Hi all, this is Mike–also known as husband of Beth. She’s in New Jersey at the The Seeing Eye, training with her new guide dog. I’m holding down the fort with Hanni, and will post occasionally over the next three weeks. I’ll try to get you the latest news from New Jersey and maybe mix […]

Blog readers might recall that the assignment for the seniors in my memoir-writing class last Wednesday was “The Last Time I Saw Her.” Wanda Bridgeforth stretched the topic a bit, and her essay was so sweet I thought I’d share it here with you as I say goodbye to Hanni and take off for the […]

Note: If you link to WBEZ to listen to the piece, it’s a little confusing. Use this link, and then just wait, don’t click anything–the right piece should start playing. Don’t pay attention to the playlist that may appear. A longer version of this blog post aired on Chicago Public Radio November 24. I don’t […]

My regular blog readers might remember a post I wrote about my young friend Sandra Murillo. Sandra lost her sight when she was three years old, and now she is a journalism student at the University of Illinois. A year ago she, her father, and her brother were in a terrible car accident on their […]

  That’s the topic I assigned to my memoir-writing class last week, and my stellar seniors did not disappoint. Annelore opened her essay wondering whether there could possibly be one best invention. In the days when my grandmother told tales about the awesome impressions of seeing her first airplane fly and land, riding in a […]