My friend Lynn LaPlante Allaway’s daughter Lucy started pre-school this year, and whoa, has Lynn taken advantage of the free time! In the past few months, Lynn has

• finished the rough draft of a novel she’s been working on
• started her own Backwards and in High Heals blog, and
• been asked to write regularly for the Huffington Post

All this while she and her husband Mike herd their four (yes, four) active children to school and various activities in-between her rehearsals and performances as principal violist with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (CJP).

Lynn’s mother Alice Gervace LaPlante (left, a talented musician in her own right) with her daughter at one of Lynn’s concerts.

You might recognize the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s name. The orchestra’s director Orbert Davis happened to be in Havana coaching music students there when Raul Castro announced the thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba. Davis and those students were featured in a 60 Minutes story last December, and in a Chicago Tribune story this week jazz critic Howard Reich says that when that historic announcement was made on television last year, the young Cuban musicians Davis was working with cheered and the percussion section jumped into a rumba. More from this week’s Chicago Tribune article:

Throughout the rehearsals and the performance, Davis was bowled over by what his Cuban charges achieved. “When presented with every challenge in jazz, the students rose to the challenge,” he says. “Especially the two monsters, which are swing and improvisation. They nailed it.”

Those Havana music students arrive here in Chicago today to spend a week preparing for a concert with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic this Friday, November 13, and reporters from 60 Minutes ar here, too, to follow them from rehearsals to visits to Chicago landmarks like Millennium Park and Navy Pier. “It’s going to be a little time warp for them, especially to see modern cars for the first time, to see the Willis Tower, which is three or four times taller than the tallest building in Cuba,” Davis told the Chicago Tribune.

My friend Lynn is in the middle of all this, and you can read her take on it in a piece she wrote for Huffington Post Chicago earlier this month. Tickets are still available for this Friday’s concert at the Auditorium Theatre, but if you can’t make it to Chicago, I’m guessing the segment about these young musicians from Cuba will air next week, November 15, 2015 on 60 Minutes.

I’ve heard the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic live many times before and was thrilled to watch 60 Minutes last December when Orbert Davis was in Cuba. My heart sunk, though, when the show pointed out that sanctions had forced these young Cuban sax and clarinet players to use reeds that were 30 or 40 years old. My hope is that when I listen in on the 60 Minutes segment next week, I’ll hear that the new relationship between Cuba and the U.S. means these young musicians can bring new reeds across the border for their friends back home!

A 79-year-old writer learned a lot about his fears when I gave “What are you afraid of?” as a writing prompt over Halloween.

Loyal blog readers might remember a post I published here last year featuring excerpts from an essay Bob Eisenberg wrote then about his best job ever, when he was 11 years old, he helped a neighbor peddle fruit and junk items from a horse and wagon:

Mr. Dunn drove the horse and wagon through the alleys while I stood up in the back of the wagon, cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “WATAMEELO!” People ran down stairs from their back porches to buy our watermelons. We talked and laughed with everybody and shared news of the day as we heard it from people along the way.

Many writers in my classes email essays my way ahead of time for edits and suggestions, and Bob always sends me his. Over the years I’ve enjoyed reading stories about childhood escapades with his neighborhood buddies — Squeaky LaPort, Da Da Hernandez, and Mario DeSandro, a.k.a. “The Pranksters” – but this week’s essay was a little different.

Bob Eisenberg is not only a good writer, he’s a great artist, too.

“My mother died right after I was born,” Bob wrote this week.  “I moved in with my mother’s mother until I was six. THEN she died, too.” Bob was sent off for a year at military school, and it went on from there.

“As I look back into my past I count six different grammar schools I attended and seven different families I lived with,” he wrote. “My experiences during my childhood and adolescence created hidden fears that I didn’t realize until this writing assignment.”

In his “What Are You Afraid Of?” essay, Bob acknowledges romanticizing his past. “After I got out of military school, I lived with many different relatives who were kind and caring. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and my father in many neighborhoods all over Chicago, relatives I describe as fun loving characters interested in my well-being,” he wrote. “There was a dark side behind these fun-loving stories, though — hidden fears that I didn’t want to look at.”

When I heard my talking computer read that last line out loud I pounced on the stop button. I’ve come to know Bob and his lovely wife Linda on rides home from our Monday Lincoln Park Village memoir class, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to learn what terrible things had happened to my friend as he was moved from house to house, school to school, family to family. When I finally mustered up the courage to continue reading, I was relieved to hear what my computer’s robotic voice came out with.

I mean, I still ache for Bob and this fear he’s had since childhood, but his fear is so rational — and obvious — I’m relieved it isn’t worse. “I realized now that the fears I had back in my childhood still affect me,” he wrote. “I don’t like traveling.”

It’s not the long lines at the airport. It’s not packing and carrying suitcases, either. That doesn’t bother Bob at all. “What really affects me and brings out my fear is leaving home. I recall the same feeling of anxiety I felt every time I moved from one family to another.”

