I’m back from a week off work today. Spent the time traveling a little, doing nothing a little, and being productive a little. All in all, it was the break I really needed.

Our travels took us first to New York—and we got to use our TSA Pre status for the first time. Beth and I joined modernity about a month ago, and it is pretty nice. Though the whole security ordeal makes me curse Osama Bin Laden every time.

Our “it’s a small world” tale from that flight: We always get to pre-board because of Luna. (God I love Luna.) When we entered the plane both bulkhead rows were already occupied by fellow pre-boarders. Not the end of the world, but the bulkhead is best for the dog. A woman in the right-hand row piped up and asked whether the dog would be better in the bulkhead, and she volunteered to move. She did, we sat down, Beth dug into her bag and fished out a copy of one of the children’s books she’d written recently, this one about service dogs.

She turned to the good Samaritan behind us, and handed the little book to her as a thank you. The woman was audibly tickled, and then a few minutes later asked: Are you the Beth Finke I read about whose husband had Covid? (Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens had written a piece about our plight the very beginning of Covid.)

“Yes!” said Beth. “And here’s the husband,” pointing to me. “He survived!”

“I can’t believe you’d remember my name.” Our new friend then added that we might have a mutual friend. Indeed, that friend is Leah, whom I’ve known since our college days at the University of Illinois.

It was one of those little encounters that lightened the whole travel experience. And it all started with a small act of kindness.

We flew into the spacious, modern, attractive…LaGuardia airport. It’s the second time I’ve been to the renovated airport, and both times I had to stop and wonder if I was really in LaGuardia. It was a dump forever, it was worse during construction, and now it’s palatial. Well, as palatial as an airport can be.

In New York we visited friends we met through—who else—Beth. Benita was Beth’s volunteer reader during our early years in Chicago. They bonded and then we met Benita’s husband Henry and we all bonded. Native New Yorkers, they lived in Chicago for several years because Henry was a big shot doctor at Rush Medical Center. Upon his retirement, they moved back to New York to a great place in the Upper West Side, a stone’s throw from Central Park and the Natural History Museum.

That’s Hank on the left, me, Pick, and Beth during a vacation we took together in New Orleans.

We hadn’t seen each other since before Covid and it was food for the soul to be together again, even briefly.

From there we took an Amtrak train to Washington, D.C. to see our pals Pick and Hank, whom we’ve posted about more than once before. Pick and Hank have been an item about as long as  Beth and I have, and we’ve seen each other through lots of changes. Our relationships with them have become kind of that old, favorite, comfortable pair of shoes. We usually eat out once, and this time it was at a Greek Restaurant in Old Town, Alexandria, in a perfect outdoor garden and patio. And, a visit isn’t a visit unless Pick plays the piano and sings a little, and Beth plays, too.

We eat, we walk, we drink, we talk. We don’t do anything special during our visits, but somehow, every single visit is special.

Good news! Soon all of the memoir-writing classes I lead will be back in session, which means our “Senior Class” feature will be back in full swing, too.

I’m getting the ball rolling by introducing Al Hippensteel as our guest blogger today. After a long career in the printing industry, Al retired, appropriately, here in the Printers Row neighborhood of Chicago along with his wife, Donna. When I assigned “Taste” as a prompt for the Zoom memoir-writing class he attends, I was prepared for writers to come back with essays about food, restaurants, recipes, people’s interest in books, literature, music, art, clothing, that sort of thing. But Al surprised me by weaving many different tastes into one 500-word tribute to Chicago.

Al and Donna enjoy a Rainbow Cone at Taste of Chicago.

Taste

by Al Hippensteel

A week ago, my wife and I walked over to the Taste of Chicago, a summertime tradition featuring an array of food booths, each one showcasing a different city eatery.

In previous years “Taste,” as we locals call it, has been located in Chicago’s Grant Park. This year it was set in the shadow of Buckingham Fountain.

You can find just about anything to suit your taste at Taste. Donna and I headed directly to Rainbow Cone, a Chicago favorite. Orange Sherbet, Pistachio, Palmer House, Strawberry, and Chocolate. But what interested me most this year was the diversity of food and combinations, like Indian Tandoori Chicken served as a taco. Thai food served as a taco. Who knew a taco shell could turn out to be the perfect carrier for other ethnic food? Folks transporting their finger food around were always perusing their next “taste.”

