Putin Shows Us Why Trump Must Not Be Re-Elected

You start an insurrection in the USA, and you may find yourself standing trial, facing prison sentences, or having a crimp put in your campaign for the highest office in the land. Start an insurrection in Russia, like Yevgeny Prigozhin, and you find yourself dead.

Donald Trump calls the many investigations into his “activities” witchhunts. He verbally attacks prosecutors, judges, the press, and anyone who will not fall into line with his mad pronouncements on the 2020 presidential election. But we are not Russia. Because enough people in this country accept and protect the values that our republic aspires to, Donald Trump is able to live among us as a walking, breathing citizen, awaiting trial, safely flying wherever he chooses to go,

We are not perfect. I understand that we have not always lived up to the most noble values, and perhaps never totally will. And I think I understand why a person like Donald Trump will always admire a ruthless dictator like Vladimir Putin. Yevgeny Prigozhin leads an apparent attempted coup in June, in August a plane he is flying in crashes from the sky.

As I write this, there is no confirmatory evidence that Putin or his henchman were behind the plane crash. There is just conjecture and coincidence in a country where one man’s word is the word of law.

Our nation must never drift that way. We must never again elect a president who seeks that type of power. We don’t want or need to shoot him from the sky, just try him, convict him, and elect a man better than him as our president.

Phon-etics. My New Career as a Cell Phone Finder

What are the worst five words in the English language? I thank you would be at a loss to find any more terrifying than “I can’t find my phone!”

I first heard that phrase a few years ago. Barb was opening every drawer and cabinet and poking behind every chair and sofa in search of her missing iPhone. I joined in the hunt, finally suggesting we see if we could locate it with the FindMyiPhone app on Barb’s iPad. (Yes, we are an Apple family.) We found the app on the tablet — a 10-minute search in itself) — pressed the button and waited to see what the app could tell us.

In a minute or so we had a location. The app was telling us Barb’s phone was at the entrance to our subdivision, where our local access road intersected the main thoroughfare. Barb was puzzled and unbelieving. “How could it get there?” she questioned. “It must be a false signal.”

I pulled Barb out of the house and we took the short walk to the spot the app appeared to be indicated. We stood on the sidewalk, and as Barb had predicted, no phone.

I looked into the intersection and saw something sparkle. As soon as the light was green, I sprinted down the crosswalk and retrieved Barb’s phone, cracked but still broadcasting its “Find Me” signal.

How did the phone wind up in the middle of an intersection? The most likely scenario–earlier in the day Barb had probably laid the phone on her car hood before going driving on a short errand. The valiant phone clung to the car before spinning to the pavement when Barb made a hard right turn to leave the subdivision. My first case was solved.

My next two lost phone incidents both occurred recently, and both in airports. Airports thousands of miles apart.

The first was about a month ago. Barb’s friend and high school classmate (we’ll call her Wendy) was arriving at O’Hare Airport from California to attend their high school reunion. