Cleared for takeoff

Cleared for takeoff

The Dayton Flyers picked up some fans in an unlikely place Sunday afternoon as they fought their way to an Atlantic 10 Women's Basketball Championship. We watched with a series of kind strangers and an amiable bartender at Legends Bar in Suring,Wisconsin as our grand niece Shakeela Fowler and her teammates beat VCU 52-48 to [...]

Spring in Wisconsin

Spring in Wisconsin

We hear spring in Wisconsin long before we see it -- the sweet call of the first brave robin, the squish of mud beneath our feet, the cheerful babble of river water finally flowing free. Driveway basketballs bounce off pavement finally cleared of ice, swings creek happily in the park and people chat on street [...]

March Madness and all its joyful nunsense

March Madness and all its joyful nunsense

Sister Jean Delores-Schmidt gave an eloquent interview following her beloved Ramblers' thrilling, last second upset of the University of Miami in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament yesterday. At 98-years old, the Loyola's team chaplain said she remembers the last time the Ramblers won the title 55 years ago, and [...]

March Madness!

March Madness!

What is March Madness, anyway? Is it the humiliation a college basketball fan feels when she steals herself to cheer for her team's invitation to play in the lowly NIT and then discovers her team wasn't asked to attend any party at all? Is it the desperate craving for midseason entertainment that inspires sophisticated Chicagoans [...]