Realizing I wouldn’t be able to see when his schoolfriends raised their hands to ask questions, my six-year-old great nephew Ray volunteered to help me call on kids in all three of the first-grade classes we visited at his school yesterday. All of the first-graders at Westmore Elementary had read Hanni and Beth: Safe & […]

Here’s a statement you don’t hear every day from a blind blogger: I spent a morning last week at an art museum. I wasn’t the only blind person at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art that day, either.  Sina Bahram was there, too. I met Museum of Contemporary Art’s ‎Chief Content Officer Susan Chun in early […]

Hi Folks, We watched the Oscars last night and were surprised and delighted when Spotlight — the only Best Picture nominated film Beth and I saw — won! It managed to be suspenseful, well-paced and gripping–all without a single explosion or any special effects. To celebrate, here’s a post from November 16 last year that […]

On Friday WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) invited writer Mel Washburn and me to their studio to talk about the Sum Up Your Life in Three Songs assignment I gave to my Chicago memoir-writing classes last week. Mel is in the Monday class I lead for Lincoln Park Village. During the interview, Morning Edition host Tony […]

As Beth and I settle in at home at day’s end to decide what to do on any given evening, we can casually look at what’s at the Jazz Showcase and saunter down the block to take in some marvelous music. And we have a Veteran to thank. In 1944, the U.S. Air Force drafted Joe Segal […]