‘The one gift we cannot give’

     “How many summers does a little dog have?” poet Mary Oliver asks in her 2013 collection, “Dog Songs.” I usually mark lines that strike me with a Post-It note. Here there was no need. I carried it away, indelible as a tattoo.
     The question, well, I almost said it haunts me. But that’s over-dramatic. The question sits there like an unwelcome visitor in a waiting room, briefcase jammed with sorrow on its knees, looking around impatiently, tapping the face of its wristwatch.
     I thought of the line again recently, meeting Bella, a Bichon mix, like my Kitty. In front of the Northbrook Public Library. She was very thin and shaky and clearly not long for this world.
     “How old?” I asked, the usual dogwalker’s question, freighted with more than the usual significance.
     “Eighteen,” the owner, a lady about my age, replied.
     Kitty is 13. So five years. Relief. And concern. How fast does five years go? Will it be more? Or less? How many summers does a little dog have?
     In the past, when I thought of Kitty’s ultimate end, I sought shelter in a facile line. “I’m hoping to go before she does.” Now that seems too glib. Some pains demand anticipation. Luckily, pet owners now have a whole book to prepare and brace us: “The Book of Pet Love & Loss: Words of Comfort & Wisdom from Remarkable People,” by Sara Bader, a gorgeous volume intended to both celebrate our love of companion animals and bring solace when bereavement comes.
     “How do we make sense of the desolation that sets in so quickly?” the author asks.

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Stitcher Fast

 

     "It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me," I sang to a neighbor across the street Monday morning, setting down the hose I was using to water my vanhoutte spirea and doing a choppy little dance move with my arms. 
     "How did you know that?" she replied, startling me in turn. 

      How did I know?
      "I exist in the world!" I objected. 
      To provide urgently needed context, a) the opening line is from Taylor Swift's hit song "Anti-Hero" and b) the neighbor had gone to Detroit over the weekend with two  other ladies from the block and one very lucky elementary school girl, to catch the Swift show there at Ford Field. My foray into song was an attempt to acknowledge her adventure.
      For a moment, I thought that her surprise was because I'm old. How could an old person know a currently popular song? And there is truth to that. Working out, I listen to music, and it occurred to me that all my favorite songs are 45 years old. That was kinda depressing.

     Although in truth, I'm only a few years older than she, though not the sort to travel hundreds of miles to take in the hottest teen sensation.
     I do try to keep up. I've listened to Lizzo — bash, joyful, juicy, fun. I've made a point of hitting the "Browse" function on Apple Music and discovered lots of songs that are good to exercise to and bear repeated listening. "Tick Tick Boom" by Sage the Gemini and "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven. "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers and "Float On" by Modest Mouse.
    As for Taylor Swift, it isn't as if the songs speak to my condition, though I admire the humor of the "Shake It Off" video, plus of course her pulchritude. Maybe because she first came to my awareness when Kanye West grabbed the microphone away from Swift at the 2009 MTV Music Awards, but there was always a pall of victimhood about her — her songs always seem addressed to the haters and fakers she refers to in "Shake It Off." I find myself wishing someone would share with her former Sun-Times City Editor Don Hayner's excellent advice: "Don't let them live in your head rent free."
      But we live in an age when obvious things sometimes shouldn't be remarked upon — that's why I used "pulchritude" instead of "beauty" — depending on who is doing the remarking.  I was reminded of that when a man about my age remarked on how Madonna had disfigured herself with plastic surgery and was set upon on social media as a sexist and a swine. Okay then. I haven't studied Swift's oeuvre, but I'm hoping her gigantic concert success this year is restorative for the young woman, who seems a genuinely nice person, constantly surprising fans by sending them presents and popping behind them on street corners. The video clips from the Soldier Field concert made me wish, well, not quite that I were there, but that I had been there (echoing something Dr. Johnson quipped about the Giant's Causeway — and thanks to John O'Rourke for tracking it down: "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.")

     Okay, I think we've had enough of this subject for today. Let's wrap up.