Earlier, on a drive to Michigan, we stopped by a local produce stand that was having a garage sale that day. A stack of old vinyl albums was included in the sale, and my wife zeroed in on Hair, the Musical. It reminded me of the magical time when we, the youth of the late 60’s, yearned for a more egalitarian world. The songs spoke of love, drugs, and acceptance of all people: black, yellow, red, white. I’m afraid a lot of it turned out to be youthful enthusiasm: Generations that preceded us did not accept Aquarius. When we went out into the world, many of us experienced push back against our long hair, our beards, our taste in clothes.

Now, as retirees, we live in various places as elder statesmen, or is it statesperson? Some have chosen to live in retirement communities. Some choose famously large and Disney-like ones.

But our preference? Donna and I want to age in place in the high-rise condo building we live in now, near downtown Chicago. We live in a vibrant city that has more cultural stimulation, restaurants and sports events than any retirement community could offer. And guess what? I’ve realized an unintended circumstance while living here.

It’s Aquarius! If not a building filled with free love and seniors high on gummies, an incredibly diverse building of owners and renters, a constantly evolving stew of folks of all ages and stages in life. Black, brown, yellow and white — immigrants who have chosen America, college students, retired people, young families having babies. We have different tastes, different religions, different ways of dress. We share a gym, a laundry room, an outdoor swimming pool. We volunteer to tend our gardens and sort packages in our package room. Everyone is invited to social events. Even our maintenance staff gets into the act by buying donuts and coffee for special events like the annual cross-town classic when the Cubs and the White Sox, our two baseball teams, meet.

Life here in Chicago isn’t perfect. Crime is higher than we would like. Local politics can drive you crazy. The city is coping with an influx of migrants, but Chicago has long been a city of immigrants. A large vibrant Chinatown is just two miles away. Large lively Hispanic communities are close by. The largest Ukrainian community in the United States is here in Chicago, and so is the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. We know what migrants mean to the city. It means people who will fit in and work hard. So is it any wonder we have a veritable ethnic feast of food at a festival called “Taste of Chicago?”

Beth and I spent yesterday afternoon with friends in the suburbs—breezy sunny weather, burgers on the grill, lots of great conversation and good company. At one point, those of us of a certain age bemoaned the overwhelming number of streaming services offering an overwhelming number of streaming programming.

Our friend Joe pined for the days when there were maybe five channels. And that nearly all of us watched certain shows (All in the Family, e.g.), and that it made for easy water cooler discussions. (The most popular streaming shows get a fraction of the audience of the most popular network shows of the day.)

All the “it was better back then” stuff aside, it did occur to me that in today’s America, there are very, very few common experiences. We can segregate ourselves a thousand different ways—where we get our information, where we get entertainment, where we live. And, the ranks of the generation that experienced the great depression and WWII are thinning.

In any case, it’s easier to avoid people who aren’t like ourselves than ever. And I think that’s a factor in our overall national polarization.

All this reminded me of a stint of jury duty I served a couple weeks ago. I was called by Cook County as a backup juror and as it happens, I was selected. It was an inconvenience, yes, but I’ve actually been called a few times and never have been able to serve. Because of one crisis or health issue or another, I haven’t been able to. And I wanted to.

I’ll save the details—it was a civil suit and something of a study in human behavior that, despite it being a sort of mundane matter, was weirdly compelling.

And inspiring.

I served with a woman CTA bus driver (who liked having a break from that work), a fund raiser for veterans, a U of I student on summer break, an Asian American who apologized for his choppy English, to name a few. Every one of us was respectful to one another, listened carefully throughout the proceedings, and deliberations were totally civilized. Beyond that, the County Sheriff’s officers were incredibly polite and kind over our nearly week together.

I’ve always thought mandatory service for 18 year olds would be good for the country, service where people have to rub elbows and work with people they didn’t pick out of the lineup. That’s probably a longshot; until then we have jury duty.

Michigan Avenue looked ghostly on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Click on the image to watch the eerie cab ride.

As our friend and neighbor Al Hippensteel puts it, I’ve been on a kind of blog sabbatical. Hope to get back in the rhythm starting today.

Three years ago this past April, after six days in the hospital and three days in a City-run covid isolation hotel, I got a cab home from Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood back to our Printers Row condo.

I took a video of that dystopian ride. Little did I know things would get worse before they got better.

The lockdown was bad enough, but a couple rounds of George Floyd riots (yes, there were also constructive protests—the looting and violence were riots) left a “Dawn of the Dead” air to Chicago’s once vibrant streets and businesses. Shattered glass, boarded up stores, and lonely streets.

