A couple years ago we ran a guest post by our one-of-a-kind neighborhood friend, Steve Ferkau. Steve is, well, I think his message, written yesterday, will tell you more about him that I can. I hope you’ll give it a read, and when you’re done, you explore the links at the bottom of this post.  […]

I am wont these days to make declarations like “Music was better back then.” But I doubt music is worse or better. I like plenty of new stuff I hear. I think what I’m really missing is the diverse, surreptitious exposure I got as a lad from, of all places, the likes of WLS and […]

I turned 60 last year. Other than my 16th (I could get a driver’s license), 18th (I could vote), and 21st (I could drink liquor legally), I had never paid much attention to the numbers. But 60 kinda got me. So, I did something to remind myself I’m not dead yet—I went to Japan and […]

Beth posted here a couple weeks ago about what her memoir-writing students wrote in response to the prompt “If you could have a guarantee that one specific person would read your memoir”. Kathy Zartman, one of her students—and our good friend—named Tim Kreider as that one person. Here’s Kathy writing about why: “His take on […]

A couple updates on last week’s post: First, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate students (members of the Graduate Employees Organization) stayed on strike long enough to end up getting what looks to be a fair deal for themselves. Hats off to them and their supporters, which included their undergraduate students and their counterparts up […]