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!

I already published a post earlier this week letting you know that to help celebrate the return of Printers Row Lit Fest this year Seeing Eye dog Luna and I will be sitting in front of Sandmeyer’s, our favorite local bookstore at 1:00 p.m. today (Saturday) signing books alongside Regan Burke, author of In That Number, (Tortoise Books, 2020). So my plan for this morning was to write and publish an ode to the return of our beloved book festival.

The view on Friday night in 2018, with everything ready to go.

But then Brian Hieggelke, editor of New City Chicago, published a love letter to Printers Row Lit Fest a few days ago that reflected my own sentiments about the annual festival so beautifully that I thought, well, why Bother?

Some back story: Newcity Today is such a well-written and well -organized daily reminder of all cool things going on in Chicago that I subscribe and donate to the newsletter. If you have any interest in Chicago arts, artists, architecture, theater, culture, museums, dining, drinking, film, media, television, music, literature, or festivals I encourage you to subscribe and/or make a donation to Newcity Chicago publications too.

But back to Brian Hieggelke. I enjoyed his love letter to the annual book fair so much that I contacted him to ask if he’d allow me to share that letter here. lucky for you loyal Safe & Sound blog readers, he said yes! Thank you Brian, and here’s that Newcity Today letter from the edition he published earlier this week:

Every day we report on the return of another cultural event, to the point where it starts becoming normal rather than news. But I am personally excited by the return of Printers Row Lit Fest this weekend (see Cultural News below for details), as we’ve grown up together—both Newcity and the book fair started within a year of each other in the South Loop. Over the years we’ve been involved with the event in too many ways to list here, and have become friends, not only with many of the writers who will be speaking, but with just about everyone connected to it.

We live and work right above it, so we have a relationship with the fair that is quite tangible. We awaken in the morning to the bustle of booksellers setting up their booths, listen all day long to the din of the crowd blended with the music of children’s or other cultural programming and finish our weekend listening to the clanking of the crews breaking down the booths into the night as they pack them away for next year. See you (and hear you) Saturday!
Brian Hieggelke