Happy New Year from our friends’ place in Urbana, Illinois!

Beth and I have been bathroom refugees since December 26. That is, we’re having our bathroom redone, and since we only have the one, we got outta Dodge while the work is being done.

Our adventure started with a staycation of sorts—I used credit card miles that piled up over the shutdown to book four nights at the Hotel Essex on Michigan Avenue about three blocks from home. The whole thing kind of flummoxed Luna at first. Where they usually made a right, Beth commanded her to make a left, and they zigged where they usually zagged. But it was pretty terrific. The hotel was right across from the Hilton, where Beth swims, so that was convenient. (We would’ve stayed at the Hilton, but I didn’t have enough miles.)

Here’s to a prosperous and happy 2023!

Plus, the hotel restaurant had a great happy hour, so we invited friends from the hood to join us at ourswank new digs.

On Friday, a generous friend loaned us her car and we drove south to Urbana to visit our friends Steven and Nancy, who were Hanni’s people after she retired. We also saw my nephew Aaron and his children and his fiancé.

We ate great Chinese takeout, and yesterday, I whipped up the best batch of black-eye peas and collards I’ve ever whipped up.

It’s been swell.

Eating black-eye peas and collards is a Southern tradition that is believed to bring good luck and good fortune (literally). I learned about that tradition decades ago from my friend Pick, who grew up in Virginia.

Driving around Urbana-Champaign always is sort of paradoxical—our former long-time hometown feels totally familiar, but what with the new high-rises, campus buildings, and new restaurants and shops I’m not familiar with, I feel like a ghost.

But overall, it’s pretty wonderful, and I’m at a point in life where what familiar things remain trigger an avalanche of memories. Which trigger other memories (like eating black eye peas and collards with Pick.)

The past year has been paradoxical, too. My work is meaningful and the non-profit organization I work for is thriving. Beth is going strong, as she posted just last week. We’re mostly healthy (but for a herniated disc that is steadily improving thanks to my physical therapist.)

But there was loss, a lot of it. There was our friend and neighbor Janet, Beth’s niece Stacie (not all that long after the premature loss of her nephew Robbie), my Urbana friend Barry, the irascible and inimitable Brad, Flavio of Printers Row Wine, and the regal, one-and-only Wanda Bridgeforth.

A couple of these losses are felt more intimately—because of the frequency with which we saw them and their proximity, I keep expecting to run into Janet and Brad when Beth and I stroll around the neighborhood. I can recall their gaits; I’d recognize their silhouettes as I squinted to see them approach from down the street. Every once in awhile I think I see them.

When Beth and I experience a loss, our friend Hank, of Jewish heritage, always sends the most comforting of thoughts: May their memory be a blessing.

Their memories are indeed blessings. As was the good fortune of knowing them.

Here’s to a safe, healthy, and happy 2023.

The wonderful Wanda Bridgeforth left us a lot of gifts, including this story.

I came across drafts from my book “Writing Out Loud“ a week or two ago while searching for something else on my computer. I was delighted when notes about one of Wanda’s stories about a special Christmas popped up. In 1927, Wanda received a very special present from Santa. I knew right then I’d be sharing this story with you Safe & Sound blog readers. Merry Christmas!

“I must have been a really good girl in 1927,” Wanda started, going on to describe her new Effanbee Rosemary Doll. “Her curls and eyelashes were natural hair. Every time I sat her up or laid her down she opened and closed her eyes and said, “MA-MA!!!” That was enough to melt a little girl’s heart.”

Wanda gave the doll her Mama’s name: Geneva. “Mama showed me how to wash and iron Geneva’s dress, panties and bonnet,” Wanda wrote. “Life was good for this little seven-year-old until late spring 1928, when her father lost his job. “He liked his drink,” she said. That’s when her Mama started “working in private family” – Wanda’s words explaining that her mother had to live with the family she worked for.

Thus began Wanda’s vagabond years, staying with one relative for a week, a neighbor for another, and, sometimes, with complete strangers.

“I abandoned all of my toys except Geneva,” Wanda wrote, describing her doll as her confidant and bedfellow. “Every Tuesday after school I washed her clothes so she would be nice and clean when Mama came home on Wednesday, her day off. The three of us would sit at the kitchen table and exchange the events of the week.”

Wanda washed Geneva’s clothing so often that they faded. “For Christmas in 1931, Cousin Sugar, the lady I was staying with, made Geneva a new outfit. Mama and Cousin Sugar assured me the new clothes did not need weekly washing.”

Wanda’s friends boasted that their own dolls were made of rubber and could drink milk or water from a tiny bottle with a tiny nipple on it.” I looked at Geneva, her mouth was open and she had a space between her lips. I bought a tiny bottle with a tiny nipple on it from Woolworth’s 5 & 10 cents store and fed Geneva,” she wrote. “After a while Geneva developed a horrible odor and her body became damp.”

Cousin Sugar and Mama cut a slit in Geneva’s body and found the straw stuffing full of mildew and mold. Her plaster body was falling apart. Only her head was intact. “I didn’t realize her straw insides absorbed the liquid instead of passing it through like the rubber dolls did,” Wanda wrote.

“I was inconsolable. Geneva was DEAD!”

Wanda decided Geneva must have a funeral. Dressed in their parents black clothes, she and her friends marched behind a Radio Flyer Wagon lined with black crepe paper. “We sang a hymn and sent Geneva, My Favorite Toy, dressed in her Christmas Outfit to live with the Angels.”

I sure have been busy lately.

But really? who hasn’t been?!

My busy-ness doesn’t have much to do with the holidays, though. I’ve been busy writing, and it’s making me feel good!

Let me explain. After decades and decades of querying magazines about story ideas, pleading with agents to give my latest manuscript a read, all that sort of writerly stuff, well, suddenly editors, publishers, and even podcasters are contacting moi to ask if I’d be interested in writing for them or appearing on their podcast.

Let’s start with Cherry Lake Publishing Group, an educational and children’s book publisher based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They found out about me through the work I do for the Easterseals National blog and asked me to write two textbooks for an “Understanding Disability” series they were putting together for elementary school children. My two textbooks, one called “What is the Americans with Disabilities Act?” and the other called “Service Dogs” were released in October, and I’ve already done a few school presentations to let kids and teachers know about them.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a podcaster from the Rocky Mountain ADA Center in Colorado emailed to ask if she could interview me for their Adventures in Accessibility podcast. I’d never heard of the podcast before, but when I checked it out and discovered they’d interviewed the likes of Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth for one episode, I said yes. Pretty good company, eh?! You can link to my episode here — it went live last Wednesday.

Then next thing you know, I was contacted by a site called Choose Chicago that is “all about Chicago Things to Do, Events, Restaurants, Hotels & Vacation Planning” and markets Chicago to visitors, conferences, and conventions. They just started a new blog series on the best accessible spots in Chicago for people with disabilities, and the Senior Content manager emailed me wondering if I would be interested in contributing. If my answer was yes, she’d share more details.

My answer was yes. She shared more details.

I enjoy lots and lots of the things Chicago has to offer, I knew it’d be difficult to keep the post short, but I was up to the challenge and got lots of help from the Choose Chicago editors. Accessibility in Chicago: a local shares favorite spots for blind and visually impaired visitors went live last Friday.

It’s been fun – and flattering – to get all this attention right before the holidays, and to top it all off, Cherry Lake Publishing Group has asked me to write another children’s book for them, this one for their Itty-Bitty Bio series, and due by January 15, 2023. Happy New Year!

The Printers Row Wine Shop home page.

In 2002, our son Gus moved away from our home in Urbana to a group home in Wisconsin and Beth and I became empty nesters. In 2003 the weekly paper I edited folded and I was out of a job. That spring, Beth’s book, “Long Time No See,”  would be published. I got a gig up north and Beth thought it’d be easier to promote her book if we lived in Chicago.

We both grew up in the suburbs but had never lived IN the city. And so, we ended up in the Printers Row neighborhood that we’ve grown to love. We were drawn to its central location—multiple expressways, bus lines and L stops converge here. And back then, before Uber and Lyft, you could count on catching a cab within a minute or two.

More than that, the place felt like Bedford Falls nestled in a bustling metropolis. It still lives like a small town. Plus, we’ve always been drawn to places where Beth and her Seeing Eye dog could function and get stuff done independently. And Printers Row fit the bill. A bank was just down the street. Even nearer there was Sandmeyer’s Book Store, Kasey’s Tavern, and a little old-fashioned pharmacy/convenience store. I mean, that’s life right there.

Flavio, the proprietor of the pharmacy, was a keen entrepreneur, and he decided to transform the pharmacy into a wine shop/liquor store. (He came by his entrepreneurial spirit honestly.) We were concerned at first about losing a business we liked, but we weren’t hurting for drug stores, as CVS and Walgreens stores had popped up everywhere.

We needn’t have been worried. Flavio divided the space, leased out half, and turned the other half into a warm, intimate, friendly space. He stocked wines at multiple price points and he had a knack for finding delicious bottles at very approachable prices. And if you needed a recommendation, you need only tell him the occasion and the menu and you’d walk out with a winner.

On Friday evenings Printers Row Wine Shop hosted wine tastings. They became a regular destination for lots of folks in the neighborhood. That popularity sparked Flavio to convert the tasting bar into a bar-bar, and hence a business within a business was born.

It’s still a retail store. While people sit and sip and converse in an extremely civilized environment—wood floors, tin ceiling, and conversation-level background music—others stroll in and out, picking up a bottle of wine for a dinner party, or beer for the weekend.

Beth and I thank our lucky stars for the people and places that make Printers Row Printers Row. Ellen Sandmeyer and her late and one-of-a-kind husband Ulrich. Totto’s Market. Sofi restaurant and Senoritas Cantina in our building. The folks at Kasey’s Tavern. Jazz Showcase. Half Sour. And Flavio and the great staff at Printers Row Wine.

These places are businesses, yes. But because of the care and attention of their proprietors, and their care and attention to their customers, these businesses become characters in the lives of we who live in Printers Row.