The day after the May 31 looting in 2020. Plywood was too late for the SRO Sandwich shop, which never reopened. That awning is the entry to our building.

It’s been a long, arduous slog, and we’re still not exactly where we were before the pandemic (and likely never will be), but I’m happy to report Chicago has found its legs and is running hard again.

During the lockdown and beyond, I’d say that we city dwellers had it the hardest. Why? Because every place one could choose to live carries tradeoffs. For example, small town life offers peace, quiet and a sense of intimacy. But that can sometimes mean too peaceful, boring, and everybody in everybody else’s business all the time.

City life—as Beth and I have been lucky enough to experience—means drinking from a fire hose of cultural and sporting events, but also enduring the blare of sirens, the thundering L trains, daily reports of violent crime, and much less green space.

During covid, there was no tradeoff for us. We lost what we came for 20+ years ago. There was no jazz at Jazz Showcase down the street, no Chicago Symphony just blocks away, no SummerDance at Grant Park. No nothing.

Dearborn Street, outside our front door, this past Saturday during Printers Row Art Fest. (Click to enlarge.)

It was bleak but we improvised, having impromptu meetings in our little park just outside our door. Sitting in parkas next to wide open windows at Half Sour, our favorite watering hole, when it was freezing outside, seeking camaraderie as well as hoping against hope that it would help the place survive. Buying gift cards at Sofi, the Italian restaurant downstairs in our building, and maybe not using them right away (or at all) as a way of keeping it off life support.

Sometimes I wondered if it would be worth it, this trying to stick it out thing. Over the past few weeks I can, relievedly, elatedly, report: Damn right it was.

Taylor Swift, the Pride Parade, NASCAR, Beyonce, Lollapalooza, Ed Sheeran all in a month—a bunch of stuff we don’t do but that brings energy one can feel. (And in NASCAR’s case, hear.) Jazz Showcase has more programming than ever, including a Monday evening summer residency by the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, a splendid big band. We took one of those in a couple weeks ago and then the next week we headed to Symphony Center to see Ben Folds in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the most moving, stirring performance of any kind I’ve seen anywhere, on any stage. (Their rendition of the Psychedelic Furs “The Ghost in You” was bring-you-to-tears beautiful.)

Our friend Nancy had her birthday party in a beautiful spot on a beautiful night. (Click image to enlarge.)

Last Friday night we cabbed up to Montrose Beach and Harbor to celebrate a friend’s birthday on a sublime, lakefront evening replete with puffy, peach-tinted clouds against the skyline. And this weekend our Dearborn block closed for the Printers Row Art Fest, with Lit Fest coming in September.

Chicago faces, as it always has, serious problems in addition to its gleaming skylines, beautiful public lakefront, and cultural gems.

Like I said: It’s a tradeoff, and one I’m proud and privileged to make.

Last December, Beth posted here about a couple of children’s books she wrote for a series on disabilities sponsored by Easterseals. She penned two of the books: “What is the Americans with Disabilities Act?” (2^nd-5^th grades) and “Service Dogs” (3^rd grade). They turned out great and besides being distributed by Easterseals chapters and other agencies, they’re available from Cherry Lake Press and at Target.com.

Well, Beth did well enough that Cherry Lake Press—the publisher in the partnership—asked her to write another book, this in their “Itty Bitty Bio” series. True to its name, each book is a brief, digestible biography aimed at young readers. In this case, Beth and other authors with disabilities were asked to identify a role model with a disability, and to craft an “Itty Bitty Bio” on that person.

Beth chose Jason Benetti, the terrific play-by-play  announcer for the Chicago White Sox. That’s his day job—but he moonlights as a national announcer for multiple sports on Fox Sports, too.

Benetti was born with Cerebral Palsy, nearly died, had umpteen surgeries, has a limp, a wandering eye, a strong baritone voice and he’s absolutely fantastic at his job. So Beth picked a good one.

Fortunately, he was generous enough to do a Zoom interview with Beth, and a few days ago we received advance copies of “Jason Benetti: My Itty Bitty Bio.” It’s cute as hell.

As of August 1, you can purchase it from Cherry Lake Press, or from Target.com.

For a good explanation of the books, check out this TV interview with a representative of Easterseals MORC on the Detroit CBS affiliate:

Finally, FYI: Benetti is remarkably honest and insightful about what it means to achieve what he’s achieved while having a disability–and he teamed with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation to do a creative and thoughtful animated series called Awkward Moments with Jason Bennetti. Check it out below: