This ball was on Challenger that fateful day. Flown by Ellison Onizuka for his daughter, a soccer player @Clear_LakeHS. #NASARemembers pic.twitter.com/grShwq372X — Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) February 3, 2017 Astronaut Kimbrough tweeted a photo of the soccer ball that made it into space. On the morning of Tuesday, January 28, 1986, I headed to my barber […]

In the age of “fake news,” ultra partisan publications and broadcast channels, and nutjob websites, we—for the time being, anyway—enjoy a pretty robust press. It’s really easy to dump on “the media,” but that’s painting with too broad a brush. Good journalism and good writing are hard work. A lot harder (and generally, more time-consuming […]

Beth wrote about my sinus surgery last week—first, thanks for your thoughtful comments. They cheered me as I breathed through my mouth in pain-reliever land. Second, this surgery went a lot better than it did 21 years ago. (Still, I don’t ever want to do it again.) Third, my Wednesday surgery was the most mundane […]

The last time Mike had out-patient surgery, he called the hospital ahead of time to explain that his wife was blind and would accompany him to a cab to get him home afterwards. That was eight years ago, when I was still working with Hanni, my second Seeing Eye dog. The staff member who answered […]

It’s late spring going on foggy London town here in Chicago—it’s been warmish, it’s been coldish, and it’s been foggy the last few days, sometimes all in one day. But that did not stop the Printers Row Lit Fest from its appointed duty. It used to be called the Printers Row Book Fair, a tip […]