Would you like a lovely pen?

Therese Schmidt at Atlas Stationers.

     Cities are serendipity. Working at home might be easier and more convenient. But who ever drops in? Going downtown, you have all those people gathered together, and one thing leads to another.

     I was meeting a city official for lunch at The Dearborn Monday. No need to drive into the heart of the Loop, however. I had time, so parked on Franklin. After I got out of the car, I realized I was around the corner from Atlas Stationers, 227 W. Lake, and decided to stroll over and check up on my favorite office supply store. Just walking in that direction was educational: I looked for Whimsical Candy, figuring I'd pop in to support the cause by picking up a Raspberry Truffle Crisp. But they are gone, no doubt a victim of the pandemic. 

    But Atlas Stationers, which has a strong online presence, endures in its cast iron columned flagship.

     "Maybe Therese will be in," I thought, of Therese Schmidt, who owns the place with her husband Don, whose grandfather founded it in 1939. Not with much hope — people aren't downtown the way they once were. But the moment. I walked into the store, she came out of the back room, as if on cue.

    We had a lot to catch up on. Her Tennessee Treeing Dog, a 90-pounder named Captain James Tiberius Kirk, had blasted after a squirrel he saw through a window and smashed into her head while she sat on the sofa, setting off a series of medical troubles.
     "I almost kicked the bucket," she said.
     Therese underwent brain surgery, a craniotomy at Condell. Two sections of her skull were replaced by plates. She showed me a photo of her 35 staples.
     "They did a number on my head," she said. "I looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. I didn't run for six weeks."
     For her, that was an earthquake. Readers with long memories might remember that Therese is a dedicated runner, whom I accompanied once as she raced her deliveries around Loop office buildings. She doesn't deliver office supplies by racing a cart along Lower Wacker Drive anymore — not enough workers downtown — though she does wear shorts every day, thank to a vow she'll keep "until the Bears win the Super Bowl again."
     We also talked fountain pens. At the front of the store, Atlas features a wide array of fine  pens. I apologized: I tried to dangle them in front of the boys, as potential college graduation gifts, but neither bit. 

     "Kids aren't into pens anymore," I suggested, trying to spread the blame around. She disagreed, claiming that young people are gravitating more toward fountain pens, as an offshoot of tattoo culture. 

     "They want some ink with their ink" she said.
     Ballpoints do well too. One recent customer was Lori Lightfoot, who came in last week and bought six of the store's custom ballpoint pens with designs keyed to the stars in the Chicago flag.
     "That's our exclusive," she said. They've already sold out pens honoring the 1933 Century of Progress and the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and are now on the third version, an 1893 World's Columbian Exposition pen.
     "People love it," she said.
     I could see why. The pens are made in a limited edition of 500, come in their own numbered tubes, are priced reasonably—$56—make great gifts, and go to support one of Chicago's most distinctive and personable family businesses, one that doesn't rest on its past but keeps charging into the future.
     "You have to change up the game a little bit," Therese said.

   

A little candy might help

     When John Ryan, production manager at Ferrara’s Itasca plant, came home, his kids would sometimes drag their friends over to him for a quick sniff.
     “Come over and smell my dad!” they’d say. “My dad works for a candy company!”
     The ability to impress your children is only one benefit of running a candy factory. Employees — and yes, they’re hiring, like everybody else — get free samples.
     To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to do with my recent visit to Ferrara — in mid-May, not so recent. I’d seen Nerds — little granules of hard candy — being made in big drums, bright yellow, hot pink and cool aqua, then poured into tiny rattling boxes. And Sweetarts, those little squat pastel cylinders, packed into clear wrapped plastic cylinders. Cherry ropes running through a production line as long as a football field.
     Not the sort of inside information the world is eager to consume. I kept waiting for a break in the awful news to slip this sweet interlude into the paper. Isn’t mid-July supposed to be sleepy? The president off on vacation, glimpsed wearing a big Panama hat while patting a bison, on some ranch in Wyoming?
     But no. For nearly two months, one damn thing after another. I woke up Sunday morning and assessed my options. The headline on the Sun-Times was “TOGETHER WE GRIEVE,” with six pages of coverage of the Highland Park July Fourth parade massacre. States scrambling over each other to smother women’s reproductive rights. The Ukraine war still grinding on. Boris Johnson out as British prime minister, after mass resignations in his administration, the kind of selfless move that only adds a new layer of shame to our Republican leaders. Shinzo Abe assassinated in Japan, a nation of 125 million people that had one — one! one! ONE! — murder by gun last year. Maybe I should just write that sentence over and over, 25 times, then call it a day.

