A life’s gallery

A story I couldn’t make up

A high school classmate of mine passed away suddenly over the weekend, and the shock of hearing this news made we want to do something. But the question is what, exactly? My first instinct, in good times and in bad, is to look for a story to share. But the story I want to share

Farewell to CPS

17 years 5 schools 2 girls 1 family that’s ready to move on. Thanks for the memories!

Teach them how to say goodbye

  While the COVID-19 disaster grinds on, with no real ending in sight, everything seems to be getting harder. Although there’s been lots of songs written in the past about Hard Times, none of them could ever foresee the world we’re in right now. 33 million Americans have now applied for unemployment benefits, and the

Nuns: A belated appreciation

Since I don’t think I’ve ever written about nuns before, it’s time to change that today. I was raised a Catholic, and attended Catholic schools until I was 18 years old. This included interactions with several nuns, and they generally weren’t good experiences. One particular story from first grade, back in the spring of 1975,

6 years, and how many more?

Six years ago, I had a story to tell. Actually, I had already told the story, just as I had a hundred times before, by sitting down in front of a computer and typing away. Most of the stories I had told before never saw the light of day. I had either abandoned them halfway

Thomas, that was a real nice Declaration

Thomas Jefferson has stayed in place at Colonial Williamsburg through the years, but the three girls surrounding him sure have not. Yet another reminder of how time flies past, at a speed we’re not always comfortable with.

Always in my heart

On the occasion of my daughter’s 18th birthday, I have boxes of pictures and just as many stories to share about her. My life hasn’t been what it was before she was born on April 4, 1999, and I don’t mind that one little bit. Being a parent once scared me to death. Nothing quite

It’s gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me

I’ve been writing this blog for almost six years now, and have put more than 1,500 posts up for the world to consider. I do it because I know that we’re all mortal, and when we leave this world there will be few traces of us left behind. Whether anyone alive today reads these things

My letter of thanks to Jack Brickhouse

Dear Jack, Today was the kind of day that makes cemeteries interesting. As I drove through Rosehill on the far north side of Chicago, I watched the dried leaves blowing across my path on the way to the mausoleum where you are interred. This is generally not baseball weather here in Chicago, but you never

We are the Dreamers of Dreams

R.I.P. to Gene Wilder, who brought Willy Wonka to life like nobody else could.  2016 hasn’t been a good year for guys who wore purple. Thanks for all the memories.  

Cape memories

My wife and younger daughter are on Cape Cod this week, and it’s been quiet around the house in their absence. But I wanted to share some old pictures before they left, because time moves so fast, and one day’s little kids become another day’s adolescents/teenagers. Enjoying this process–as I’ve always tried to do–is the

Shut down Volkswagen

My parents had a light blue Volkswagen Beetle like the one pictured above when I was a kid, and I called it a “Vopiad” because I couldn’t say “Volkswagen.” It’s a happy memory for me. But those warm fuzzys have been abolished forever by the way Volkswagen has behaved since 2009. They installed software that

Birthday wishes to my kids’ Uncle John

Iles Park, Springfield, IL, circa 1975 My sister, my older younger brother, and I were all born in June. My brother’s birthday comes first on the calendar, so the family birthday season kicks off today. We had a lot of fun together through the years, and even if I’m not happy with how I look

MMM, Donuts

For International Donut Day, I wanted to see if it was possible to go five years of writing a blog and NOT mention donuts along the way. Turns out it isn’t, at least not for me. The Dunkin’ Donuts ad pic was taken on a visit to Fenway Park shortly before I began this blog

Shakedown, 1979

I was never a very big fan of Smashing Pumpkins, but I do like their song 1979. The nostalgic video for the song conjures up some images from being a kid at around that time. 1979 was either at or near the end of my childhood, but whatever lay ahead in life was still off

My Dancing Queens

When you have two lovely, artistic-minded kids and a few thousand pictures saved on a hard drive, as I do, putting something like this together when you learn about #InternationalDanceDay isn’t very difficult. Call it a labor of love. May everyone do a little dance today.

Saying thanks to The New Yorker

Many years ago (almost 34 years, to be exact) I wrote a letter to the editor of a wrestling magazine. The young teenager that I was at the time watched a lot of professional wrestling on TV, and they were to me what Batman and Superman were for those who read comic books. Dusty Rhodes,

The sky was all purple

Springfield, Illinois–the town where I grew up–doesn’t have very many suburbs, but I lived in one of them. And for this suburban child of the 80s, the electric guitar reigned supreme. Led Zeppelin was my favorite, of course, but any record would either rise or fall in my estimation of it, based solely upon the level

A siblings day remembrance

  I was very fortunate to have some fun people to grow up with. Peg is my only sister, John is my older little brother, and Mickey is my younger little brother. I could tell stories about them all (and I have to my own kids, at various times), but I’ll let the pictures do

Now it’s Mom’s turn

  My mom gave everything she had to me and my siblings, as we were growing up so many years ago. The only way to repay that is to recognize it (which simply can’t be done as you’re growing up yourself) and then, if the time comes, to do the same for your own kids.

A day with my mom

I’m getting to a place in life where many of the people I know have lost one or both of their parents. I have to admit to an embarrassment of riches on this front, because both of my parents are still with us, and still physically and mentally vibrant. I don’t usually think in terms

Scars that can’t be seen

For the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle disaster in 1986, I offered up my memories of that terrible day on my Facebook page, and then shared the senior year photo that I had taken when I was 17 and thought that the future would go on forever. Looking at it again today, I was

My old baseball buddy

The southside yin to my northside yang. Happy birthday to my old friend and two-time classmate David J. Casper. May we live long enough to see the Cubs and Sox play each other in October. 

Running away from me

My little one was in a hurry to get back to the ranger station and get a plastic junior ranger badge. It wasn’t anything more meaningful than that. Even so, it felt like a metaphor of some kind. Like her youth is getting further and further away. And when that happens –as I know it