I describe my abusive relationship with Amtrak.

She graduated from a great school, scored well on her tests, and she participates in a whole bunch of extra-curricular activities. And so, it should come as no surprise to you that tomorrow morning the genius Whitney leaves for Princeton.Princeton Illinois, that is. Whitney and I will be boarding the Carl Sandburg Amtrak train early […]

This Saturday is Billy Balducci’s last official nightshift bartending at Hackney’s. Hackney’s is our local tavern, and Billy’s been tending bar there since the day it opened in November, 2001. Longtime blog followers know Billy as the guy sitting next to me in a photo we originally published with a 2007 blog post called Cheers! […]

Whitney and I are back from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Seattle just in time to prepare for a presentation at a library in the Chicago suburbs tomorrow. A description in this week’s Lake Zurich Courier tells me not to plan on saying much! GUIDING PRINCIPLES Children and adults are invited […]

I was a very happy six-year-old any time Flo (that’s my mom) dropped me off at the library so she could run errands, and I was an absolutely elated six-year-old the night she dropped me off at the library, headed to the grocery store, drove straight home, pulled the car into the garage, put the […]