Before you ever heard Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn or Joe Williams sing. Such long, long long ago Sunday mornings. Warm summer breezes on Wells Street in Chicago. Late breakfast time. The musicians all there at another table. Bonnie Koloc like a beacon eating breakfast. All of them so good at what they did. […]
Tribute to Marvin Isley
30 times in 30 years they moved. Raymond Chandler and his wife Cissy. The story is from “The Long Embrace”—author Judith Freeman’s brilliant journey to know the Chandlers. Each time, packing up to head out to another apartment somewhere in or around Los Angeles, Cissy would be in charge of gently wrapping their collection of […]
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When Paul McCartney accepts the Gershwin Award in the East Wing of the White House, Aunt Terri Hemmert won’t be on the stage. But for thousands upon thousands of Chicagoans of a certain age she’ll be right up there in importance with all the glittering dignitaries and the world class talent honoring Sir Paul. Because […]
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That is oil on the wings of the dragonfly. Gulf breezes blow in like they always have. And the ghosts of Faulkner and Walker Percy and Thomas Wolfe just weep. Beyond blame and politics and really bad ideas. The dragonfly can’t move. Stuck in the oil. John Denver comes back to sing: “And the song […]
As Justice Sandra Day O’Conner walked out on to the green grass of Wrigley Field in Chicago on a cool May night and handed baseballs to the circle of umpires, she told them to be fair. And coming from her. I wanted to be fair too. I once heard another leader explain what leadership looks […]
The first report of his death left out the crayons. On a gray Saturday morning in May, the man ran out of the CVS drug store in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood with a stolen tube of toothpaste and was killed by a store employee out back in the alley. The death was ruled a homicide. […]
“And you are? . . . . .” asked the first of what looked like many receptionists standing guard on the outer reaches of the Oval Office of President Barack Obama. It was raining hard in Washington DC. I didn’t have a power broker raincoat, so my only good suit was soaked in all the […]