Don’t be scared — it’s your history, too

     Earlier this year I found myself in Washington, D.C., with a free afternoon, so I beelined to the National Mall. There are found the various and wonderful Smithsonian museums: the National Air & Space Museum, worth going just to set eyes on the Grumman Gulfhawk; the Museum of American History, with its tattered Fort McHenry flag, the original star-spangled banner; the National Portrait Gallery, showing off a newly discovered painting of Lincoln.
     None of those were considered.
     Instead I headed to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I had to, because the place hadn’t been open for business last time I was in Washington, in the summer of 2016. I wanted to see what it was like.
     As I crossed the mall, a kinsman who happened to be in town phoned. He also had some free time. Wanna get together? I asked if he wanted to visit the Museum of African-American History and Culture with me.
     “No,” he said.
     Nothing more. Simply “No.”
     That “no” was disappointing, but not surprising. History can have an obligatory, eat-your-peas quality even when it’s not the history of a people other than your own. Many Americans say “no” to most history, but particularly Black History — an unfortunate impulse being cemented into law in states all over the country. Ron DeSantis raged against Black history in announcing his candidacy for president Wednesday.

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Tinkered with.

 

      My wife and I headed over to Glencoe a few Saturdays ago to meet a lovely young couple at the Guildhall for lunch. I wasn't particularly hungry — eggs for breakfast — so ordered a cup of black coffee and a $7 bruleed grapefruit. I do love my grapefruit. Made with mint, quite good. 
     Social dynamics required that I pay the bill — $138 with tip, our guests were hungry. A tidy sum, but I only smiled, gratefully. I'm lucky to be paying for this as opposed to, oh, bail.
     Next door is a toy store, Wild Child, and though none of us have young children, we all headed inside to coo over the wares. My nostalgic nature was pleased to see a Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone pull toy, basically unchanged since introduced in 1962 as a means to teach children how to dial a telephone. 

    Rather an anachronism, like a toy butter churn. In Fisher-Price's defense, they did try to change the toy over to a push button phone in 2000. But change-averse parents pushed back. I understand sentiment toward vanished times, but have to wonder exactly what they think this rotary phone is teaching their children. Maybe it's just fun, which is fine. Not everything must have a practical purpose. They still sell hobby horses, even though few kids later graduate to real ones.

     My attention was caught by this big can of Tinkertoys. Invented by an Evanston stone mason, by the way. I took down the handsome can, examining it more closely and noticed the price: $75.  Quite a lot, really.

     "Must be expensive to fabricate all those little spools out of wood," I thought, still generous of spirit. Then paused, a suspicion dawning. Ohhhh. I popped the can and peered inside. Plastic. All the pieces are plastic. Somehow the Lincoln Logs folks manage to still use wood — also a Chicago toy, invented by John Lloyd Wright, inspired by observing the interlocking beam construction of his father's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (in my recent book, I express that information in what struck me as a neat antithesis: "Frank Lloyd Wright learned architecture by playing with wooden blocks as a child. His son, John Lloyd Wright, learned wooden blocks by playing with architecture as an adult.")
    Back home, checking out Amazon, I learned a) you can still buy all sorts of real wood Tinkertoy clones, such as this Zanmai set, for a fraction of the cost; b) if you are so brand loyal that you just must get the retro Tinkertoys can, you can buy it online for $35.99, less than half the price of the Glencoe store.
    I know stores have rent. And the folks at Wild Child no doubt like to pop over to Guildhall for their $37 steak and eggs platter. People do order that, I can vouch from personal experience.  And I generally like to support bricks-and-mortar stores. Still. Half price online is a hard deal to pass up. When I needed a new speedbag recently — mine had been pounded to pieces — and stopped by Dick's Sporting Goods to admire a $60 black leather Everlast bag (punching bags MUST be Everlast, speaking of brand loyalty, in the same way that ketchup must be Heinz). I was about to go buy it at Dick's, when, on a hunch, I put the bag back and went home, castigating myself as I did. Jumped online, my hesitation was rewarded: the identical punching bag for $28.61, delivered for free. Less than half of what the store was charging. Works for me. Generosity has its limits.

Honor Jane Byrne on her 90th birthday by taking the train

 

Jane Byrne Interchange

   All honors have teeth. Reach out to accept a plaudit, and it bites you. That’s my experience, anyway. The boring dinner. The stumble to the podium. The plaque.
     But an infamous highway interchange? That has to be a league of dubious tribute all its own.
     I can’t be the only one who, unfortunate enough to be trapped in the tangle once called “The Spaghetti Bowl,” thinks that deciding to name the crawling knot of sclerotic cars upon concrete after Jane Byrne was some kind of grim joke. The mayoral ghost of Richie Daley, exacting his revenge.
     Even though it’s kind of my fault.
     It was nine years ago that I wrote an open letter to Byrne on what I thought was her 80th birthday. I didn’t realize she secretly shaved a year off her age, a reminder that she faced the strong headwind of a society that likes its women young, pretty and not in positions of power.
     That really hasn’t changed much. Donald Trump loved to say that the only reason Hillary Clinton was able to run against him in 2016 was because she was a woman, when the truth is 180 degrees opposite. The only reason a highly qualified, smart and savvy former secretary of state nevertheless lost to the most unfit individual to ever run for the presidency is because she is a woman. A mediocre man would have whupped him, as Joe Biden illustrated.
     The column got the wheels turning to eventually extend small public honors: a tiny park, a knot of congestion. She died in 2014, but her 90th birthday would have been Wednesday, May 24, and reason to consider her anew. The Byrne legacy lives on, and not just in the looping connections between I-90, I-94, I-290 and Ida B. Wells Drive.
     Wells Drive. Another odd distinction. Only in Chicago could the powers-that-be create a situation where there would be a corner of Wells and Wells. Fitting in a city where a major thoroughfare, Wacker Drive, goes north, south, east and west.

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"Some magic, mysterious thing"

Christie Hefner, right, talks to Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner.

     They considered calling it New Times or The Electric Newspaper, in keeping with the fad for odd, non-sequitur names, with bands calling themselves things like "Jefferson Airplane." But in the end Jann Wenner settled for the original idea, "Rolling Stone" when titling his groundbreaking magazine in 1967.
     And yes, lawyers from the band that already was going by the plural, Rolling Stones, did send a cease-and-desist letter. Wenner, speaking to a small gathering of about 40 people in downtown Chicago, said he replied, "prove to me that your clients want this." Otherwise he ignored the threat, and the subject didn't come up again until he partnered with Mick Jagger to put out a UK edition of the magazine.
     The gathering Monday evening, to celebrate Wenner's autobiography, "Like A Rolling Stone," was held at Christie Hefner's lovely 42nd floor apartment near the Water Tower. The former CEO of Playboy — daughter of founder Hugh Hefner — played her interlocutor role well, guiding Wenner through his reminiscence about his life at the intersection of music and politics.

      Hefner asked him about Hunter S. Thompson, the archetypal gonzo journalist.

     "Hunter was a brilliant, brilliant writer loved practical jokes, loved wickedness, loved taking drugs, loved having fun," he replied, describing "this incredible collaboration that we had ... We just kind of took to each other instantly, recognized some kind of insanity in each other, and a kind of mission we both shared, the same idea: that we could use Rolling Stone to galvanize the youth population to political action." 

     Wenner was born in 1946, the first year of the Baby Boom, and his magazine was directed at fellow Boomers, "a new generation of Americans, the wealthiest, biggest, best-educated generation in the history of the world." 

      I liked his succinct summation of various politicians: George W. Bush, "lazy"; Ronald Reagan, "ignorant"; Barack Obama, "very organized, careful, and just doesn't budge" and Joe Biden, "a terrific president."

       Of course he also spoke of music.

       "Music was the language which young people could express their frustration, their sense of alienation with society itself," Wenner said. "Some magic, mysterious thing." 

       And musicians — he was starstruck only by Jagger — Bruce Springsteen was too much of a regular guy to inspire awe, except in performance. Bob Dylan too. 

      Wenner is a star in his own right, a fact he tacitly admitted. 

      "A great magazine really is its editor," he said. "It's a totally collaborative effort, everyone brings ideas, but finally it's the editor who galvanizes it. The editor has a mission."

     The mission of Rolling Stone was to draw together the world of music and politics, to remind young readers "you could be a rock and roll fan and be taken seriously, in the same company as the president of the United States."   

     It was a casual, friendly evening, though Hefner didn't flinch from asking tough questions. "You had conflicts about your homosexuality..." she ventured at one point.
     "Growing up in the 1950s, it wasn't spoken of, you didn't know of it," Wenner began — a world that certain Republican politicians seem eager to drag us all back to.
     Coming out, Wenner said, "was wonderful and liberating and didn't change my life at all."
      When it was time for the audience to ask questions, one was if there was a cover profile that got away from him.

     "I wanted to get Sinatra," he said. "But he wasn't available to us." No, I suppose he wouldn't be. No doubt the Chairman of the Board shrugged it off as a hippie rag. He'd have held out for Life magazine long after it went out of business.
     Someone mentioned how Rolling Stone highlighted Black musicians years before mainstream publications took up the practice.
     "Rock and roll is Black music sung by white people," Wenner said, adding that Rolling Stone covered Black musicians better than Ebony and Jet, prompting a caution from Hefner that Linda Johnson-Rice, daughter of John H. Johnson, founder of those publications, was here, and he recovered artfully. 

