Here’s a war story you won’t find anywhere else. Because there is no other Chad.

There are no politics here. Just a person. And his family. He wrote the note to 25 people. I was one of those 25.  Perhaps there is someone you'd like to share this with… Read full post »

Shurlacher spent much of the evening looking for clues.

Or saying things like "Hey Jimmy, my hammies are tight. Would you stretch me out real quick?"

At one point a 4 foot Dracula peeled off from the throng of kids and parents strolling down the darkened sidewalk outside, walked t… Read full post »

When my wife pulled the email off our printer at 5:30 this past Friday, telling her that she had been fired, she had no idea that she was now part of the $56.4 million dollar a week problem of wage theft across the United States.

Those of you who still… Read full post »

Put yourself back a couple hundred years ago on a creaking

schooner tossed by towering walls of terrifying waves that could

crush you and your dank smelling ship as if you were a single

drop of rain.

Huddled below deck, the black eyed brooding man next… Read full post »

Wednesday the phone never rang.

Thursday morning I picked it up and the line was dead. They had turned it off. The internet had been gone for a week or two. And it was getting cold; but the house kept me from the wind.

She… Read full post »

Pizza once sucked people into Chicago like a gigantic red tomato shaped magnet.

Back when everyone had regular jobs and no one had their hand stuck in your pocket grabbing at your health care; Chicago Style Pizza rivaled a trip to the Chicago museums, a walk down Michigan A… Read full post »

Turn this up real loud and start thinking about Cartouche.

Forget what you see on the video. It’s really not important. Camera misses the real story up till the very end anyway. Look at the stars instead.

Or better yet. . . .

Just listen. And think about how… Read full post »

Gertrude Kasebier thought so. In 1897 she was publicly advising women that photography could be a “gratifying and profitable success.”

 This was new. On all sorts of levels. This was new.

The print above, &ldquo… Read full post »

“I always thought, “ I met her eyes directly, “that explosive sex would happen with Betsy Ann.”

Jill never knew Betsy Ann. But she knew the story. “Who says,” she told me the first time I told it, “that corporate Ameri… Read full post »

The day I saw her again was one of those grand days of early autumn. The leaves were just beginning to fade into the burned orange, brown and yellow music of fall. The wind bore just a tinge of sadness from the memories of a lost summer song.

And this. .… Read full post »

What is it that takes your breath away?

All you once had that’s gone? Physical and emotional pain? Greed and the fouling of the earth? The lies and the spin and the ever growing distance between you and hope?

Or--as is the case with lots of us: maybe… Read full post »

I’d tell you where he did it; but you’d never find the bar.

In Chicago, we change the flow of rivers. So the feeling of a location changing is not all that strange. Oh the joint has been there forever. But new buildings go up, alley’s… Read full post »

Remember that day?

The day the friendly grey haired woman walked up to you in the Walgreens in Evanston, smiled and said “Well, hello Maria? How are you? Are you still dancing?” Remember how you said, “Hi Mrs. Cusack! Good to see you. Ye… Read full post »

Today. October 9^th,  a soft slow lazy rain hovered over Chicago. The day is almost over. But still time to wish you happy birthday.

Maybe Liverpool was like this too?

Maybe it was raining when you sat on the bedroom floor of your friend Paul's house… Read full post »

When do the last really get to go first? When do those most vulnerable get to feel safe? What time does that happen? Here in Chicago, will it be marked in central standard time?

There is a moment, driving a cab all night, around 4:15- 4:30 in the morning, when… Read full post »

In the desolate 2:00 am blackened bedroom all the stories you tell yourself to bring sleep, shattered like a broken mirror in a million razor blade shards of all the things that could go wrong.  Eyes wide corpse like stiff. You don’t even toss and turn. You can only… Read full post »

Where was here?

Maybe here?

Just east of what is now St. Louis.  1,000 years ago.

Cahokia. That's what they called the place. Built by the river.

Ten thousand people lived there. With at least 20 or 30 thousand more in the surrounding towns and farms.

1,000 years ago.

How… Read full post »

5 minutes ago, the IOC slammed Chicago to the mat with a first round elimination from the bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

We lost.

The sputtering, half baked, shoddy journalistic shreiks of "Why?" will come. America is still fighting 2 wars. We've yet to make back all the fri… Read full post »

Barry Doyle’s “Dallas Iconography” is such a stunningly alive celebration of Dallas images that when the UPS man handed me the amazon.com box on my front steps in Chicago yesterday, I might have felt the box breathing in my hands.

O… Read full post »

Studs Terkel. Gone a year ago October. Reprinted  from www.rogerebert.com to remember. With gratitude to Roger Ebert for the editorial support in allowing me to be a Guest Contributor.

Just to remember. .  . . .one year later.

--------------------------------------------------… Read full post »

The first time it was the upstairs bathroom door.

Our niece had accidently locked herself in. No fault of hers. It’s the way the place was built. Badly. There was no other option. She was screaming.I raise… Read full post »

 Who

Fills these pages with such grace and wisdom.

 Gene and Roy got married here. About two miles or so from right here at the old Dickinson Tobacco Warehouse that sits at the very center of Edgerton.

Weathered by Wisconsin snows and blistering heat, still proud with the earthy rich smells of time. Surrounded by the… Read full post »

John Coltrane spent his life trying to find the perfect sound.

Johnny Hartman, voice like smokey warm honey, sings.

And the lyrics?

Written by Billy Strayhorn when he was 17.

I toss the little piece below out to the unforgiving winds;

To honor Mr. Coltrane.

Because I think he foun… Read full post »