Swans On The Run

The call from Sandy came in at about 1:00 pm on Sunday afternoon. “Barb,” the caller said. “I just saw two swans marching down Thorngate Lane, and I figured you were the person to call.”

Yes, in our neighborhood, when you are the head of the Homeowners Association you are the person to call.

A little background about the swans. Our subdivision, built on the former site of a golf course, has three ponds and it has a Canada Goose problem. For many years, a partial solution has been the annual 6-month rental of beautiful white swans, two per pond, to keep the geese away. Along with our black silhouette dogs, the swans allow most of us to avoid spending the summer continuously shooing geese, and cleaning their poop, off our driveways.

This year has been a traumatic one for some of our swan pairs. Harvey and Sheila, the couple in the pond next to our home, had a barren spring. They have spent the summer aimlessly swimming in their pond, without little cygnets to raise. Perhaps out of loneliness, they have adopted a solitary goose, one of the few we have seen this summer, and who swims alongside them. Perhaps it was injured, or abandoned by its flock, but it never leaves the pond and never messes the neighborhood.

The swans in the pond across the street from us have had a more tumultuous summer. A neighborhood coyote, of which we have many, was witnessed by a passerby tussling with the smaller of the two birds. The passerby intervened, allowing the swan to escape to the pond, but examination by the company from whom we rent the swans confirmed it had been injured in the melee. They recovered the swan and brought it to their headquarters where it is recovering nicely.

This brings us to the third pond and its swan pair. This couple did breed in the spring. Five cygnets became four, then three, then two, and then one and none as snapping turtles enjoyed Swan Pâté.

I am not a swan psychologist but perhaps this trauma is what led the pair to head for the streets to seek a happier place. The call of “Swans on the Run” came into Barb, and we set out to hunt the escapees down.

We finally corraled the runaways on a cul-de-sac in front of the home of a neighborhood family with multiple young daughters. We called the swan company to pick the swans up for the pond return. While we waited the 1/2 hour until the company truck arrived, we used a hose and sprinkler to keep the birds cool while five of the young girls looked on.

So yes, Sandy. Whether you need someone to battle corporations or to herd runaway swans, Barb is the one to call!

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Read last week’s blog HERE.

I Got Mansplained By A Woman At Pickleball. Now I Know Why Women Hate It.

Following my “Australian Women of the Night” post, an old high school friend reached out to give me the lowdown on his recent, very G-rated visit to Australia and New Zealand. Stan and his wife Bonnie spent an evening with Barb and me and passed on their recommendations about what to see and what to skip in the lands down under.

And then Stan asked the number one question people have been asking since I retired three months ago.

“Do you play Pickleball?”

My tennis player’s inherent negativity toward PB must have worn down because I said that while I had not yet played, I would be willing to give it a try. My former pathology associate, a woman who loves the game, had given me a PB set as a retirement gift so I was fully equipped.

At Stan’s advice I surfed through a few PB YouTube videos (there are about a million to choose from) and yesterday morning he and I met at 8 a.m. at the park district recreational center where he plays three days a week.

Stan spent 45 minutes very patiently coaching me. He did a great job going over the boundaries (all those extra lines painted onto what is also a basketball court can be confusing,) the scoring, and the strokes, reinforcing what I had learned watching the videos. Another relative newbie joined us and Stan gave her some much-appreciated tips too. Stan earned an A+ as a PB mentor.

We then joined in with other players for games on the three “easy” courts. For a first-timer I thought I did OK, making some rookie mistakes, but able to keep rallies going and win some points with a few well-placed shots.

And most importantly, every player I shared a court with was friendly and encouraging. Everyone that is, except for one person, one woman who we will call Jane. Jane wanted to teach me how to play but her condescending voice and manner were enough to guarantee that I did not listen to one word of what she said. Jane was a woman, but for the 10 minutes I had been with her, I had been mansplained.

Ladies of the world, I have new clarity on why you hate mansplaining–that tone of voice, the unnecessary commentary, the assumption of ignorance. It sucks and is demeaning.

It is possible that in the past I may have treated some women that way. Be it family, friends, readers, or co-workers, I apologize. I vow to do my best to never behave in that fashion to any person of any gender. If I slip up, please call me out on it. In a nice way.

Who’d have thunk it? Pickleball is not only fun, it is going to make me a better person!

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President Biden, Let Me Be Your Dave.

Hey fellow Democrats, have I got a plan for you!