     I should probably mention some other notables in attendance. Rich Melman was there, with sons R.J. and Jerrod — we talked food, and Jerrod's new child, 10 weeks or so away. My old Sun-Times colleague Bill Zwecker was there, with partner Tom Gorman. He's doing some travel writing. Matt Moog, the CEO of Chicago Public Media, whom I introduced to my wife as my "boss's boss's boss's boss." Writer Alex Kotlowitz; the Tribune's Chris Jones, past publisher of the Reader, Tracy Baim, and the new young publisher, Solomon Lieberman, and I couldn't resist pitching myself to him. "Always be closing," I said to my wife as we walked away.
      I promised myself beforehand, if I spoke to Wenner at all, not to tell him about working for him 30 years ago, and doing a cover story on "Drugs in America." Of course that's the first thing I blurted out when we were introduced. But he instantly knew what I was referring to, and we talked about drug policy. I meant to tell him how proud I'd been, to be at a story and say, "Hi, I'm Neil Steinberg from Rolling Stone." Though I did thank him for the oral history of Hunter S. Thompson he wrote, "Gonzo," and how I admired that he said aloud what everyone else seemed to miss — that Thompson was an alcoholic and his affliction destroyed his ability to write. 
      It was a lovely night, and my wife and I walked to Union Station, glad to be out on the town glad to see Michigan Avenue so alive and crowded with strollers, the River Walk restaurants and bars filled to capacity. On the train home, I began reading Wenner's book: taut, candid, captivating. It's easy to be honest when you come from picaresque poverty like, oh, Frank McCourt. It's harder when your parents, like Wenner's, are successful California entrepreneurs and you were raised at private schools and summer camps. Fortune favors the brave, and Wenner lays it out without apology. It works.

     I shouldn't say any more, since I've just begun, but I've made it 25 pages in and plan to keep reading, which is not true for most books I open.

"The life they didn't lead"

Jay Tunney at home under a painting of his father, boxer Gene Tunney.

     Chicagoans endlessly parse their city’s best-known features: pizza and hot dogs, crime and weather, the blues and the Cubs. While other significant aspects of Chicago are too often simply ignored.
     Boxing, for instance. Chicago was a big boxing town. The top three heavyweight champions of the 20th century — Jack Johnson, Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali — all lived in Chicago.
     Johnson was locked in Cook County Jail for violating the Mann Act — the law passed by Congress attempting to stop him from having relations with white women. Louis won his first championship at Comiskey Park. Ali fought in the Golden Gloves in Chicago, would have fought here for a title, too, but local officials cancelled the bout to punish him for being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.
     And the boxing match that contained what many considered the greatest moment in professional boxing — if not in all athletics — the famous “Long Count” between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey took place at Soldier Field in 1927.
     Almost a century ago. Yet Tunney’s son, Jay, still lives downtown. He is a sharp and energetic 87, and the driving force behind a new play about the improbable friendship between his father and the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, “Shaw vs. Tunney,” by Doug Post, making its world premiere at Theater Wit later this month.

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"The best mailman ever"

    The suburbs get a bad rap, as a bland neutered nowheres devoid of the charm and crackle of the city. You don't hear that as much post-COVID. And while there is some truth to it — nothing radiates silence and emptiness like a deserted suburban street — there are also human hearts beating outside the boundaries of Chicago. There are people living here too. We too leave our mark, sometimes.

     For instance, my wife and I were wandering downtown Northbrook — a few blocks from our house — and we walked down Church Street, a bit off our beaten track. We noticed an improbable sight: a bronze mail bag on a metal bench at the corner of Church and Chapel, in front of what used to be Hope Union Church, now the offices of the Northbrook Historical Society.
     I'm believe we've seen it before, years ago. And driven past it many times unnoticing. But cars blind us to the details of life. And time effaces. We read the plaque. "In loving memory of Rudy Alex Loosa," it began. "Mailman extraordinaire on Northbrook Route 8 from 1997 - 2017. Rudy dedicated his life to his faith, family and friends and was a true gift to our neighborhood. Sit down, relax, and remember his contagious smile and share his love for all!"
     We sat down — you kind of have to. We relaxed, just for a minute, soaking in the beautiful early spring Saturday. long enough for our own red-bearded postman to come by, his boxy white truck parked directly across the road. It would look trite in a movie. I thought of yelling something. "Nice tribute to your fallen comrade!" Or some such thing. But that didn't feel right, he didn't look in our direction, and I decided not to stay this courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.

Rudy Alex Loosa

     I draped my right arm over the warm bronze mailbag, and we studied the details. Beautifully wrought. Someone put a lot of time and money into this. Somebody or group of somebodies cared, a lot.     