Bob and Linda now own a summer home about 90 miles away in Michigan City, Indiana, and that’s just about the farthest Bob feels comfortable away from their condo in Chicago. He says, “Going there is like going home.”

Last week a radio station called Harbor Radio Country recorded Bob reading essays about his job on the horse and cart and his antics with the Pranksters. The recorded essays are set to air before the end of the year, and I’m hoping once WRHC-FM gets wind of Bob’s “What Am I Afraid Of?” essay they might want him to record it as well.

Today is November 2, though here in Chicago, you’d think otherwise. Brilliant, radiant sunshine, 70 degrees, sublime.

The sunshine is the tell, though. This time of year, the sun hits at flatter angles than it does in the summer. Lots of contrast, and the things that glimmered in July sun positively gleam this time of year.

Salute to the Royals.

And ten years ago, the sun never gleamed so brightly. I was working at an office on LaSalle Street, which happened to be the final leg of the 2005 White Sox World Series victory parade. Mayor Richard M. Daley, a stalwart White Sox fan, and never afraid to spend money on what he liked, made sure it was worthy of a moon landing or the end of a war.

I left my office, met Beth about halfway on her walk to help her navigate the throngs, and we walked until we got a good spot.

And there really were throngs. On the sidewalks, streets, and in upstairs office windows. And confetti. And that flat sunshine that made the confetti pieces explode into something that, well, to me, was not close to heaven. It was heaven.

Baseball is not like other sports. It  requires a greater commitment from its fans. Even casual baseball fans live through more grief and more joy and more of everything than devoted fans of other sports. Baseball, compared to other sports, is like reading a difficult book—one that tests you page after page, and is still worth it.

Reaching the parade point requires a lot of work, a lot of great defensive plays, a lot of great at-bats, a lot of great pitching (like, say, four complete games in the American League Championship Series in 2005) and at least some luck. It’s harder than hell.

And so, on this glorious day while the sun still glints, before I go into delirium tremens because there is no baseball to watch, I tip my White Sox cap to the Kansas City Royals, 2015 World Series Champions.

I have a part-time job at Easter Seals Headquarters in Chicago. I’m the Interactive Community Coordinator there, which means I moderate the Easter Seals national blog. I keep my ear open for articles or issues that have something to do with disabilities, recruit interesting people to write blog posts about those things, edit the posts, add HTML code, and see to it that three posts are publish there every week.

Yesterday we published a post on the Easter Seals blog by Bernhard Walke, the ‎Associate Principal at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. His wife Rosa teaches Spanish and English there, too, and they are the proud parents of 4-year-old Elena, who receives assistive technology services at Easter Seals DuPage and the Fox Valley Region. Bernhard’s post was heartwarming. So many readers gushed over the adorable photos of Elena in her costumes that I thought I’d reblog it here for our Safe & Sound readers to enjoy for Halloween today.

by Bernhard Walke

Elena, the bulldozer.

Halloween is a holiday that was never on my excitement radar as a child, nor my wife’s. Perhaps it was the cold finally arriving in the Midwest, the grim notion of existing in darkness for the next six months, having more of a salt tooth than a sweet tooth, or my hatred wearing masks that forced me to breathe my own humid expelled breath. Whatever the reason was, I never enjoyed it.

Until kids.

I work in a high school and have had the opportunity to chaperone the Halloween Dance year after year. Students walk in dressed as Mario and Luigi, Where’s Waldo, or Thomas the Train. One student actually dressed as Holden Caulfield toting a suitcase, a duck, and a red hunting cap. Teenagers demonstrate an infectious zeal and excitement at dances — especially when donning their zany costumes.

One year I was so inspired by the enthusiasm of these teenagers that I ran over to the neighboring drug store at the last minute, bought some dried chili peppers, pinned them to the chemistry teacher’s lab coat and voila! I was instantly Dr. Pepper for the evening. The creativity and enthusiasm demonstrated by my high school students inspired me to put my own creativity and ingenuity into my daughter’s Halloween costumes over the years. Early on Elena wasn’t able to sit independently, so many of her first costumes were designed knowing we’d be carrying her.

Lobster anyone?

Her first costume was a lobster inauspiciously placed in a pot destined to be a tasty meal. You can imagine our delight (and Elena’s disdain!) when a parent showed up at our house dressed as a chef. Elena was not happy with my suggestion of running in the house to procure some lemon and butter. The fun we had with Elena’s lobster costume inspired us to come up with creative costumes ever since. Elena was so small that we could carry her door to door with ease.

When Elena was two years old, we decided she’d go as a bag of money: Rosa’s visiting aunt sewed pieces of green felt rectangles together to transform Elena into a bag of freshly pilfered cash. Rosa and I both dressed like cat burglars, and I was as giddy and excited as a student at the Halloween dance as the three of us trick-or-treated around our neighborhood that year.

Last year we signed up Elena for the annual September fashion show at Easter Seals DuPage and the Fox Valley Region. The theme was “Rock Around the Clock,” and Elena’s aunt quickly and enthusiastically volunteered to sew a poodle skirt. She even made a matching scarf so Elena didn’t have to wear her ever-present bib. She was such a hit at the fashion show that we reprised this costume for Halloween last year — she wore it to school and paraded her 50s costume around the hallways.

Between Elena’s weekly routine of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, adaptive equipment, and mind-numbingly long meals, there are few things that are normal in our daughter’s life. Even other holidays can be difficult for her: she can’t tear open Christmas presents and perhaps Thanksgiving will present eating challenges. Halloween allows her and us parents to enjoy a holiday with the same childish excitement and silliness that our goofy and warm teenagers demonstrate.

Elena will be 5 on Monday and her elongated and lean body doesn’t necessarily lend itself to being carried around the neighborhood with ease anymore. She was in the DuPage and the Fox Valley Region Easter Seals fashion show again this year, and this year’s theme was “Come Build With Us.” We used a collection of cardboard, wood, duct tape, zippy ties, and obnoxious yellow construction paint to convert Elena’s wheelchair to a bulldozer. After a few nights painting, sawing, cursing, and imbibing a few beers, I transformed her wheelchair into a heavy-duty earthmover.

Elena’s costume was a huge hit when her two cousins pushed her down the runway, and we hope it will garner praise and attention as we parade it through our neighborhood this weekend. So, if you see a four-year-old girl in a wheelchair bulldozer this Halloween, feel free to give us a high five and a smile. Elena’s pretty good at those.

“Smiling face with squinty eyes.”

That’s what my talking iPhone called out after the Cardinals beat the Cubs in the first NL playoff game a few weeks ago. The text message came from Tom, a St. Louis fan who’s a friend from Hackney’s. He’s been known to say some goofy things after imbibing a few too many Anheuser-Busch products, but “smiley face with squinty eyes?” It just didn’t sound like Tom.

Life imitates emoji.

And that’s when the lightbulb went on over my head. He’d sent me one of those pictures you can text to show how you feel.

Wait. I need to look up how to spell it.

Pause.

Ah, yes. Here it is. It’s called an “emoji.”

Two years ago I published a post here about how some people who are blind access a program called VoiceOver to use an iPhone — VoiceOver parrots every letter we type into a text, but it wasn’t until I upgraded to IOS 9 last month that I came face-to-face with an emoji.

A key next to the space bar on the iPhone keypad lets users choose from lists and lisps and lists of emojis to use with texts. VoiceOver reads the images out loud for those of us who can’t see them, and to show you what I mean, here’s a sampling of what I hear when choosing from the list of “Smileys and other people” emojis:

• ”Smiling face with sunglasses”
• “Unamused face”
• “Winking face with stuck-out tongue”
• “Sleeping face”
• ”Nerdy face with thick horn-rimmed glasses and buck teeth”
• ”Neutral face”
• ”Excited face with money symbols for eyes and stuck-out tongue”
• “Expressionless face”
• “Smiling face licking lips”
• “Slightly smiling face”
• ”Smirking face”
• “ Face with rolling eyes”
• ”Face with no mouth”
• “Flushed face”
• “Thinking face”
• “Angry face”
• “Pouting face”
• “Disappointed face”
• ”Grinning face with clenched teeth”

Wait. Can a person clench their teeth and smile at the same time?

Pause.

I guess you can! But would I ever want to see a picture of that on a text message? Dunno.

After the powers that be added 150 new emojis to their operating systems last week, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Ouch blog asked Damen Rose, a BBC reporter who is blind, to demonstrate what emojis sound like on his Smart Phone. I listened to the podcast and found myself agreeing with Damen when he lamented how the emoji craze is just one more example of how the technological world is becoming more and more visual. “We’ve sort of arrived at this glance culture, haven’t we, where we take in so many things at a glance on a screen,” he said. “We’re supposed to keep up with various events, understand different memes, get the references, et cetera, and it all happened soooo quickly and sooooooooo visually.”

I gotta admit, I do feel left behind sometimes. People doing quick smart phone checks for sports scores or news. Looking real quick at Facebook. Checking text messages at a glance. I just can’t keep up. Without being able to see, I’m not part of the “glance culture.”

But wait. Maybe there’s an “Eyebrows up!” emoji, and if there is, I need one right now. I mean, maybe I can’t just glance at a written description of an emoji, but isn’t it pretty incredible that technology companies have come this far with accessibility? That they actually found someone somewhere to write hundreds (thousands?) of emoji descriptions for people like me, who can’t see them?.

If there isn’t an “eyebrows up!” emoji yet, I nominate my nine-year-old great niece to be the one to describe “eyebrows up!” once it’s added — she’s already pretty good at describing emoticons. I’ll end the post here with the closing of an email message she sent to her old blind Great Aunt Betha recently:

“Love, FLOEY :);) (smiley and winky face) I<3U (that means “I love you.”)