     As if seeing my face fall and immediately understanding the cause, my neighbor quickly explained that she was surprised I knew of the song because I am a man. No argument there.

     "There were probably 10 men in the entire audience," she said, recounting one in a t-shirt that read, "It's me, hi, I'm the dad, it's me."

      That's a shame. While I don't think I'd ever take the time or spend the $500 or a thousand bucks to see a Taylor Swift show on my own volition, should the opportunity come my way — the need to squire a young grand niece perhaps, or a newspaper assignment, or neighbor's spare ticket — I think I would embark upon the experience with an eager and open mind. After all, I once survived a live performance of "The Big Comfy Couch" children's television program without any noticeable ill effects. We can't stay young, but at least we can be vaguely aware of what the young are up to.

Democrats need to wake up

Dryer lint Donald Trump, center, at 2016 Republican National Convention. 

     This Friday, June 16, marks many things. It’s Bloomsday, the day in 1904 when the entirety of James Joyce’s great novel, “Ulysses” takes place. It’s also my parents’ anniversary — 67 years and still going strong. (Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!) And my younger son’s birthday.
     It’s also the date in 2015 when Donald John Trump descended that escalator in the vomit-colored lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, declared himself a candidate for president and promised to save this country from the twin perils of Mexican immigrants and Muslims.
     Eight years. Three thousand days, most of which saw Donald Trump twirling like a demented ballerina in drippy orange makeup in the spotlight of American life. From that introductory moment — the first words out of his mouth a lie, natch, inflating the few dozen people present into “thousands” — to last week, when he was indicted by federal authorities on 37 counts related to seven charges under the Espionage Act.
     What a strange, terrible time in American history. Sometimes I consider it punishment for, having missed the tumult of the 1960s, wishing I could have lived in a momentous era of American history when great issues were being resolved. I take it back.
     No time for regret now. Not with Trump followers urging violence at the prospect of his being prosecuted for his crimes. Not when they question the value of law enforcement before they’ll ever question their Chosen One.
     Trump certainly will never pause from lying. Why would he? The lies work. The federal case, outlining his betrayal of national interest and endangering our security by exposing America’s military secrets to her enemies, was instantly shrugged off. Republicans have honed a variety of survival skills — perpetual imaginary victimhood, look-a-squirrel whataboutism, but-the-trains-run-on-time tunnel vision — allowing them to instantly ignore anything Trump does, did, or ever could do.
     If Republicans are in a trance, so are Democrats. Because we keep waiting for Republicans to wise up.

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"You better party"

     "Who is he? (And what is he to you?)" is a great title for a blues song, and Sugaray Rayford delivered it with power, sincerity and a surprising dance groove for such a big man.    

     "Six-foot-five, 365 pounds baby!" he enthused to the crowd at the Pritzker Pavilion stage of the Chicago Blues Festival Saturday night.

St. Regis Hotel

      As glad as Rayford said he was to be in Chicago, as opposed to all the other places all over the world the Texas native has performed, we were a seated crowd, and that just would not do. Rayford urged us to our feet, several times, until everyone was standing and swaying.

     "You better party," he half urged, half threatened, invoking the possible return of COVID to dampen scenes like this one. "It could shut down again tomorrow."

     That sense of urgent fun seemed the general mood on a jammed Michigan Avenue, packed with people enjoying perfect June weather. Lines of latecomers to get into the Blues Fest stretched around the block. Summer seemed in full swing. Musicians played, families strolled, children gawked.

     We couldn't stay for the end of Rayford's set — reservations at Miru, a Lettuce Entertain You Restaurant opened last month in the new St. Regis Hotel, the shiny green Jeanne Gang tower with its way cool two floor "blow-out" section to keep the 100-story structure from swaying in the Chicago wind.

     "It's a thrill just going in the building," I told my wife, as we went in. "The fact we also get dinner is just a bonus."

     We got off the elevator, edged into the young, hip crowd. From the maitre d' station, the restaurant looks small, intimate, but then as you step inside, it unfolds, through an expansive section out onto one of the great romantic restaurant decks in Chicago. Miru is Japanese for "view," and offers an expansive sweep across the river, from Trump Tower ("I'm going to be standing there when they take those letters down," I told my wife, leaving out the part about cheering) to Navy Pier, the Ferris wheel and the lake, and the biggest challenge of the experience was deciding which way to face at our table, and even then, we kept swiveling in our seats, admiring the glorious city all around us.  

     While we were being ushered to our table, we bumped into Lettuce founder Richard Melman. I don't know why I was surprised to find him there on a Saturday night, if not quite bussing tables, then midwifing the birth of his latest creation. He paused his efforts to join us at our table, advising us on the best things to order — grilled avocado in a spicy soy, which was truly wonderful. The broccolini gomaae in sweet sesame sauce was a fun twist on the classic spinach, the vegetables firm yet yielding. We had chopped Bluefin tuna on little leaves of crispy shiso, and smoked pork belly skewers in apple cider glaze. I couldn't resist trying the miso black cod, and Edie opted for their hamachi ponzu maki. Sometimes dessert is a trifle, a sweet afterthought, but dessert at Miru was perhaps the highlight; coconut cake and mango sorbet, and — my favorite — black sesame mochi with charcoal vanilla ice cream and black sesame praline.

     And the sushi.... I've eaten at some first rate sushi places — like the eight-seat Omakase Ume — and Miru is right up there with the best.

     The St. Regis is on Wacker, just west of Lake Shore Drive, and it's a 1.7 mile hike to Union Station. But my wife shrugged off my suggestion of a cab and we power-walked it in half an hour. Oddly enough, the sprint to the train was itself fun, almost marvelous, the capstone of a very busy day — my 63rd birthday. It like a dream — a good dream this time — to race across the Loop, through all the color and lights and noise and crowds, the familiar buildings sliding past, the cars and commotion. Our train car heading home was host to a cluster of loud, laughing girls, talking excitedly, as if they'd never been downtown before. Maybe they hadn't.  

View from the patio at Miru in the St. Regis Hotel.

Works in progress: Jack Clark

     The Works in Progress feature which had been running Saturdays ran out of steam — well, ran out of writer-friends, actually. I'd hope that readers who had various literary side hustles would step up. But they didn't. Since I try not to repost TOO much old stuff, I crafted a slice-of-life glimpse of my visit to Schuba's on Sunday, and that ironically flushed out Jack Clark, who I had invited to contribute a few weeks back. On Thursday, I posted a 2002 column on him, by way of introduction. Take it away, Jack.

     When Schuba's opened back in 1989, my first thought was, "Oh, oh. Here come the yuppies." I was driving trucks back then, moving furniture. My favorite breakfast joint, the Holiday Grill, was kitty-corner from Schuba's, one door off the corner. It was a single storefront, not very deep, ten stools and three or four small tables. That was the entire place, open for breakfast and lunch only. "Southern Cooking," the sign said.  

Jack Clark at the Grafton Pub

      Ruby was the waitress. Her husband was behind the grill. I forget his name. They were originally from Athens Georgia. I'm pretty sure that's right. They made the best biscuits and gravy I'd ever tasted. I also loved their French toast, a very light batter on fingerprint white bread. It didn't need syrup, strawberries or powdered sugar, just a touch of butter.
     I'd been stopping in regularly since the mid-'70s, usually along with a moving crew. We often ran into crews from other moving companies inside. It was a long way from a yuppie place, and I took it as a bad sign when Schuba's showed up. Rents would go up and the Holiday Grill would be priced out of the neighborhood.
     One day I walked in and Ruby was behind the grill. Her husband had had a stroke. I remember their daughter came in and worked as a waitress to help out. The food was as good as ever. But you could tell it was taking a toll on Ruby, cooking all day and then going home to take care of a sick husband.
     Ruby hired another cook for a bit. The gravy was as white as bleached flour, and I think that's all it was, flour and water. There wasn't a hint of sausage, no bits of meat scraped off the grill to turn the gravy that lovely shade of grey.
     The next time I stopped by, the place was closed. A few months later, I heard that Ruby was cooking breakfast across the street, in Schuba's back room. They'd decided to open bright and early special for her.
     I went in with a moving crew and she was smiling behind the grill. The food was as good as ever. The same room where the bands played at night was filled with morning light. I decided to forgive the Schuba brothers for being yuppies (if that's what they were).
     Ruby always had the radio tuned to WMAQ, which was a great country station back then. One day, George Jones came on singing, "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Ruby shouted from behind the grill, "Ain't no food going out of this kitchen 'til this song ends." You could hear Georgia in every word, and you knew without a doubt that Ruby was thinking of her husband, sick at home, waiting for her to get back to him.
     I was in and out of town in those days. Once I got back and a fellow mover told me that Ruby and her husband had died. "Her husband, you mean?"
     He shook his head. "Both of them." That's what he'd heard.
     I double-parked on Belmont Avenue and went inside. Ruby had been helping her husband across the street, the bartender told me, when they'd been hit and killed by a turning car. That was all the details he knew.
     I've been in Schuba's many times since then. I've heard plenty of good music. But it's Ruby's voice that comes clearly through the years.

     If you'd like to dive into Clark's work, start with his three-book Nick Acropolis private detective series. It's all Chicago based, and start with "Westerfield's Chain," then "Highway Side," and "Dancing on Graves."

Do I have the right to write this?

Palazzo Zuccari in Rome, built 1592

     Not even a month since Chicago welcomed its new mayor. I applauded, more or less, then turned my attention elsewhere, figuring: it’s honeymoon time. Let the man settle in. Get used to his new chair. Start facing the demands of running ... checking the stats ... what is still the nation’s third-largest city, with Houston not expected to pass Chicago for another 10 years.
     Then Monday, when my back was turned, the mayor sticks the knife in. While kissing up to the latest crop of police officers, he announced:
     “And let me make this emphatically clear: If you don’t live in Chicago, you don’t have a right to talk about the city of Chicago.”
     Sez who? The brand-spanking-new, wet-from-the-womb mayor of America’s (for now) third-largest city? Bzzzzt. Oh, I’m sorry: Wrong. We do have the right. But no need to trust an auslander, with the shameful stain of suburbia upon him. Flip open my U.S. Constitution to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”
     Yes, the mayor of Chicago is not Congress. He’s far less. A local official. Don’t we have enough local officials who feel entitled to score cheap political points by telling others what they have the right to say, read, think? Is Chicago’s new mayor really springing out of the blocks to join that race? Govs. Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, meet your new teammate, Mayor Brandon Johnson.
     The sad thing is, I know what Johnson was trying to say. He’s sick of Chicago getting kicked from all directions by those whose closest connection to the city is watching “The Bear.” But the answer isn’t covering your ears and shouting “Stop it!” It’s called, “not caring.” My inbox fills every day with rage-addicted Floridians trying to lord the weekend shooting stats over me.

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Flashback 2002: Cabbie has a story, and you should listen

Library of Congress

     I heard from Jack Clark Monday. He's a writer and former cab driver whom I've known for ... gee ... decades, and I'd asked him to submit something for my periodic "Works in Progress" Saturday feature. 

     Reading his prose sparked a single memory — sitting in the Billy Goat together — and I realized I'd written a column about him, 21 years ago. I thought the column would be a good way to introduce him to you, and prime your for his Saturday piece.