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"Stroll in the Park"

     Saturday was a gorgeous summer day in Chicago. And I got lucky, in that a young cousin from Boston was in town with her friend, which prompted me to get off my ass, out of the ol' leafy suburban paradise, and into the city — Lincoln Park Zoo, specifically, after an enjoyable lunch at R.J. Grunt's which is still crowded, still delicious, still fun. 

     While strolling in Lincoln Park we came upon this whimsical sculpture, at the corner of Dickens and Lincoln Park West. By Robbie Barber, it's titled, appropriately enough, "Stroll in the Park." The 58-year-old Texan explains in an artist's statement that the artwork is "an homage to the homemade assemblages that dot the American roadside (dinosaurs, muffler men, cars on poles)," intended to elevate "the mobile home to the level of an American icon, right beside monster trucks and professional wrestling."
     Mission accomplished. While most public art is crap, as I've said before, the whimsy and humor of this instantly appealed, as did the sky blue color, and the careful weathering of the trailer part of the baby carriage. It's here for only a year, thanks to Sculpture in the Parks, a program putting 20 artworks in 20 parks, run by the Chicago Park District, the Evanston Arts Council, and the North River Commission.

      One clever artwork doesn't counterbalance the windstorm of bad publicity that Chicago has been suffering. But it's good to remember that, despite its problems, Chicago is functioning as a city should, between its free zoo, busy lakefront and freshly scattered sculptures. We drove up Lake Shore Drive from North Avenue to Hollywood, then up Sheridan to the Bahai Temple.  Nobody shot at us, the lake sparkled and the whole city seemed to be out in force, enjoying life.

     "Some hellhole," I said.

Wilmette Notes: Can’t Fix Stupid

Photo by Caren Jeskey

     Seven people were gunned down at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park on Monday. Everyone I know feels terrible about it—I find myself growing more and more horrified as the shock wears off and the details filter in. For me, it was that 8-year-old boy having his spine severed by a bullet. Just the awfulness of that. Of course North Shore correspondent Caren Jeskey, rather than merely feeling bad, did what she could to help. Her Saturday report:

By Caren Jeskey 

“I can fix almost anything that runs on those presses but I can’t fix stupid.” 

                      —Shoe Comic Strip by Jeff MacNelly

     Folks on neighborhood social media groups in the North Shore are plotting a mission to buy out gun companies and put a stop to this nonsense, or at least a finger in the dam. A pipe dream that I will try to have tonight instead of the nightmares of last night— snarling German shepherds the size of ponies skulking around my house in the middle of the night, shadowy vehicles the size of tanks with tinted windows trailing them. Unknown faces planning unknown things behind the wheels.
      Part of me believes that mass shooters can and should be stopped, and perhaps even rehabilitated, with early intervention into their predilection for violence.

     When the news rolled in about the Highland Park massacre I was at home in Wilmette, having just seen my one 4th of July holiday client on Zoom. Little did we know that as we spoke about improving life, a reminder that a better tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us had just played out.
     Like you, I am still reeling and processing this most recent horror. As I listened to live news coverage on WBEZ on Monday, I could not just stay at home. As a volunteer professional, I drove to the Highland Park hospital where FBI agents sent me to the Police Department. I checked in with my name and professional license number and waited to be called upon to provide crisis counseling. Decades of crisis work in hospitals has prepared me for this, and I had to at least offer my services.
     A local man walked up as I hunkered down outside of the station to wait, and we entered into an animated conversation about the need for action. A ridiculously sized (considering the terrain) black pickup truck rolled by slowly. Expertly affixed flag poles hosted American flags flapping in the wind as the driver carefully surveyed the area, bearded men in Harleys slowly following behind. Vigilante justice at its finest. Amerika as in the 1987 ABC miniseries where the result of political strife resulted in the Divided States of America. Prophetic, as many things are.

     “It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom.”

                        — Emma Goldman, 1917

     Outside of the police department that day, I met friends of victims and provided an ear because they needed to vent. As TV vans rolled in and the area started to get crowded, I headed home to await next steps. A colleague linked me with a small group of therapists who had set up a counseling outpost at the local high school. Thursday evening I spent nearly five hours at Highland Park High School with nine other professional volunteers.

