The Crazy Old Days

By Mike Cookman

One day after school, 6^th grade to be exact, my friend Billy and I were walking around and talking, and one of the topics was whether we should go to this guy Kevin’s house, another classmate.

This was a small town… Read full post »

When I was in the hospital last year for a heart issue, too much fluid around my heart, whatever that means, my wallet was stolen.

Isn’t that great? You lie there wondering whether you are going to live or die and the nurses are working around the clock to keep… Read full post »

I am going to attempt to explain what I have learned over the past year about the medicaid system in Illinois. I have no idea if this is the same over the rest of the country, but somehow I doubt it. Remember this is the land of George Ryan and Rod… Read full post »

I've been having very strange dreams lately, but even stranger is the fact that I remember them so vividly so long after they occur, which probably just means that I need to get a life, which is something I am suprised I never dream about.

I have theories on dreams.… Read full post »

I've had that loser feeling again all day, I'd like to call it something lofty like "that rainy day feeling" but it isn't the same and besides---I like rainy days. They make me happy. At least in the summer they do, when it's warm and the air is more still.

Anyway,… Read full post »

All i wanted to do is go to my doctor's office which is way downtown which is a pain in the ass anyway. All week the weather had been warmish and sunny and then Thursday came along.

"Hey," the weather said, "doesn't that coin guy go to his doctor today? And… Read full post »

There's a voice from far off that speaks to me sometimes, and sometimes just speaks and i listen, but I don't just listen I hear, and when I hear I understand. This is a voice from very near the land where I was born.

 I used to think I heard voices… Read full post »

One Sunday evening in the late autumn when I was whatever age you are when you're in 7th grade, I was walking along the creek behind the houses of my neighborhood. My brother and some other guys were playing football in the field area behind me, and I continued  along the creek… Read full post »

I was watching the people dance at Evanston's thursday evening dance lessons on the sidewalk area just beyond church street and one of them caught my eye, mostly because she was different than the others in that she put her whole body into it and had fun.

It was easy to… Read full post »

I try to shake that feeling, I really do, but sometimes it just comes back and won't leave me alone, and other times it just goes away, that notion that I'm a born loser, for better or worse.

I sit in my favorite cafe in the morning and watch people go… Read full post »

I was reading about all the recent crime in and around Chicago, with gangs of punks going around robbing and beating people up on the L trains and anywhere else, and  letter to the editor of the Sun Tims indicated that some citizens are outraged, not by these crimes but by… Read full post »

I'm not quite sold on this Calee's Law thing yet, for one thing it sounds too much like a television show. Caylee's Law, starring whatever models are available, and maybe even a couple of actors.

But the main thing is, we can't make up laws just because people are uptight about… Read full post »

We all now know the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial and we can also rest assured that's just about all we know of it, save for some fascinating and juicy tidbits here and there, and the more I learn about it, the less I know.

The story, as I… Read full post »

Just spent the weekend with my favorite people, Trena, Liz, Wayne, the good folks from Tercica, Roberta amd Daryl, and the always smiley Lauren, not to mention Linda and Daphne and Gina and Dr. Cohen.

We got together in San Francisco to toss around ideas regarding Acromegaly and what new patient… Read full post »

I'm glad the damn game is over, and it's too bad the Bears lost, but I'm sick of all this football shit. And now there's the endless armchair quarterback nonsense, "they would have won if..."     "They shouldn't have..."

 I want to ses some of these people get out there… Read full post »

Just saw the movie Black Swan, and while I enjoyed it mostly on a technical level, I still didn't completely understand it.

As I see it, there's a dancer in a New York ballet company who is really good and is up for the lead in Swan Lake but the… Read full post »

When I was a teenager I liked going to the big shopping mall in Vienna, Virginia called Tyson's Corner, with lots of stores and movie theaters and people walking all over the place, and sometimes you would run into friends from high school and that could be good or bad depending… Read full post »

I watched a good episode of of The Andy Griffith Show this week, in which a new kid in town kept stealing things and busting street lamps, and he kept calling Opie "dopey Opie."

Opie didn't much like this kid, and after a few dramatic things happened he stood up… Read full post »

I was walking along Maple ave last night and a dog leaped out of an apartment doorway and ran around a little, and I stopped dead in my tracks.  After a minute or so the dog went back inside and I heard a door close and lock. So I continued on… Read full post »

I've done a lot of travelling over the past couple of years and I've always been appreciative of the measures taken by the airport security people and their efforts to keep us safe.

I've stood in long lines that actually go pretty fast, but I always arrive about two hours early, just… Read full post »

I've been reading about victims of school bullies killing themselves and I've been forming the opinion that things must really be awful in some high schools, even worse than when I was in school.

Is it that the bullies are much more vicious nowadays or is it that the victims are less capabl… Read full post »

A customer in the place I work was talking about the movie Oh God, with George Burns and John Denver, and she described it as, 'such a happy picture."

I saw it when it first came out a million years ago but I didn't remember much about it, except that it… Read full post »

Let's see if I can take a stab at at least one thing contributing to this alleged Recession that's been the media's joy and bread and butter to fill us in on day in and day out.

There's a hell of a lot of people living in the city of Evanston,… Read full post »