I hatched the whole plot on a chilly, sunny, day earlier this week. Walking into the house I saw my reflection in the glass door pane. And for a split-second, just for an instant, I thought I was looking at our nation’s Commander-in-Chief, our President, the Honorable Joseph R. Biden. Maybe it was the sunglasses, maybe it was the white hair, but the slight resemblance was there.

Now, this similarity is not necessarily complimentary to me. After all, Joe B is 14 years older than I am. But for Democratic voters, those 14 years are the problem, and I am the solution.

We all remember the movie Dave, right? Kevin Kline stars as a nobody who happens to look like the President, and is recruted to impersonate him after the President suffers a secret stroke. My plan, and you need to hear me out on this, is to let me be this year’s Dave!

The 2024 Presidential Election is right around the corner. We anticipate that Good Ole Joe will announce his plans to run for re-election shortly. The issue with that re-election run is that too many potential Biden voters are concerned about the President’s age.

What, they worry, will happen if Biden suffers a stroke, a heart attack, or a sudden death. Are we all comfortable with Kamala Harris assuming the Presidency, temporarily or gasp, permanently? Might that fear push some centrist Dems, some staunch independents, and some RINO/Never-Trumper Republicans to all get behind a semi-sane GOP candidate such as Nikki Haley? Will we have to suffer a potential red wave on the horizon?

I think we need to change the impression of Biden as old and ready to fall down in a stiff breeze–and do it now, while there is still time. So let me be the Prez’s stand-in. I can sign bills (if a divided Congress can pass any) with a flourish. I can give State of the Union addresses and then cartwheel down the aisles of the Senate Chamber. I can be videoed doing my sweaty morning regimen of elliptical riding, push-ups, and planks. I’d even submit to some bare-chested shots à la Putin. All to show a hale and healthy “Biden” that people would be comfortable voting for.

I realize this opportunity will necessitate a move to the DC area and secret living arrangements. Now that I am retired I can do that. I just have to make sure that nobody inside the Beltway recognizes me, especially not my nephew and his wife. They tend to be Republican and might spill the beans.

I do realize that there is a risk that the real President might suffer an incapacitating incident or perhaps even expire while in office. I will just carry on the ruse, Weekend at Bernie’s style. Mr. Biden’s State Funeral will have to wait until his term is over.

So, Democratic National Party, I am waiting to hear from you. I think we can make it work, don’t you?

I Am A Premature Flasher. Can You Help Me? (It’s NOT What You Think!)

I have a problem. It is something I first noticed a year or two ago. Sadly, it seems to be getting worse. I am sure Barb is aware of my issue, but we have never talked about it. In fact, she has never mentioned it at all. But it is there. And I don’t know whether or not there is any help for me.

You see, I am a premature flasher. I am the guy in the car in front of you who starts to signal his right turn three blocks before he is actually turning. If I am planning on making a lane change I flip that signal lever half a mile before my car slides over. I’m not trying to fool the drivers following me, I just can’t help myself.

There are regulations detailing when a driver should start signaling. I vaguely remember reading them in “Rules of the Road” when I was sixteen and studying for my first driver’s license exam (the only test I failed in high school.) And I have read this current online recommendation:

“Put your turn signal on approximately 100 feet before you reach the intersection. When driving on the highway and indicating an exit, lane change, or overtake, start your indicator lights approximately 900 feet before you make the change.”
Idrivesafely.com

100 feet? 900 feet? That’s what the experts recommend? No doubt about it, I am signaling my intentions waaay too soon. Highway, toll road, local through-street, it doesn’t matter. Once I know I am going to be turning, that signal gets clicked on, and like an old-time Timex watch it just keeps on clicking.

Does it make me a better, safer, driver? Of course not. All it does is confuse the Lyft driver behind me. “Where the heck is that moron going to turn?” they mutter in Arabic or Swahili to their passengers. Or maybe they think I am one of those space cadets who is staring at his phone and doesn’t even realize the signal is blinking away.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am any more dangerous than the cretins who zip in and out of traffic without signaling at all. They are a hazard to (my) life and limb. At worst (I hope) the only thing the premature signaling does is slow traffic down just a bit.

But what if this affliction gets worse? What if I feel compelled to turn on my right turn signal as soon I pull out of our garage and then alternate the left and right blinkers non-stop as I drive to Woodman’s Grocery or to Target? Good thing I am not driving to the lab anymore!

So if you know a solution to my problem, or a therapist you can refer me to, please text, DM, or email me. At this point, I would even settle for an online support group. As embarrassing as it is to admit it, I need help!

Do You Want to Know The Final Walk-Off Songs?

You all know what a walk-on song is, right? It’s the music that blares over the loudspeakers at a ballgame when the next player comes up to bat. It’s usually loud and raucous. The song’s job is to get the hometown fans up and rocking and get the batter in the mood to do major damage to the opposition pitcher. Examples of songs that hit it out of the park include Thunderstruck by AC/DC, Jump Around by House of Pain, and Welcome to the Jungle by Axl Rose, Slash, and the rest of the boys in Guns N’Roses.

But as I fade into the sunset at the end of this week I need just the opposite, songs that will help me walk out the door, songs that will help me say goodbye. I won’t be swinging for the fences, just saying a last goodbye before the club retires my number.

Today, Wednesday, I have two more days to go. What is the song that is running through my head? It’s the triumphant, uptempo Eagles song, Already Gone. And although I have still two days to go, in my head I’m singing that “I’m already gone, and I’m feelin’ strong. I will sing this vict’ry song. Woo hoo hoo, my my, woo hoo hoo!”

That’s strike one.

Tomorrow, Thursday, almost at the end. I know I’ll be thinking One Day More, just like the rousing, climactic, act-ending song from Les Miserables. Unlike the characters in the musical, I’m not on the precipice of a revolution or embarking on a new love affair, but my Act 1 (or is it Act 2 or Act 3?) is certainly ending as I start a new chapter in life…one more dawn, one more day, one day more!

And that will be strike two.

And finally, on Friday, my last day, you can play the Harold Arlen/Johny Mercer classic tune, One for My Baby for me. It’s a sad 3 a.m. song about putting an end to things, about saying fairwell. It was a signature song for Frank Sinatra but it isn’t the Chairman’s version I want you to play. I want to hear it from the Divine Miss M, Bette Midler. Bette called herself “the last fool Mr. Carson would have to suffer gladly,” when she serenaded Johny Carson as his final guest on The Tonight Show. The song brought Carson to tears. If it was a good enough goodbye for Midler and Carson it is good enough for me.

And that will be strike three, and I’ll be outta there!

(But all is not lost, the blog will go on!)

The above is the opinion of the author and not Uropartners LLC.

LGBTQ Night Club Shooting Gives Me A Chance To Do It Right

In golf, they call it a Mulligan. My tennis buddy used to call it a do-over. It is a chance to make things right, to admit that we can do something better than we did the first time. A tragic event has given me that chance.

On June 12, 2016, James Corden hosted the 70th Tony Awards ceremony. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton had a magnificent evening, winning 11 awards, including Best Musical. As many of you know, Barb and I are big Broadway fans, and I posted a rap blog celebrating the evening. It was fun, well-read, and well-received.

But…Two nights earlier there had been a horrific mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The tragedy was referred to multiple times during the Tony telecast, but I did not mention it in my blog.

A day later a comment appeared on my blog, calling me homophobic. I denied the accusation, but what I could not deny is that I unthinkingly ignored something that was as much a part of the awards ceremony as the awards themselves. I turned a blind eye.

This weekend there was a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs. Five people are dead. As of this writing, no motive has been attributed to the gunman, though CNN quotes Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser saying “I think it’s fair to say — based on the facts — it’s very hard to conceive of a situation where the motive wasn’t generated by hate.”

Last week I wrote of anti-semitism. Today I know it is not enough to speak out about hatred against “my own.” Victimization of any group must be highlighted and defeated. It’s not always easy to do, and not always easy to write about. But no more blind eyes from me. I have used my “ignore it” Mulligan. I pledge to do better in the future.

The Blonde Leading the Blonde…and more memories for me.

Platinum hair from House of the Dragon to Village of the Damned

A distinctive odor isn’t the only thing that can take me on a trip down memory lane!

An article in the New York Times discussing the striking platinum-blonde hair of the Targaryen clan on the HBO series House of the Dragon included a black and white movie still of a gaggle of young children with similar nearly-white hair and a very strange look in their eyes.

And quickly I was a teenager again, watching Village of the Damned with my high school youth group, a 35 mm projector whirring away.

How many of you remember those Neanderthal days — before you could go to Blockbuster Video on any corner and rent a movie for the weekend; before you could have Netflix send you DVDs in the mail; and decades before online streaming services gave you millions of choices?

In those days we mostly watched movies in a movie theater, quiet and in the dark, or on TV with commercials every 15 minutes. What a treat it was to watch a full-length movie in a private hall with a bunch of friends, uninterrupted and unshushed!

For our youth group, movie night was a once or twice-a-year occurrence. Rows of folding chairs would be set up in the auditorium, a popcorn popper taken down from the shelf, and the Bell and Howell projector focused on a slightly tattered screen at the front of the room. We bubbled with excitement as the film was threaded through the projector sprockets and the lights were lowered.

The movie to be shown on a given night was chosen weeks before the big night by the Youth Advisor. The catalog from a movie rental company was studied and an order form and check were mailed to the company, somewhere in Ohio, or maybe California. With luck, the movie would be available and the large, flat spools in their brown boxes would be sent to us, ours to keep for a week or 10 days. Mimeographed flyers on bright orange paper would be circulated to the group members and posted on the walls announcing the date, time, and of course, the movie title.

I am not sure what criteria the Youth Advisor used to choose the films that were shown. There were classics such as On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger. Steiger made a repeat appearance in No Way to Treat a Lady, a film with no significant value or staying power.

But the oddest choice for a synagogue youth group was certainly Village of the Damned, a supernatural thriller. In the film, an otherworldly event leads to the birth of platinum-haired, precocious. and very weird children with glowing eyes who (spoiler alert) are eventually destroyed by the father of one of the oddlings. But their eyes float away–undead. And our auditorium was filled with laughter as someone in our crowd cried out “Maybelline makes beautiful eyes!” The highlight of another movie night.

And as far as I can recall–the last of those nights. I suspect the administrators of the temple lost faith in the Youth Advisor’s ability to pick appropriate films for at least a nominally religious youth group. Or maybe the price of film rental became too high. For whatever reason, that was the last time I ever heard a 35 mm projector in a small room with a group of friends.

But I will remember the Children of the Damned long after the last Targaryen has his (or her) head on a spike.

The “My Fair Lady” Project -Part 2: Why Can’t the English?

The cast of Offspring in a quiet moment.

Why Can’t the English (learn to speak)?

The Australians, not the British, first made life rough for Barb and me.

Let me explain. About four years ago, after months of “encouragement” from our daughter, we finally streamed and enjoyed Friday Night Lights. Once we finished the semi-soaper we looked for a new familyish-type drama to turn to and stumbled on Offspring.

The show was broadcast on the little-known Acorn Network. It centered on Nina Proudman, a slightly kooky obstetrician, her even kookier sister Billie, and the rest of their eccentric family. We were hooked by the scene of Nina delivering the baby of an old acquaintance, only to discover mid-forceps that her own daddy was also the daddy of the new baby.

Our only problem was that the show was a 100% Australian production. We could not understand a single word that half of the characters were saying. We found their accents impenetrably thick. After almost every line of dialogue Barb and I looked at each other and said “What?” Finally, after much fumbling with the three remotes that control our TV, we managed to activate closed captioning.

And the Proudman world opened to us. We were able to enjoy every moment of Nina and her family’s hijinks. We became so proficient at merging the sensory input of the picture, the voices, and the subtitles that Barb could still do her craftwork, I could still do my crosswords, and neither of us would miss a single beat.

After Offspring we moved on to A Place To Call Home, a slightly heavier Australian drama. Closed captioning was again a staple of our viewing, as it was for the New Zealand comedy Nothing Trivial that followed.

And by this point, we were permanently hooked. No, not just on Australasian TV, but on closed captioning. CC On is now the default setting on our television no matter what we are watching. We get to digest every word of dialogue, we see the lyrics of the background music, and on episodes of 1883 we were even told repeatedly that there was “German background chatter” that was totally inaudible through the TV speakers.

Admittedly, for live sports and news shows the subtitles lag behind the action. And in those live settings, the subtitles are often painfully (or laughably) inaccurate. In rare situations, the text covers up some key visuals. But it is a trade-off we are glad to make.

So Nina, please give us another kooky Aussie season of Offspring. Netflix, throw your Emily in Paris French accents at us. Queen Elizabeth, torture us with your hoity-toity enunciation on The Crown. As long as we have our trusty CC we can handle it all!

This is episode 2 of our My Fair Lady project, using a title or lyric from each song in the original Broadway cast album to inform or inspire a blog post.

Previous Posts in the series:

My Fair Lady Project Part 1: Overture

It Is More Than DNA–A Book Helps Me Remember Mom

I never asked my mother the right questions. I knew the broad strokes of her early life, but never asked for the fine details, the people in her life who came and went, and most importantly, I never asked how she felt about the events and feelings that shaped her life.