      Audrey Grunst of Simply Bee Counseling had generously taken it upon herself to spearhead this effort. They funneled us through a well organized process, which linked us to those in need. No person or family had to wait more than a minute or two for help. We were provided with therapeutic tools for all ages—stuffed animals and crayons, sparkly balls to squeeze for comfort, and even donated wearable TouchPoints. These devices work "by altering the body's stress response with BLAST (Bi-lateral Alternating Stimulation Tactile) technology. BLAST uses gentle, alternating vibrations on each side of the body to shift your brain from your default ‘fight or flight’ response to your calm and in-control response.”

     The people I treated walked in with pinched expressions, cried while they shared, and walked out feeling reassured and less scared, even laughing and smiling. Counseling can and does work.
     On my way home I turned the wrong way and came across the memorials that had been created in downtown Highland Park with hundreds of people lighting candles, or in quiet contemplation, or gathered around a rabbi who spoke words of comfort. Nestled amidst hundreds of bouquets of flowers were messages written on poster board and in chalk on the sidewalks. “Enough. Ban Assault Weapons Now.”
     It wasn’t until I stood before the life sized images of the seven lives we lost that it really hit home. I am, you are, we are all one fanatic away from being touched by tragedy if we have not yet been. Many have mentioned that since the violence has affected an affluent community, perhaps this means that change will really come. We shall see.
     As I left the area I found my eyes peeled to the top of the office building near my car. Just in case. Yesterday, during a client session, I jotted down a sentence they had said. “I put a deposit down on an engagement gun.” I noticed right away that the word ring was not where it was supposed to be. Later as I played my flute I heard a car drive by with thumping music and briefly wondered if a shooter had arrived. This too shall pass, I tell myself. Over and over.
     According to the National Center for PTSD, 60% of men and 50% of women experience at least one trauma in their lives and about 8% of women and 4% of men develop PTSD sometime in their lives. This data is outdated, however, so I will have to do some digging to find out more. Even if people are not diagnosed with PTSD, they very well may have lingering effects after having been targeted and seeing others fall.
     I will try to remember that there is more good in the world than bad, most people are not violent, and that right will one day win over might.

"Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.”    —On Violence, Hannah Arendt 1970

Photo by Caren Jeskey

Averting his gaze from the wreckage

Robert Feder

     "Did you ever give interviews?" Eric Zorn asked our lunch guest. "Did you ever appear on panel shows?"
     No, of course not.
     "So this is an opportunity..."
     An opportunity, to the former Chicago Tribune columnist. Me, I thought we were going to lunch with our old friend, Robert Feder, to celebrate his retirement after 42 years as the unblinking eye chronicling Chicago media. After being the rare journalist to have worked, at various points in his career, for the Sun-Times, the Tribune, the Daily Herald, Crain's Chicago Business, and WBEZ. If anything significant happened in TV, radio or print, Feder typically had it first. “Hustle, tenacity and humility,” said the Daily Herald’s editor, summing him up well.

     But Zorn, a keener judge of news than I, suggested we should record it, as a kind of exit interview. That sounded like work, but okay. I turned on my digital recorder as we three settled in a booth at L. Woods Tap in Lincolnwood on Tuesday.
     Rob always avoided the spotlight, and it did make sense to shine it on him now that we had the chance. He certainly has a newsman's way of capturing a moment.
      "We are all working in isolation, we're all working at home," he began. "The newsroom is all a myth. It's an idea in the past. And so you decide how long can you keep your sanity and keep pretending you're part of a larger thing."
     Sounds right. Why retire now?
     "For every reason. Everything came together at once," he said. "Within the last five or six years, I lost both my parents and my wife, if that doesn't start you to think about how short life is, what happens when the last day comes, and there's no tomorrow."
     He has nothing lined up. No plans.

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"This is a case of gun-madness."

     Thanks to Grizz65, whose comment yesterday led to today's post.

     The current spate of mass shootings is traced back to Columbine, the 1999 massacre where 13 students were killed by a pair of students who then took their own lives.

     But collective memory is faulty — we say we'll never forget, but we do, and the American propensity toward amateur slaughter goes back much further. If you had asked me, I'd point to 1966 sniping off the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, when a former Marine, Charles Whitman, killed 14 people, at the time the greatest slaughter in United States history by a single gunman.
     This was being discussed on my blog, and one reader mentioned Howard Unruh, whose name meant nothing to me. But in 1949, the 28-year-old Army vet walked down River Road in Camden, New Jersey, calmly shooting people with a souvenir German Luger pistol. He killed 13: five men, five women and three children, aged 2, 6 and 9—the 6-year-old, Orris Smith, was slain at point blank range, the gun pressed against his chest as he sat in a barber shop, astride a white carousel horse, getting a haircut because he was starting school tomorrow. His mother sat watching nearby. The barber, J. Clark Hoover, was killed too.

