My father and his three brothers served in the armed forces during WWII. I grew up with a simplistic reverie for them, and the armed forces, and had that simplistic, callow view that the good guys won. My dad and my uncles were good guys. The good guys did win.

My dad (left), uncle George (center), and Uncle Dave were in the Army. Uncle Steve was a Navy guy.

They were good guys, but it was and still isn’t simple. Their lives were completely interrupted and one of them came home physically, but he never was himself again. Once an avid hunter, he swore of firearms forever. He wasn’t right, he self-medicated, and he died way too soon. My dad and two other brothers lived on, but they didn’t talk about the war.

Today, when I go to a White Sox game, a serviceman—active or veteran—is honored. It happens in all MLB parks, and other sports do the same. I have mixed feelings about these ceremonies. For one, my father, I know this, would have had nothing to do with such a thing. For another, showing a service person on the jumbotron and cheering wildly seems to be as much about the crowd as it is the honoree.

It’s seems a little cheap, a little easy. A few weeks ago the honoree was a veteran who had served during the Battle of the Bulge. I mean, holy cow.

As a simple thank you, I guess it’s OK. I just think, there’s a lot more to know about what people who serve deal with. And it’s a lot.

Beth’s sister married an Army helicopter pilot. They raised a family and lived in Tennessee. And Alabama. And Georgia. And Hawaii and Germany (twice). Sounds kind of exotic but it couldn’t have been easy.

Give it a look.

Anyway, I say all this by way of recommending a web publication I came across a few years ago called The War Horse. It’s good journalism about– and mostly by–members of the armed forces, and it gets into what they face—individually and as families. It is not a rah-rah thing, and it looks at really difficult things. I’ve learned a lot about today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and U.S Coast Guard.

And I’ve learned to check any preconceived notions at the door.

As a test run, I highly recommend this piece: Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks

It’s by a former Army F-16 pilot who policed the no-fly zone in Iraq in the 1990s. His wife served in the Air Force. He eventually left, became a commercial airline pilot, and was laid off after 9/11. He ended up back in the Reserves, flying fighters, and was deployed to Iraq and eventually to Afghanistan.

It’s a remarkably nuanced and enlightening piece from someone with a relatively rare set of experiences. I hope you’ll give it a read and make The War Horse part of your regular reading. And I’ll leave you with a passage:

I thought I would get to rest once I retired. I spent my entire military life worrying about “foreign enemies.” The “domestic enemies” in my oath seemed like some boilerplate that they included as an afterthought. But here I am, eight years after leaving uniform and 20 years after 9/11, and I worry almost exclusively about what my country is doing to itself.

My 15-year-old author friend Anja Herrman, a.k.a. DJ Mermaid, is going to be on WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) today, September 22, 2021 at 3:44 pm. I wrote a post here years ago when a conversation Anja had with her aunt first aired on StoryCorps, and this is the week the Chicago StoryCorps booth will officially close. Since they first opened in 2013, StoryCorps Chicago has recorded and preserved more than 4,000 facilitated interviews in the Chicago StoryBooth, but that all ends tomorrow, when StoryCorps Chicago is permanently ceasing operations.

But rest assured. There is some good news to this blog post! To honor its official end this week, 10 StoryCorps pieces produced by WBEZ’s talented soundman Bill Healy over the past seven years have been chosen to air again, and guess what? One of them is that conversation Anja had with her aunt back in 2015!

Anja’s five-minute conversation with her aunt will play on WBEZ today, September 22, 2021 at 3:44 p.m. central time. Anja was only nine years old during that conversation, and I have it on good sources (Anja’s mom!) that the piece WBEZ airs today will include a little update from Anja now, at age 15.

I came to know Anja especially well when she was nine years old and learning at home during a casting program (casts on both legs from her hips down to her ankles). She was schooled at home for two months back then, and I was her at-home writing tutor. Many of her completed assignments have been published as guest posts, and you can read this post from 2016 to learn how and why she had all her posts back then published under the pen name DJ Mermaid.

A published writer and disability activist these days, Dj Mermaid goes by her real name now: Anja K. Herrman.

Anja was the winner of the Primary Division Playwright Discovery Program at the Kennedy Center in 2019, and a keynote speaker at the #EachforEqual International Women’s Day Event in 2020. Her work has been featured in Magnets and Ladders, Input Magazine, the Disabled Writers blog and the Huffington Post.

Anja uses a power wheelchair to navigate her public school now, she’s learned a lot about ableism in the past six years and is sure to have a lot to say when StoryCorps asks for an update. You can hear it all by tuning in to WBEZ in Chicago or asking your smart speaker to “play WBEZ” at 3:44 central time this afternoon, September 22, 2021.

The crew, from left to right: Moi, Carlos, Tom, Clarence, Willie, and Pat. We had fun

A few days ago, three bottles of wine arrived from Oregon. We haven’t sampled them yet—they deserve a special occasion, equal to the story of how we got them.

It all started at a White Sox game a few weeks ago … no, that’s not true. It all started at Hackney’s, a local bar/restaurant that closed back in 2016. For years it was a social hub here in our Printers Row neighborhood, and to this day, we can trace many of our friendships back to that place.

One of those friendships was with Tom, a native of St. Louis who ran a hotel just a block away from our condo. Tom lived in the hotel, while his family remained in St. Louis. He visited home and his family visited him here, but in between, he frequented Hackney’s, where he developed his Chicago family of friends.

Fast forward: Tom’s work has since moved him to Milwaukee, back to St. Louis, and now, Savannah, Georgia. The hotel business isn’t for the faint of heart.

He and his partners in crime here in Printers Row have stayed in loose touch over the years. We visited him at the St. Louis hotel he was running a few years back. That’s when we met Tom’s friend Willie. Tom and Willie are like brothers—they were schoolmates back in St. Louis. Willie is retired, having worked decades for Anheuser Busch.

Goodness awaits.

Now to the White Sox game. Willie treated Tom and his Chicago friends to a Saturday night White Sox game a few weeks ago—I was lucky enough to be invited. Tom flew in from Savannah, Willie from his home in Kansas City, and we all met at Half Sour—our new Hackney’s.

We were a motley crew of 60-somethings and we had a blast. At one point during the game, I thanked Willie for his generosity. “No, thank you for coming,” he said. “This is my gift to Tom. I’m glad you could be here.”

After the game, back at Half Sour (we sorta forgot we’re 60-somethings) I got to talk to Willie for a good long while. Turns out that since I’d met him in St. Louis, he’d been diagnosed with throat cancer. The good news was, he said, “The doctor said it’s one of the most treatable types of cancer.” The bad news: The treatment was miserable. But he’d made it. And it was clear—to me, anyway—that he was deeply grateful and determined to make the most of his bonus time.

I also learned that he’d recently started to learn a little about wine. And in so doing, he’d come across a highly rated wine from a small producer in Oregon called Lujon Wine Cellars—this was during lockdown times. When he called the producer to order a case, the guy on the other end of the call turned out to be the winemaker. Who also grows and crushes the grapes. And bottles the wine. And answers the phone. His name is John Derthick.

Willie, who seems not to know a stranger, struck up a conversation. After serving in the Navy, Derthick had gone to UC-Davis—renowned for its wine program.  Willie also learned that Lujon was hurting. The business relied heavily on restaurant sales, and during the lockdown, well, you know the story.

Check out the Lujon site.

Since then, Willie has taken on a hobby/crusade to help out Lujon. He connected Derthick with former co-workers in the beverage business. He’s bought wine for himself and as gifts. And he talks up Lujon whenever he gets a chance.

And so, last week, we received a Fedex delivery that included a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, and a Cabernet Sauvignon. It also included a signed, personal message from Derthick—and a personal note from Willie.

We’re waiting for just the right time to start on them.

We’ll drink a toast to Willie and John. And to Tom. And to Pat and Carlos and Clarence, all  partners in crime at the White Sox game.

Humans can be pretty great sometimes, you know?

P.S.  Willie says the wines are as good as others that are triple the price. Check out Lujon’s offerings at Lujon Wine Cellars.

Melinda Mitchell (Photo courtesy Darlene Schweitzer.)

Just got word that Melinda Mitchell, a long-time member of the “Me, Myself & I” memoir-writing class I used to lead at the Chicago Cultural Center, has died. Some of you long time Safe & Sound blog followers might remember Melinda — I wrote about her back in 2014 in a post called Waking Up in a Strange Room.

Some sixty-plus years ago, the girl who was supposed to be Melinda’s roommate showed up with her mother to meet Melinda at their Kalamazoo College dorm. The girl’s mother took one look at Melinda, stormed off to school authorities and insisted her daughter “not room with a Negress.”

Melinda was moved to the dormitory’s unfinished attic but didn’t stay there for long. She eventually transferred schools, graduated from Howard University, and joined our class after retiring from a long career teaching high school Spanish in Chicago Public Schools.

Melinda had a style all her own, and we all learned so much from the engaging — and witty — stories she shared of growing up on Chicago’s South Side, her visits to Cuba as an adult, her experiences teaching in Chicago public schools, and the jazz music she loved so much.

To remember her today I am sharing the piece she read in class when I asked writers to write about rules they had to obey when they were kids. “You expect me to fit
them all into a 500-word essay?” she laughed. The next week She returned with a series of nostalgic and thought-provoking lists rather than an essay. . I’m sharing her lists with you here today in hopes they give you a glimpse of her creativity, her confidence…and her wit. This first list comes from early childhood:

• Don’t come into mama’s kitchen wearing bedclothes.
• Don’t eat with your fingers, or put your elbows on the table.
• Don’t walk around barefoot in the kitchen.
• Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
• Don’t interrupt when adults are talking.
• Don’t waste food.
• Don’t run in the house or run down the hall.
• Don’t holler out the front window to playmates on the porch below.
• Don’t play in the street and dodge cars.
• Don’t go into other kid’s homes without permission.

“Things were changing as I was growing up,” she said, continuing the list with rules from her teen years:

• Don’t watch TV after 8 pm.
• Don’t leave your room messy.
• Don’t stay in the bathroom primping all day.
• Don’t stay on the phone yakking and yakking with girlfriends.
• Don’t talk back, complain, or whine.
• Don’t make noise after bedtime bumping and thumping around the place.
• Don’t sleep late.
• Don’t let your friends turn the lights out when you have your parties in the living room.
• Don’t go out, or anywhere, if you’re not properly dressed.

Melinda had a knack for switching her writing from first-person to second-person without missing a beat,and this list of hers was no exception. After reading that last high school restriction, she addressed her readers directly with, “May I offer the quaint guidelines adhered to by the grown women in the family during the 1950s?” and read on: To go to the Loop on the #3 bus

• Don’t go barelegged, or without a little girdle.
• Don’t wear shorts or pants.
• Do have lunch with the girls at “The Circle,” the only welcoming department store restaurant.
• Do wear your Easter hat.
• Do wear your white gloves.
• Do wear stockings.
• Do carry a purse with a handle and a hankie.
• Do bring a coin purse and enough dollars to pay.
• Do wear a dress with a belt, sleeves and buttons up to the neck.
• Do remember your manners.
• Do enjoy yourself, young lady.

When Melinda was finished reading, a fellow writer piped up. “I think I know the answer to this, but what did you mean when you said ‘the only welcoming’ department store?”

Melinda shrugged and said, “We were African American.” Others in class chimed in, naming the exact store and restaurant: Charles A. Stevens, one of the many now-defunct department stores along State Street in Chicago. And just like that, Melinda had the entire class reminiscing, sharing stories of everything from white gloves to girdles, giving accounts of visits to Stevens, and laughing. Melinda’s stories were like that. She will be missed.

Rest in peace, dear Melinda. We were so fortunate to know you.

Hi all, Mike here. My editor gave me Labor Day and today off. I’ll be back next week!