American Life" (1994: University of Illinois Press) has for decades offered a fresh observation or approach I wouldn't think of on my own. 

     For instance, Santino noted that the holiday dedicated to romance isn't just dropped randomly into the calendar. It mirrors Halloween. In a 1997 column on Valentine's Day, I quoted him: 

      "Halloween is approximately seven weeks before the winter solstice and marks the progression into the darkest period of the year," he writes. "Valentine's Day is about seven weeks after it and marks the progression out of winter and into spring." Santino points out that Halloween imagery is all about harvested crops and death, while Valentine's Day is flowers and romance and life."

     Another essential volume in any home reference library is "Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements," by John Emsley (2001: Oxford). It's that rarest reference that can be read cover-to-cover, for pleasure and I know that no quick dive into a particular metal or gas or whatever done with the Encyclopedia Britannica or online, will come close to the detail and fascination Emsley has already concisely assembled.
     Herein lies the trouble. If what I need is all right there, the temptation is to quickly gather up the nuggets, share them with the eager public, and skip giving the big public thanks to Emsley.
     That's what I did in my manhole cover story in the paper Sunday. Crediting him for the fact that iron is the fourth most common element in the universe seemed unnecessary — he didn't invent that fact, but got it from somewhere himself — and, more to the point, also took another 13 words in a story already three times the usual length of a column.
     Of course, nothing was copied. But ideas were re-worked. For instance, he writes of iron: "In effect it is the 'ash' of the nuclear burning process; once the core of a star has become mainly iron, that star has run out of its primary source of energy." Which I converted, through my own reductive process, into "Iron is, in essence, star ash."
     Now that is laudable condensation, and nobody was ever going to accuse me of plagiarism, the way a reader once sincerely did when I ended a column, "Isn't it pretty to think so?" the concluding line of "The Sun Also Rises" (I wrote back that I assumed my readers are familiar with the line, asking, "If I ended with "Thou shalt not kill" would you accuse me of ripping off the Bible?")
     But as reader after reader singled out that ash line to compliment me, a definite taste of ashes began forming in my mouth. I felt like I was taking a bow for Emsley's performance, and though I should wave the flag for his book.
     You can buy it here. It'll set you back $25 — it's lack of deep discount a reflection of just how useful a resource it remains. Not only is "Nature's Building Blocks" fascinating to read, with the inside scoop on the elements from actinium to zirconium, but it includes the lyrics to the Tom Lehrer song and an essay on the periodic table. Emsley, a British science writer, now 84, cleverly divides each elemental essay in "Human Element," and "Medical Element," "Economic Element" and "Environmental Element" and so on, including an "Element of Surprise" that bring in some cool facts out of left field. (Though he does despair at thulium, throwing up his hands with, "What is surprising about thulium is that, unlike the other rare-earth elements, there is nothing at all surprising about it... This is probably due to its rarity and cost, which may have deterred people from investigating it or seeking uses for it.")

     But I do the book an injustice ending with a rare lacuna. In the essay on fluorine, the element of surprise offers a brief history and explanation of Teflon, the coating made from poly(tetrafluoroethene). "Contrary to popular belief," Emsley writes, "it was not space exploration that led to the development of the non-stick frying pan, but the other way round." But I won't quote too much of it here. Read the book yourself.

Texas Republicans turn up the crazy

Metropolitan Museum of Art

     Could somebody please explain Texas pride to me? Isn’t Ted Cruz still one of their senators? That loathsome, cowardly, sniveling, whining, lying, wriggling invertebrate human excrescence? I’m embarrassed to belong to the same species as Ted Cruz. It’s like finding out you’re related to a worm. “And that’s a photo of your great-grandfather, who was a sipuncula, or peanutworm ...”
     Sharing the same state would be unbearable. It’s bad enough that Bruce Rauner is here, somewhere, hiding in one of his homes.
     Yes, Texas is an economic powerhouse — the 9th-largest economy in the world. And what are its chief economic products? Agriculture, energy and ... tourism. Which is what makes one particular line in the draft Texas Republican Party platform — “Texas retains the right to secede from the United States.” — so curious.
     The Texas GOP is taking pains to remind everybody that they find mainstream American values — diversity, public education, free elections — so odious they must officially give a big middle finger to the other 49 states. There’s a tourism slogan for you: “Texas: We hate America so much we might quit at any time ... until then, yeehaw, c’mon down for some down-home cowboy fun!”
     Good luck with that one.
     Of course, lack of bone-deep Republican hypocrisy forbids me from casting shade on anyone’s tourism slogan without pointing out that Chicago has perhaps the worst advertising line devised by humankind: “When you GO you know,” with the “GO” in yellow, lest the connection to micturition be overlooked. Can you imagine the gathering of talent that produced that one? And the bar was already set very high with the previous slogan, “Chicago Not Chicago” which, with a little punctuation, becomes the thought process that accompanies the suggestion of visiting our troubled city. “Chicago? Not Chicago!”
     These slogans have to be intentionally lousy, right? I can only assume it’s some kind of long game by chessmaster Lori Lightfoot, trying to tamp down the inevitable stories about visitors being shot at Chicago tourist destinations this summer by encouraging them to never arrive in the first place. Our next tourism campaign will be “See beautiful Milwaukee.”
      Back to Texas. Yes, secede, by all means. The state gets back $1.20 for every dollar it sends to Washington, and 17.5% of its state budget comes from the rest of the country’s taxes. Illinois meanwhile gets 94 cents back on each dollar we send, after six cents is snatched by Texas. So leave, parasite. Don’t let the door ...

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‘Shall I chew that for you, sir?’

     My gut tells me that light columns of a personal nature are probably both out-of-step with journalistic fashion and not smart, from a self-protection standpoint. Indeed, as I was writing this, I remembered with a shudder that the great Gene Weingarten, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner at the Washington Post, was shown the gate after just such a column, for failure to sufficiently appreciate Indian cuisine. So if it seems like my praise is one twist too strong, that was deliberate, my winking tribute to Gene. 

     I turned 62 last week, and new indignities of age already are rushing at me, with their seltzer bottles and flappy paddles, the calliope of time wheezing derisively in the background. You’d think, at threescore and a pair, I’d expect them by now. But no.
     We caught the 5:22 to Union Station Thursday night to take our younger son out for an elegant birthday dinner — his, not mine; our birthdays are less than a week apart. He chose Rooh, a trendy progressive Indian restaurant on West Randolph Street.
     On the trip downtown, I entertained myself cooking up lame dad puns that I knew later would have to be manfully suppressed. 

     “I hear the chef is opening a French version of this place, called ‘Rue’, serving Paris street food ...”
     “Have you been to his Cajun cafe, ‘Roux’?”
     “The chef has one of these in Australia, too. ‘Roo.’”
     Really, it’s a sickness.
     A pleasant stroll west and north from Union Station. Well, OK, young people did tend to blast up to us, pause as if confused, even slightly offended that we didn’t automatically hop out of their way, then grudging factor our perplexing existence into their navigational systems, then vector around us, picking up speed, like comets slingshotting around a pair of lifeless moons.
     We got to Rooh and joined the knot of supplicants at the front door. Edging to the maître d’ station, we gave our son’s name. The gatekeepers huddled, consulted, glanced at us, disapprovingly. Looked at a screen again, murmured, reluctantly agreed it seemed this couple has a reservation upstairs.

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Nothing lasts forever, but a manhole cover comes close.

A new manhole cover shakes off its mold sand. (Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin)

     Visiting the Neenah foundry was a longtime dream of mine. I pestered them for years, and it was thrill earlier this year when they finally agreed. As far as I can tell, this was the first time Neenah allowed a Chicago newspaper reporter to visit their operation in its 150 year history.

     NEENAH, Wis. — This is where they undergo their fiery birth, those overlooked essentials of urban life.
     Most of us seldom notice them, even though they can brave the extremes of weather for 100 years while being run over by trucks without deteriorating, and we depend upon their steadfast operation to keep us from falling into open sewers.
     They are literally everywhere, around the world and at our feet, on every block, every street corner: the manhole covers, stormwater intake grates, bumpy rectangles where the sidewalk slopes to meet the street (formally known as detectable warning plates) and other cast-iron infrastructure that help keep Chicago from reverting back to the swamp it was at its beginning.  

     “It’s stuff that’s always there, but no one thinks about it,” said Joe Falle, director of research and development and application engineering at Neenah Foundry in Neenah, Wisconsin, 190 miles north of Chicago, between Oshkosh and Appleton. “It doesn’t do anything special but cover a hole.”
     Many, many holes. The city of Chicago Department of Water Management, which wrangles the city’s manhole covers, estimates there are about 148,000 sewer covers on Chicago streets, plus another 205,000 catch basins.
     “We have a manhole cover down the middle of every street, going directly into sewers,” said Matt Quinn, deputy commissioner of the Department of Water Management. “Six catch basins per block and three manhole covers.”
     Manhole covers are solid — to keep sewer odor from wafting up to the street. Catch basin covers have slits — to let stormwater in. And, in case you’re curious, no, gender neutrality has not reached this realm of society.
     “Yes, we still call them ‘manhole covers,’ ” Quinn said. “Most people don’t care because it’s a cover over a sewer.”
     But what a cover. Two feet across, about two inches thick, solid cast iron.
     While there are other suppliers, many Chicago covers originate here, in the sprawling, loud Neenah Plant No. 2, the main facility of a company that has been producing cast-iron products for the past 150 years. Ever since William Aylward started the Aylward Plow Works in 1872. The company expanded from plow blades to sugar caldrons and barn door rollers. Alyward’s three sons entered the business, which added cast-iron stoves. In 1904, it began making manhole covers.

 

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Flashback 1996: Like father, like son? No.

 

   My brother-in-law called this week and said, in essence, "You're a writer. Why don't you read something pithy about fatherhood at the Father's Day party his year?" Since he was going to the trouble to fry the chicken and prepare most of the food, it seemed the least I could do.
     I was too burnt out from my rondo of work to compose something fresh, so looked back into the archive and found this, slumbering for more than a quarter century. Readers of "Drunkard" might notice that this column was spot-on augury regarding the Pinewood Derby: I didn't leave him to build his car unaided, but DID screw up his entry, big time. And I also gave my second son — born a year to the day after this was published — a first name beginning with "K," despite the difficulty of transforming that letter into a pancake
     Sun-Times subscribers are enjoying my Neenah Foundry magnus opus today. But I believe I will post that here tomorrow, in honor of Manhole Cover Monday.

     My dad owned a circular saw. And a jigsaw. And a timing light. And a blowtorch. He kept jeweler's tools — tiny files, screwdrivers, tweezers — in a wooden case. He had a pick-ax and a sledgehammer and a belt sander and a beautiful set of German drafting instruments nestled in purple velvet.
     He was a man of tools who had the skills to use them. He built new rooms on the house and a two-story building in the backyard. He could send Morse code and speak French and fix the brakes himself.
     To me, these tools, and these abilities, define the essence of fatherhood, a subject on my mind lately, as today is my first Father's Day not just as his son but as a dad now myself.
     Don't worry, I'm not going to go all weepy on you. To tell the truth, I wish my father had been a klutz. I would savor the memory of some project of his falling apart — a poorly mixed concrete wall dissolving as if it were made of Cream of Wheat; a botched paint job; even a wobbly bookcase, anything to soften the disasters that I know I will soon be displaying to my own son.
     The boy's going to want to be a Cub Scout, for instance. Kids still do that, right? They can't all be crack addicts. And the scouts still have the Pinewood Derby, right? Where they give the tykes a block of wood and tell them to come back with a finished racing car.
     I can see my own Pinewood Derby car as clearly as if it was sitting on the desk in front of me. Electric blue. As smooth and streamlined as a jelly bean, plexiglass cockpit window flush with the wood. The car must have taken my father 20 hours to build, and even though I hardly touched it during construction, I was still proud of it. It was my car, in a sense.
     My own kid won't benefit from such fatherly skills. He'll come to me with his pathetic block of wood, and I fear I'll have to give him a canned speech about being his own man. "I'd like to help you, son, but that would be wrong," I'll say, glancing out of the corner of my eye to see if he's falling for it.
     All the other fathers in his troop will run wind-tunnel tests on the cars they build for their sons. My son will enter a block of unfinished wood with the word "CAR" scrawled on the side in pencil and four wheels tacked on.
     Maybe it will make him a better person.
     No need to worry about that just yet. He's just a baby, thank God. He's still content just to be cooed at (though I have caught him giving me hard, appraising looks. As if he knows).
     What I need now is practice. I have done more painting and sanding and staining in the months since the baby was born than I had done in my entire life, previously. My fingers feel like they've been soaking in Drano.
     In the meantime, my hope is that I can substitute other, easier skills, which I somehow managed to pick up and retain, and so squeak by as a sort of Dad Lite.
     My father poured pancakes into the shape of our initials, to the delight of us kids. That I can do, provided the kid's name doesn't start with a tough letter like a G or a K.
     I almost named our boy Lou just because it would be easy to render in pancakes.
     I do have a few funny noises down — mouth pops and strange whoops — that seem to entertain the infant, for now. Of course, my father could imitate Donald Duck. I tried Donald Duck, once, and almost strangled.
     The beautiful part is that, unless our son spends a lot of time pouring over my old columns, he'll never know that I'm just recycling my father's simplest skills.
     He'll think I'm some sort of genius, having come up with all this stuff myself.
     For instance, once, when I was sick, my dad bought one of those "Visible Head" models and sat at the side of my bed all day, assembling it for my benefit.
     I feel like running to the model shop now and picking up one of those heads, so I'll have it ready should the boy fall sick. I'm sure my "Visible Head" won't be half as finely wrought as my dad's was — but the original isn't around for comparison, and the kid won't know any better.
     Children have no point of reference — one of their best qualities — so they're easily fooled.
     He may even grow up thinking that I, too, am good at things. A craftsman using his tools to effortlessly make the world conform to his wishes. That is, he might, provided that I keep practicing, and his grandfather doesn't spill the beans.
             —Originally published in the Sun-Times June 16, 1996.

North Shore Notes: Windy

     I had just lower-cased the N in "New Latin" when it struck me that this might just be a proper term — one unfamiliar to me, despite having studied Latin. It is. Between that, and her bold choice of shelter during the recent storm, Caren Jeskey certainly hits for the cycle in her offering today.

By Caren Jeskey

     Bruce, an old high school friend, left me alone at the Botanic Garden after a nice walk this past Monday. He’s the friend I inadvertently gave a hunk of concrete to as a housewarming gift several weeks back.
     As we strolled, the naturalist he is taught me the difference between opposite and alternating leaves. He pointed out little beards on a prolific type of iris that I’ve studied on many a long walk. Now I can further delight in knowing that they are hipsters. (Am I dating myself? Maybe they’re not called hipsters anymore — the bearded, fashionable skinny short pants people? But I digress).
     I can now better identify members of the Brassicaceae (more often called mustard) family, and know that their leaves grow in an alternating pattern, rather than the opposite pattern of, say, a maple tree. This family was formerly called Cruciferea. I’m not sure why the etymological change, but the B word is more fun to say. 

     Bruce suggested a mnemonic device. (I love these little memory tricks)! Think of the color of brass as it pertains to the yellow color we’ve come to associate with mustard, and then you might be able to recall the word Brassicaceae. Or, Bruce mentioned, “you can just say ‘braaaaa… brasssss…” and let your companion fill the rest in. (Since so many of us are running around with New Latin words on the tips of our tongues. Noted: I was in good company). It had thus far eluded me that Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and kale are also in this family of edible plants.
     After more banter about how to extract opium from poppies and whether or not we like the blue metal cage sculpture in the middle of the lake, (I do, he does not), off Bruce went to his tennis lesson.
     I soon noticed that a storm was quickly rolling in. As a lifelong cyclist and hiker, weather conditions are not hard for me to read. I beelined out of there and hopped on my bike. As I strapped my helmet on, watching a sea of seniors with lawn chairs stream in for Saturday June Band on the esplanade, I figured the good folks at the BG would get them to safety if necessary.
     As I pedaled down the Lake Cook Trail towards the Green Bay Trail, an alert came through bluetooth into my left ear. (I bike and walk with only one earbud in, and at a low volume). “Tornado warning. Flying debris. Seek shelter.”
     As the big fat raindrops started splashing on my arms and lightning streaked across the sky, I took a detour to the little kiddie train depot at Duke Park in Glencoe. I listened to a strange roll of thunder unlike any I’d ever heard before. Is this the train sound before the tornado takes you to Oz? I realized that I was standing next to electric train tracks and a sizable electrical box. I left my bike behind and got out of there, and stood under a tree, surveying my options.
     As the tornado sirens got louder I felt that is was best to find some help. I ran to the first house I saw, rang the Ring, and also knocked. A woman peeked out of the glass to see me mouthing something at her, and she thankfully opened the door. I implored, “can I please hang out in your basement until this passes?” I was scared!
     I know too many people, like Molly Glynn who was in a similar situation back in 2014, who are not aware of the danger they are facing during weather events. My childhood playground’s trees were decimated by a tornado less than 2 years ago right in Rogers Park. There have been more local tornados in the past handful of years, in this area, then I can recall for the previous 40+. Climate change has hit the Midwest.
     I am probably too careful for some, but that’s OK. I won’t be the person recording the black bear chasing me, only to find my phone in his belly one day.
     The kind young woman in Glencoe, her husband, their young kiddo and I headed downstairs as the lights flickered on and off. They brought me a glass of water and a chair to sit on. We chatted for 45 minutes or so, until the warnings had ended, and I took my leave. They offered for me to stay longer as the storm had not yet passed, but I looked outside and at the radar and decided I was safe. They had extended themselves quite enough already. Thank you kind couple Marli and Michael. A class act.
     When I got to my bike I headed back to the Green Bay Trail (which I would not have done had I known then about Molly Glynn, the actress who got killed by a falling branch in a storm nearby in 2014). The sky to the north was clear and bright; the rumble of the storm and dark clouds clearly south of us now.
     I pedaled to downtown Wilmette where I rewarded myself with a delicious piece of tuna and dined al fresco on a wet patio chair.

Book bullies

"The Board of Censors Moves Out," by Eugène Delacroix (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     When Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville announced June 9 that someone is plucking books from their displays and hiding them in the store, they didn’t specify what sort of books are being taken.
     I assumed the stashed volumes were books about queer youth and trans acceptance and such, the segment of human behavior currently singled out for special harassment by those who feel entitled to establish limits on human nature that maximize their own comfort.
     But that isn’t the kind of book being targeted.

     “Any book with a cover showing a person of color on it gets covered up,” explained Ginny Wehrli-Hemmeter, director of events and marketing at Anderson’s, 123 W. Jefferson St., one of the largest independent bookstores in the Chicago area.
     About 50 books have been found tucked behind other books. Police have been notified; a man, caught in the act, was confronted.
     Nor was my next thought — that this must be a freakish anomaly — correct. Can people really be offended by the sight of a children’s book about Jackie Robinson? In 2022? This has to be the handiwork of some lone-wolf, west-suburban hater indulging in repairable acts of racism, I figured.
     Sadly, it is not.

     While other large independent bookstores in and around Chicago — the Book Stall in Winnetka, Powell’s in Hyde Park — do not report similar vigilante mischief, it is endemic at public libraries around the country.
     “The books overwhelmingly being targeted deal with the lives and experiences of LGBTQ persons,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the office for intellectual freedom of the Chicago-based American Library Association.
      But it is by no means limited to them. The lives of Black persons also are a particular focus, she added, “under the false idea that books about Black people are some kind of ‘critical race theory.’ There is a lot of rhetoric that’s being used to vilify these materials. It’s truly tragic.”

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