Good news! I’ve been invited to give an Author Night Presentation about Writing Out Loud at Max and Benny’s Deli Restaurant in Northbrook! Even better news: the event is free, all you need to do is register.

• When: September 16th, 2019 7 pm – 8:30 pm
• Where: Max and Benny’s Restaurant, Deli and Bakery
  461 Waukegan Rd
  Northbrook, IL 60062
  847-272-9490

Chicago high school girls were invited to the Cliff Dwellers event, too, and I had the privilege of talking to each one as I autographed their books. (Photo: Dana Ellenby-Bergeron).

Here’s the back story: After hearing the presentation I gave for the International Women’s Day celebration at Chicago’s Cliff Dwellers Club last March, Richard Reader, the perfectly-named creator and coordinator of the Chicago Jewish Authors Literary Series at Max and Benny’s, asked if I’d be willing to come to the deli to talk about Writing Out Loud. I’d love to, I said. “But I’m not Jewish!” Richard waved that concern off. “Some of your writers in that book are Jewish,” he said. “You’re in!”

I’d been hearing about the Jewish Author Literary Series at Max and Benny’s for years. A well-attended (yet casual) gathering, the literary series welcomes listeners to nosh during the presentation. I just checked out the menu – gefilte fish, kiske, hot pastrami sandwiches, half chicken in the pot, you name it. The Book Bin, and independent bookstore in Northbrook, will have copies of Writing Out Loud on hand for me to sign afterwards as well.

But wait. There’s more! Two Beth Finke Memoir Teacher MasterClass graduates will be there with me to talk a bit about the memoir-writing classes they are leading now: Heidi Reeves has a class starting at the Blackstone branch of the Chicago Public Library in the Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, and Sharon Kramer teaches memoir-writing for members of Chicago’s Skyline Village.

I hope you’ll come. How can you resist?! I’ll leave you here with my bio from the Max and Benny’s Jewish Author Literary Series web site. For More information, email events@maxandbennys.com or call 847.272.9490.

Author Beth Finke will be featured at Max and Benny’s! Beth Finke met her husband in journalism school, and both planned on long careers as newspaper reporters.

But then the spots showed up. A year later, at age 26, Beth was blind.
The Americans with Disabilities Act had not been passed yet, and Beth’s career path took some major detours — including a long stint working as a nude model for university art students.

Her persistence paid off, though.

The recipient of a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Beth is the author of three published books. Her radio essays air on NPR, and her writing appears everywhere from Cheryl Sandberg’s OptionB to Hollywood’s Variety Magazine. The Lisagor Award she won for a 2005 essay she recorded about the World Champion White Sox put her in a class of her own: she is the only blind woman in America to win an award for sports Broadcasting.

Beth’s latest book, Writing Out Loud, is a look at how leading memoir-writing classes for Chicagoans 60 and better help her continue living the fun, creative and pleasurable life she always has.

Beth lives in the Printers Row neighborhood of Chicago with her husband, Mike Knezovich, and her Seeing Eye dog, Whitney.

And she no longer models nude for art students.

A week ago this past Saturday, Beth and I took the Amtrak to Milwaukee, snagged a Zipcar, and visited Gus at his group home in Watertown, Wisconsin. We stayed the night, and I took an earlier train train back than Beth did, as I had to fly out for a business trip.

Amtrak reserves a row at one end of most cars for people with didsabilities. There’s extra room to store a wheelchair, or, in our case, to let Whitney rest comfortable. As I boarded, I passed this row—noting that two able bodied men, one on either side of the aisle—were occupying the seats.

At first, I thought, “no harm, no foul,” and I didn’t say anything. But as I ruminated, I began to get aggravated. Because I travel with Beth so much, and because I used to push Gus in his wheelchair (a friend of mine joked once that if you look up pre-boarding in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Mike and his family), I’ve had a lot of experience in these matters.

I’m not a militant. In fact, I frequently take exception with some disability activism. I like to believe that reasonable accommodation must in some instances cut both ways.

But, here’s the deal. If I board that train with Beth we are left to either walk to another car, which we sometimes do, or, ask them to vacate the seat.

Is asking them to leave a big deal? It kind of is. There’s hubbub and we block the aisle for a bit. Before we get to our seats Beth (or any other person with a disability) has already had to negotiate a lotof obstacles. They don’t need another one that can be avoided by people simply observing signs. Amtrak is very good about these things, and the signs on these rows say, simply, “Reserved for passengers with disabilities.” (The train was nowhere near full, by the way.)

Everybody’s different, and I don’t mean to speak for all people with disabilities or their companions.

It’s just that I see up close what Beth deals with every day; we have friends in wheelchairs; I wheeled Gus through countless tight spots. It’s hard. And when I see anyone making it any harder than it needs to be, like humans with ill-behaved fake service dogs, or completely able-bodied people using automatic doors that are clearly labeled as accessible features (guaranteeing those doors will get more use than designed for and be out of service more often), well, I teeter between sadness and anger.

As for those two guys on the train? At one point the conductor came through and admonished them: You can sit there for now but if someone in a walker or a chair comes in, you’ll have to move.

They sheepishly found new seats.

When I heard that yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago, I called Wanda Bridgeforth. Sure enough, she was in the parade a few years after it first started. “Oh, yes-in-deedy, I was 11 or so, and we were the Young Girls Athletic Club of Bud Billiken,” she said. “We dressed in our green gym suits, white socks and white Keds.” When I mentioned I might use that in today’s blog, she said, “Just be sure you say they were Keds!”

These days over a million people gather in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood to watch the Parade at the end of every summer. As one of the oldest – and largest – annual parades in the country, the Bud Billiken Parade marks the end of summer and celebrates all the kids heading back to school. “The first few parades were like neighborhood affairs, and over the years, three generations of my family have participated in the Bud Billiken parade,” she says, pointing out that her daughter Wanda Jr. was named Best-Dressed Walking Girl when she marched in the 1950s. “Junior’s prize was a Pekingese puppy, and the next year she was on the float of the Royal Court.”

Last week I assigned the writing prompt, “Something You Wish People Understood About you.” Ninety-seven years old now, Wanda came back with an essay describing herself as an elderly toddler – her mind is sharper than ever, but her body is shrinking. “I toddle around now,” she acknowledged over the phone. “You can probably hear it in my steps.”

When I asked if I could excerpt some of her essay for my Safe & sound blog today, she gave an enthusiastic, “Sure!” Here it is:

Here’s a screen capture of the live feed screen from when Wanda and I were on WGN radio two years ago. There’s Wanda in the upper left screen.

Something I Wish People Understood About Me

by Wanda Bridgeforth

I think my experience with stereotypes may be a bit unique from those human beings younger than I am. People have two minds about ETs (Elderly Toddlers): age and physical appearance. I fall into both. Because of spinal stenosis, I am unable to sit or stand up straight, which makes my chin rest on my chest, an indication of mental loss. Thus, I appear to be senile.

I have noticed looks of pity, wonder, avoidance, and perhaps, of contagion. Some encounters have been distressing, and some comedic. A little boy was staring at me and opened his mouth to speak when his mother jerked him away, whispering out loud, “Don’t stare at people!”

Some parents stutter apologies for the stares and questions of the little ones. I don’t mind the children; they are curious and honest in their looks and conversations. It’s the adults, babbling apologies and excuses, that raise my hackles.

At many functions I sit alone with my chin resting on my chest. Because of a lifelong hearing loss I am a good body language reader. I watch feet approach, stop, turn and move elsewhere. I have seen fingers pointed in my direction, accompanied by whispers. I ignore them and sometimes laugh inwardly. People are so often confused, uncomfortable, or don’t know how to react to me and other ETs.

A stereotype of the elderly with a physical disability is that we are also senile. They see the elderly as all drooling, babbling idiots. I’ve known shocked looks when I speak clearly, coherently and intelligently.

An example of this reaction: during a visit to the emergency room an interviewer asked me questions, and I answered. When she finished, she told me to take a seat, then she called Daphne (who had accompanied me) up to her desk and asked her the same questions. Daphne refused to answer.” Didn’t my grandmother asnswer you?” she asked.

”Welllll, yes. She did. But at her age, you know….”

We, the elderly, come in feisty, independent, and/or quiet moods. The mind tells us we are able, but the body knows we are not. Very confusing. Don’t fret, just keep trying to understand and live with us ETs. The problem is two-sided: we are trying to cope with others, and with ourselves, too. So be aware that one day, if you’re fortunate to live long, you’ll be an ET, too.

After we published Mike’s thoughtful post about my Seeing Eye dog Whitney’s upcoming retirement, caring friends and family have been asking if I know what breed my next dog will be. Do I know the name of my next dog, Will they tell you if it’s going to be a male or female? Hearing myself answer “not yet” so many times got me to thinking. Might those two words work as a writing prompt? Yes! Had I assigned something similar before? Not yet.

Bill Gordon

Writer Bill Gordon said he knew what he’d write about the minute he heard the prompt. After hearing him read his piece out loud, I asked if I could share it here on our Safe & Sound blog. Lucky for us, he did not say, “not yet.” Here it is:

by Bill Gordon

It was the fall of 2000. I was at O’Hare, ready to board a plane to Denver and on to Aspen. I was the scheduled keynote speaker for the Colorado Library Association. Just before boarding started, I was called to the desk and upgraded to first class because there was a vacant seat and I was a frequent flyer.

While I was settling into my aisle seat, the fellow next to me asked me what I did. I said I was the Executive Director of the American Library Association and I was on my way to a library conference. “What do librarians have to talk about,” he scoffed. “And why an association? No one uses libraries anymore.”

Before I could respond, the captain introduced herself and welcomed us to the flight. My seat mate was outraged that we had a female pilot. “She should be serving coffee,” he said. “Not trying to fly a plane.” I said I always prefer female doctors, lawyers and pilots because I know they had to work harder and be better than their male counterparts. That ended, thankfully, any further possibility of conversation.

We settled in. The plane was cruising at 35,000 feet. Suddenly there was an ear-splitting explosion. The plane rolled on its side. Some overhead compartments flew open. The contents scattered. Loud screams. Crying. The plane rolled back but it felt as if it were standing still, then it fell about 3,000 feet. The oxygen masks dropped.

There was more screaming, and then an odd silence. The plane settled and was moving forward, but it was shaking like a carnival ride, and there was the noise of metal scraping against metal.

The captain announced that an engine had blown up and caused extensive damage to the plane’s controls. She said the plane could only turn to the left. She was going to turn the plane and land in Des Moines. She would let us know when to get into crash position. My seat mate was crying and whimpering, and because of the odor, I knew he had wet himself. I did not feel afraid; I just felt sad. Was this to be the end? I needed some time to tell people what I had never said.

Had I told my sister Shirley, the last of my siblings, how much she meant to me? Well, not yet. What about Jan? Had I told her how beautiful she is and how much her love means to me. Not yet. Have I told Carsten, my best friend, how much I treasure his friendship? Not yet.

What about Charles who was so special to me and who always had my back? And Mike, my hiking and white water rafting buddy, who snatched me from certain disaster. Did I ever tell Joyce, my former wife, that she was the smartest person I have ever known and my ten years with her were among the best of my life? And what about all those people with whom I worked who made my career so special? I needed time to clear up all those “NOT YETS” in my life.

The Captain announced that she was going to do her best to land the plane. We were to put our heads between our knees and our hands over our heads. The plane was vibrating so badly it felt as if it could come apart at any moment.

Suddenly, we were on the ground. The plane bucked, tipped, and shuddered, but finally came to a stop. I looked up. We had landed in fire retardant foam, surrounded by emergency vehicles. It was quickly determined that there was no fire. The plane could be towed to a gate.

The pilot emerged from the cockpit to a loud round of applause and screams of “Thank you.” First class passengers deplaned first. I was met by an airline attendant who re-scheduled me, and in less than an hour I was back on a plane on my way to Denver.

I can’t say this experience cured me of letting some “not yets” get in my way. It certainly made me appreciate every day and moment, however, and has, generally, made me quick to tell people how much they mean to me.

We live about three blocks from the ginormous Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue—the one associated with the 1968 Democratic Convention. Well, things are a lot more peaceful there these days, and we go there to work out—the health club sells memberships. A fair number of people from our neighborhood are also members.

Beth swims there about every other day. She was there Thursday and reported that security was ultra-tight. As in, hotel guests couldn’t use the pool unless they’d called in advance and the staff confirmed that they were, in fact, a hotel guest.

Why? Lollapalooza. In an effort to avoid the slaughter that happened in Las Vegas in 2017, everything remotely near the annual festival in Grant Park is locked down. As in mailboxes have been sealed shut and the like. There are rumors that snipers are on duty, operating on hotel rooftops. Usually, I’d take that kind of thing as urban mythology, but having been here for the NATO summit, and witnessed the security measures, I tend to believe it.

It’s Sunday as I write this, and so far, Lollapalooza-goers have not been a target, thankfully. Wal-Mart customers in El Paso, Texas and bar patrons in Dayton, Ohio didn’t fare as well.

Americans have lost a lot of freedom. We have to go through magnetometers at sporting events and even at free concerts in the park. We have to register to swim in a hotel pool. And on and on.

All to appease gun fetishists who are a distinct minority, even among NRA members. Several common sense measures like universal background checks have broad support among Americans. Nothing can guarantee to stop these tragedies, but evidence suggests basic safeguards will make them less frequent. And the right measures will make them less deadly.

We get stuck on fatality counts. The fatalities are tragic. But the injured live on, often severely impaired. Survivors live with physical disabilities and PTSD, and their families will never be the same either. (This report from the Center for Investigative Reporting covers the lasting damage from these events.)

I refuse to get used to this. So I encourage you to join me and continue to press your lawmakers and do whatever you can to move us toward sanity. If you’re an NRA member, speak up and push for leadership changes.

Because what’s at stake is our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.