My friend Jan has always been one of our neighborhoods' more impressive residents. A cheerful whirling dervish, Jan worked as a school nurse, mothered two boys and greeted every weird medical question I had with a confident smile and a ready solution. In a general phone conversation with her once, I casually mentioned that I [...]
We live in an enviable neighborhood, not for it's zip code, or architecture or even the park for which its named. The real asset of our neighborhood is its people and the way they treat each other. Yesterday, we found a small package hanging from our door knob. This is not unusual in our neck [...]
We found beauty on both sides of the river path during an excellent Sunday walk yesterday, so we breathed in some good clean air and thought, once again, how lucky we are to be living here. We chatted about what a good sign of health it was to see pelicans return to the Fox River, [...]
I went looking for Edna Ferber last week in the most logical place -- her hometown public library. I figured I find her thriving there, just two and a half miles from Edna Ferber Elementary School. Alas, I found the Ferber collection somewhat lacking. To be fair, I'd had some lofty expectations -- a dedicated [...]
Among the many things I learned during the Great Blizzard of 2018 -- that snowblowers have carburetors, that carburetors fail, that robins don't eat bird seed, that if you position an electric blanket just right it will form a cocoon from which you'll never want to leave, that John Mulaney is so funny he elevates [...]