      The music from the arts festival in the park wafted over on the soft May breeze, and we got up and headed over to look at the artists' booths.
     Back at home, some details seemed in order. Loosa died in 2017, while delivering mail, at age 59. "Beloved Northbrook mail carrier dies on job" is the headline on the Tribune story.
      "He was the quintessential mailman some of us remember from 1950s television, where everybody knew the mailman, knew the milkman, and they knew about you and your family, knew about your losses, your celebrations, your victories," Scott Cawley told Irv Leavitt. "There was always a smile on his face and a great sense of optimism."

     He would deliver holiday cards to his customers, introducing himself, telling them how much he appreciated them.

     There just aren't enough people like that. I'm certainly not one. After I read about Loosa, I was sorry I hadn't said something to our mailman, passing right there. Our only communication is my ritual call of "Sorry!" when Kitty barks at him — she isn't a barky dog, but she's taken an unusual emity to the mailman, as dogs sometimes do. Maybe next time.

Flashback 1994: "Drug Sentencing: The Law of Unintended Consequences"

     A friend is hosting a party for Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner on Monday night, and I plan to go and meet the great man. If we actually get the chance to speak, I'll have to suppress the urge to say, "I wrote a cover story for you once." Technically true though the story, if I recall, was part of a package that was on the cover. Close enough.

     Anyway, I remember being vastly impressed with myself to be writing it — serious journalism for a national publication! My relationship with Rolling Stone began after they excerpted my pranks book, and I began writing stories for their college section. It was when magazines sent writers places, and I once had to fly to Boston to cover a story, returning that night, and it felt very on-the-edge to get on a plane without luggage. 

      I thought this piece was the beginning of being a Rolling Stone writer in earnest, though it actually was the end, the last piece I wrote for them — Wenner was unhappy with it somehow, though I can't recall the details.  I sure hope he doesn't. Probably best not to mention it. 

     Mandatory minimum sentences are still imposed in about half of federal drug cases.

     Tonya Denise Drake, a 28-year-old mother of four, mailed a package for a man she met in a parking lot, earning $47.40 and a 10-year jail sentence. Jason Cohn, 19, was sentenced to a decade in jail for shipping 12 grams of blotter paper containing LSD for a fellow Deadhead who, unknown to Cohn, had been busted by the feds. Michael Irish, a 44-year-old carpenter from Portland, Ore., spent three hours helping to unload hashish from a truck and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Keith Edwards, 19, sold crack cocaine to a federal informant, who then set up four more buys to accumulate enough crack to qualify Edwards for the 10-year sentence he is now serving.

     A decade into our nation’s most recent infatuation with mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, the horror stories continue to pile up. In 1993, 60 percent of the 87,000 people in federal prisons were serving time on drug convictions, up from 22 percent in 1980. Like Drake, Cohn, Irish and Edwards, half of these prisoners were first-time offenders. Had they chosen to rob a bank or rape someone or even murder someone, their sentences would probably be less than the mandatory no-parole sentences Congress has been writing into law since 1984.
     Nor are mandatory minimum sentences limited to the federal government. Forty-nine states have their own mandatory laws, such as Michigan’s “650 Lifer” law, which requires life sentences for possession of more than 650 grams of cocaine. In that state, some 150 people are sitting in prison for life for cocaine possession, perhaps half of them first offenders like Gary Fannon Jr., now 25 and seven years into the life sentence he got for a drug transaction that he merely helped to arrange. (See RS 638 and RS 664.)
     Compulsory drug sentencing is kept alive by fear-mongering. After creating the first set of harsh mandatory-drug-sentencing laws, the infamous Boggs Act, in the 1950s, then repealing them as unworkable in 1970, Congress plunged back into mandatory minimums with the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Since then, stiffening or adding to the mandatory minimums has been an election-year ritual, with the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 and the 1990 crime bill. The 1992 crime bill died at the end of the congressional session only because of the gun-control controversy.

     New to her job, Attorney General Janet Reno appeared to have taken a position on mandatory minimums based on common sense and experience. Unwisely, she spoke up: “We are not going to solve the crime problem by sending everyone to prison for as long as we can get them there and throwing away the key.” Apparently chastened by the administration, she has backed off. Her office now insists: “Attorney General Reno never was against mandatory minimum sentences. She said we need to look at them and determine who they’re affecting. She is still saying the same exact thing.”
     President Clinton declined an invitation to talk to Rolling Stone on mandatory minimums, and members of the Senate and House judiciary committees, fearful of being called soft on crime, tend to be reluctant to discuss the subject publicly. Of 10 key members polled for their opinion for this article, only Orrin Hatch, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded. “He’s recognized the problem of inflexibility when dealing with drug cases,” a spokesman said. “He’s willing to try to give the judges some measure of flexibility. The problem is, people can’t agree on a definition.”

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