The neighborhood lost Ulrich Sandmeyer a few years back. And, I’m heartbroken to report that we lost Flavio last week. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and given that he was an extremely vital 51, entirely too soon.

He leaves behind his wife and two daughters, the oldest of whom just started high school. A large, tight-knit family and a plethora of good friends—many of whom we met at the shop—are coming together to support Flavio’s family and each other.

Still, our hearts ache for them.

And, of course, we’ll miss him. He reminded me of my grandfather on my mother’s side. Paolo Latini immigrated from Italy and worked in the coal mines of southwestern Pennsylvania. By the time I knew him he was retired, had black lung, and wore straw hats with green visors and sprayed pesticide on his perfect garden just like Marlon Brando did in The Godfather.

He kinda scared me when I was little. And then I got to know him and realized that inside his gruff self was a heart of marshmallow.

I was fortunate enough to see Flavio with his family and to hear him talk about his daughters to know that the perfectionist shopkeeper had my grandfather’s soft and giving heart.

It’s hard for we and our Printers Row neighbors to fathom this loss—there’s been too much loss this year.

When Ulrich Sandmeyer passed away, the neighborhood mourned the loss of a friend and, selfishly, worried that the beloved book store that has anchored the neighborhood for decades would be no more.

We needn’t have fretted. The tiny but mighty Ellen Sandmeyer has it going strong.

The staff at Printers Row Wine is devastated. And committed to maintaining the neighborhood spot just as Flavio would have.  His heart beats there and his blood runs through that place.

And the neighborhood is the better for it. Godspeed, Flavio.

A number of writers from Wanda Bridgeforth’s memoir-writing class came to her memorial service last Saturday. Sharon Kramer was one of them, and she graciously agreed to let me publish this essay she wrote about the event. Mike, Seeing Eye dog Luna, and I were there, too. What an honor to meet — and celebrate Wanda’s well-lived life with — some of the family members and friends Wanda has written about in the many, many years she attended our class. Thanks to Sharon for writing all about it here:

A Wanda State of Mind

by Sharon Kramer

That’s Sharon Kramer to my left and three other writers from our downtown class back in 2016: Audrey Mitchell, Wanda Bridgeforth, and Darlene Schweitzer.

Funerals are not to be enjoyed. They are an obligation, something to be endured. Sort of like death itself.

Not only are funerals sad and dark, but they are often insincere, too. Sometimes the minister has never even met the deceased and calls her “Beatrice” when all of her friends knew her as “Bea.” I even witnessed a rabbi who forgot the name of the departed.

Last Saturday, I attended the funeral of Wanda Bridgeforth. It wasn’t dark at all. In fact, if I could choose a color, I would say it was pink. There were old friends to greet — some I hadn’t seen in person for two years — and even though it was one of Chicago’s coldest days, the mood was upbeat.

The three people who spoke at the presentation knew of Wanda’s lust for life and told stories about her joy in being alive. Her Godson, Alex, spoke about Wanda’s love for animals. “When I was a boy, Wanda was the only adult I ever saw kiss a dog,” he said. “And on the lips!” While other adults grimaced at the sight, Alex forever after loved his Godmother for that tender — and possibly sloppy — act. When he graduated from college, Wanda gave him a copy of “Oh the places you’ll go,” by Dr. Seuss, as a gift. Later on, when he graduated from Northwestern law school, people gave him expensive pens, wallets and briefcases. “And Wanda? She wrote me a poem.” He has no idea where those briefcases and other things are now, but he treasures that poem from Wanda and knows exactly where it is.

Wanda’s daughter, Wanda Jr,. told us how fortunate she was to be raised by Wanda. Other kids grew up with parents who scolded them if they did something wrong. But not Wanda. She looked at wrongdoing as an opportunity to give her daughter advice. A story Junior shared about walking home from school when she was ten years old and picking lilacs off a neighbor’s bush along the way tells all. When Junior brought those flowers home to her Mama and gushed about how good they smelled and how beautiful they were, Wanda used a soft voice to ask her daughter a question. “You always like smelling those lilacs when you pass by that bush, don’t you?” Ten-year-old Junior answered enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, Mama, I really do!”

“I imagine other people think they are beautiful too,” her Mama pointed out.

“They sure do, Mama!”Junior replied.

“But they leave them there for all to enjoy,” Wanda concluded.

Lesson learned. Junior went back to apologize to the neighbor who had the lilac bush in her yard, and all was forgiven.

Beth, Wanda’s friend and teacher, spoke directly to Wanda instead of the congregation. I could see Wanda smiling about this: an irreverence Wanda would have loved.

Wanda had been in Beth’s writing class almost from the start — for 15 years — and sat next to Beth at every class. That way Beth could easily hear Wanda, and Wanda, who had a hearing problem, could hear Beth. A wonderful coupling, and as Wanda famously said many times, it was “the deaf leading the blind.”

Leaving the funeral, I felt uplifted instead of sad. How lucky I was to know Wanda and get a glimpse of her amazing life. A pink life. A life full of love, humor and wisdom.

Today as I write this, I am still in a “Wanda” state of mind. Despite my preconceived ideas of funerals, this one was to be enjoyed, just like Wanda.