     Frank Engel, a tavern owner, grabbed a .38 he owned and shot Unruh, wounding him, but failing to stop the rampage. Engel could have shot him a half dozen more times. "I don't know why I didn't do it," he said later.
     Friends described Unruh as a quiet kid who kept to himself. "A very quiet fellow" was the way his high school yearbook described him. Indeed, he was oddly polite during the shooting. "Excuse me, sir," he said to one man, shooting him twice. After the murders, as police closed in, Unruh returned to his room at his mother's apartment, where the assistant city editor of the Camden Evening Journal phoned and Unruh picked up. 

    "Why are you killing people?" the editor asked.

    "I don't know," Unruh replied. "I can't answer that yet. I'll have to talk to you later. I'm too busy now."

     By then police had thrown tear gas through the window. Uruh came out with his hands up. 

     "What the matter with you?" one policeman asked. "You a psycho?"

     "I'm no psycho," Unruh replied. "I have a good mind."

     Bystanders kept saying to reporters that they couldn't understand why it had happened. Prosecutors said the cause was "resentment against his neighbors." Unruh was judged insane and committed to the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital for 60 years, until his death in 2009.  He was never found competent to stand trial. 

     "I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets," he later told a psychiatrist.
     Meyer Berger, of the New York Times, won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the killings, which were not, as commonly believed, the first such rampage in America. Nor, needless to say, the last. If you look at the front page story that ran in the Chicago Daily News, you will notice that its editors had no trouble running the photo of a body sprawled in the street, even identifying it as "Maurice Cohen, drug store proprietor." Cohen was Unruh's neighbor, and apparently had set him off by complaining about him cutting through his yard and playing his radio too loud at night.

     So perhaps showing graphic photos of bodies would not have the pacifying effect that some people suspect it might. At the end of October that year, a farmer in Michigan went berserk and shot 10 people with a 12 gauge shotgun. 

     A professor of psychology told the Daily News that he was disturbed that such incidents might inspire each other, and indicate a "social pattern."

     In an odd coincidence that we can expect to see more of as these massacres multiple, Charles Cohen, 12, son of the slain druggist, survived by hiding in a closet. ("Hide, Charlie, hide!" his mother Rose had said, pushing him into the closet before she was killed). The youngster, whose grandmother was killed too, later said, "You get through it, but you never get over it." Through an odd coincidence, he lived to become the grandfather of Carley Novell, who after he died, in 2018 survived the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida by also hiding in a closet, as her grandfather had. 

     Then as now, pundits struggled to find meaning, though gave up even more readily then than now.

     "This is a case of gun-madness," wrote syndicated columnist Robert Ruark, throwing up his hands, despairing at an explanation of why "meek, religion-ridden" Unruh went amok. "All you can do is count the corpses, bury the dead, shut up the wild man and thank God that you yourself were out of range at the time."

     Unruh's 2009 obituary noted, "He had a fascination with guns."

Guns reign over American parade

     The way I describe my mother lately is, “She has grit.” A month in the hospital, stoically accepting surgery that would leave me howling in a corner. Followed by two weeks in rehab. It was initially agony to shift her head on the pillow, but shift it she did. Now she’s walking. She’s 86.
     “We’ve got to get you out of this hellhole,” were my first words to her there. I saw my job as half goad, half cheerleader, providing encouragement and chocolate.
     My wife and I were on my way to visit her Monday about 11 a.m. when we stopped by Jewel for more Lindt bars. My sister-in-law called. A mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park.
     I thought of going straight there. Or back home. But the paper already had people on the scene, and my mother was expecting us. So we continued numbly to Arlington Heights. Their parade must have just let out. Arlington Heights Road crawled. A stray float decorated in red, white and blue. A dad pulling a red wagon containing a little girl wearing star deely bobbers. Hallmarks of American innocence, though how we could still be innocent at this point is beyond me. I’m as guilty as anybody.
     The parade in my leafy suburban paradise of Northbrook, near Highland Park, was scheduled for 2:30 p.m.
     “We have to go to the parade,” I told my wife. I thought of how, when a terrorist bomb goes off at an Israeli cafe, they mop away the blood, put back the scattered chairs and tables, and order coffee.
     My wife disagreed. People in the neighboring town had just been killed. We can’t have a parade. She was right, of course. The shooter was still at large anyway, mooting the question. Northbrook and at least half a dozen nearby towns canceled their parades.
     “No reason to tell my mom about the shooting,” I said, as we arrived.

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