     Jack Clark is a cabdriver. He lives in Lincoln Square, though finds it getting a little hoity-toit for his taste. "They took down the Laundromat and put up a Starbucks," he said, disgust flitting about his face.
     As with most cabbies, Jack is overflowing with stories. No sooner had we settled down at a red-and-white checked table than our setting — the Billy Goat Tavern — inspired a good one. I can't quote it, sadly, as it would be too cruel, even toward a competitor across the street. But take my word for it. The next story, happily, is sharable:
     "The only cab trip I ever took in reverse was to here," Jack said, reflectively, looking about the place. "A lady called from Riccardo's. She got in, and said she wanted to go to the Billy Goat. So I put the cab in reverse and backed around the corner. God, she was embarrassed."
     His mother, Mary Jo Clark, is also filled with stories. Most moms are, I suppose. Her stories were the mythologies of the family, tales both universal and highly particular. Both the classic immigrant arc from Ireland, and the individual eccentricities found in all families: Aunt Nell, who gave her children away; Aunt Maggie, who couldn't read.
     As Mary Jo Clark got older — she's 88 now — her son realized that if he didn't collect her stories, they would die with her. So he dutifully interviewed her and compiled a 160-page manuscript, intended to be passed around the family. A family history.
     But Jack has moxie — another trait common in cabdrivers. It dawned on him that there was more value to his mother's stories than a mere family heirloom.
     "These stories have a lot of history with this town," he said. "Almost all of them take place in the first half of this century. This is a great middle class city, and the book is like a history of the move from blue collar into the middle class."

     So he showed his mother's storybook to an editor at the Chicago Reader. The tales ended up published as a series there and, now, as a book, "On the Home Front," published by Plume.
     The book itself is a marvel of writerly restraint. Jack, for all his opinionated brio, fades into near-invisibility, as his mother narrates, in her own no-nonsense voice, brief episodes. Some are private moments — being 4 years old, getting shiny new shoes and remembering looking down at them as she toed circles in the sawdust on a butcher shop floor.
     Others brush against history— news of Pearl Harbor, or the Dorchester, a World War II troop ship sunk off the coast of Greenland. It was famous for the four chaplains who gave up their life vests to other sailors, but Bill, who was dating Mary Jo's younger sister, wasn't one of the lucky survivors.
     "She was a wreck after that," Clark writes. "She'd read every paper looking for articles. . . . They never found Bill. They found some of the men frozen on rafts. There were some that survived, I believe, but not too many. She watched the newspapers for months."
     The book's strength is that it doesn't stoop to Greatest Generation mythologizing. The Clarks are real people, and Mary Jo doesn't try to make them heroes.
     "All of our people were drafted," she admits. "Nobody joined. I don't know anybody who was a volunteer. Nobody I know. They all had a number. When their number came up, they went."
     The book captures the meekness and daring of being low on the economic pecking order. After Mary Jo's father blows half his pay on a spree, her mother is so angry she storms out and blows the other half on a fancy hat. Another time, teenage Mary Jo brings her birth certificate to the Sears at Homan and Arthington, looking for work. But the woman doing the hiring holds it to the light and sees it has been tampered with. The next day Mary Jo returns, in the same dress, and hands her older sister's birth certificate to the same woman, who hires her. The tough part was reminding all her high school friends working at Sears to call her by her sister's name.
     Like most authors, Jack is trying hard to push sales of his book.
     "It's frustrating not to get a review in a Chicago paper," he said. "It's a Chicago book. A real Chicago book."
     He does have the book in his cab, and is not shy about pressing it on passengers.
     "I had a romance writer in the cab the other day, and she said that publishers expect you to do your own publicity," he told me.
     Toward that end, Jack Clark has a plan. He would like his mother's memoirs to be picked as the next book for "One Book/One Chicago," like "To Kill a Mockingbird" or, recently, "Night."
     "What could be more perfect?" he said. "A Chicago book by a Chicagoan about Chicago. Only I don't know how you submit them. I don't think there's any place you send in nominations."
     He was wrong. I called the Chicago Public Library and not only found they take nominations on their Web site, but that the committee that picks the books is meeting today. So I nominated "On the Home Front," which really is a very moving book and, while I was at it, since I am not without moxie myself, I nominated my own new book, "Don't Give Up the Ship." It's a tough business, and a guy has to do all he can.

         — Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 31, 2002