So here are my Prince stories. Purple Rain was the last movie Beth watched while she could still see. It was at the Thunderbird Theater in Urbana in 1984, when it was still a movie house. And I’ve always thought, well, that’s as a good a last film spectacle as I would choose. Another: Our […]

A hand-addressed envelope from a long-time friend showed up in our mailbox Saturday. Dianne had been my supervisor when I interned at Washington Consumers’ Checkbook magazine as a hayseed college junior. She was also kind of a cruise director for me and another intern, making sure we got something out of the work experience and also from […]

As Beth just posted, she’s been in Anacortes, Washington, for the last few days, hanging out with her sisters. And I’ve been here. At home in Chicago. She got the better of the weather. But I did all right. The highlight was getting to the White Sox home opener on Friday afternoon. That Friday morning—that […]

We had a splendid weekend spending time with our friend Fiona, who is visiting all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland. Our time included an overnight in Champaign, Ill., where we joined friends to see Mavis Staples, who is carrying on the Staples Singers tradition with a joyous, infectious energy. Our visiting friend got a crash course […]

When Beth and I saw Bonnie Raitt last week at the Chicago Theater, I looked around and had a laugh—it was all 55-65ish people like ourselves, grayer and more, ahem, prosperous-looking than when we all first listened to Bonnie decades ago. But something in the air felt the same (and it wasn’t pot smoke). The […]