I thought the window to learn those things had long closed. After all, Mom has been gone for a dozen years. Dead men or ladies tell no tales.

And then when looking for some photographs last week (the old-fashioned type of photographs, the printed kind,) I rediscovered something that gave me a sliver of insight into her life.

In 1998, when Michael and Laury were 14 and 12 years old, Barb gave my mother a book called Grandmother Remembers. The hardcover book is designed to fill with memories. Each page has a title such as “Our Family Tree” or “My Wedding Day.” Prompts on each page are followed by plenty of space for jotting down thoughts of the past. There is plenty of room for pictures as well.

I presume my mother spent hours and days diligently filling out the pages, recalling memories (in 1998 at age 79 she was still mentally sharp), and pulling out boxes of old pics. She reminisced over life in Vienna–her love of her parents. Her pride in her father’s job “dressed in a beautiful uniform greeting important guests on the railroad” shines from the page. She briefly touches on her ambition to be an infant nurse or to work on a kibbutz in Israel.

And there is mention of the arrival of Adolf Hitler–Mom doesn’t say much about him or the impositions on the Jewish community in Austria but comments that her whole family was fortunate to leave for England, and eventually America.

The following sections in the book provide more background to the stories I already know: being fixed up with my father, the wedding in front of a justice of the peace, the honeymoon at a relative’s home in Highland Park. Mom was proud of rising through the ranks to become a “comptometer” operator at the Spiegel, an early direct-marketing retailer.

And then “the kids.” Sadly, the memory book has no section that could be devoted to my sister, but there are plenty of memories of my childhood and teenage years. I can concur with some of Mom’s perceptions of those times, while others I might have put a slightly different spin on. We didn’t always see things the same way!

Courtship and marriage to Barb are focused on as the last section of the book begins. The grandchildren get their just due, as do memories of favorite recipes (Linzer torte,) favorite holidays (Valentines Day at Aunt Paula’s,) and favorite TV activities (watching travelogues and VCRing tennis matches for Dad.)

The memory book concludes with a look forward instead of back, with wishes for health and happiness for the family.

Written 12 years before she died and now reread 12 years after, Grandmother Remembers helps me feel closer to my mom. It brightens the image I have of her, reminding me that she was once a young woman with hopes and dreams. I hope it will also bring wonderful memories of Grandma to our children and someday introduce her to her great-grandchildren.

And kids, if there is anything you want to know about your parent’s past–ask away!

Roll With The Changes

Keep on rollin'
Keep on rollin'
You gotta roll with the changes.

If you read this blog regularly, and I hope that you do, you have probably noticed that the most recent 2 or 3 blogs don’t resemble the past 500 or so entries. The formatting is different, the URL is different, and most importantly, the connection to ChicagoNow and the Chicago Tribune has vanished.

Several of my colleagues, as well as well-known Chicago columnist Eric Zorn, have detailed the demise the ChicagoNow at the hands of Alden Global Capital. I won’t go into details, but Alden owns the Trib; Alden apparently saw no value in the cadre of talented bloggers who provided free content to the Trib’s digital site; last week Alden unceremoniously pulled the plug.

As a result, the former ChicagoNow bloggers have all been scrambling to rescue our old blogs (most of mine can be found here) and find new places from which to continue to shout our thoughts and views. Some of us hope to band together in a new enterprise if we can come up with the technical expertise to allow us to express our common vision. I have also reached out to the Sun-Times and Daily Herald in hopes that either might consider giving us a home (no responses so far.)

For now, I am using a stand-alone WordPress platform. It’s a return to my roots. I started with WordPress in 2015 and wrote there for several months before passing the entrance exam (gentle questioning by the great Jimmy Greenfield) for ChicagoNow and being invited to join in with the gang. The site is a bit bland but I will try to pretty up the place…all with the hope that this is a temporary hiccup and I will soon be blogging with my old buddies once again.

And One More Change (with a request)…

Many of you are aware of my past association with USToo, the Chicago area organization that was heavily involved in helping patients with prostate cancer. Last year USToo merged with the national organization Zero-The End of Prostate Cancer. As an UsToo board member, I agreed with the merger knowing the power of a large national group will help make an impact in the lives of prostate cancer patients and their families.

One thing hasn’t changed. Zero is continuing the annual SEABlue Prostate Cancer Walk and Run in Lincoln Park. I participate annually to honor my dad, who lost his life to prostate cancer. Through the years, many of you have sponsored me. Some have already done so this year. If you have not and would like to, here is the link. No contribution is too small or not appreciated.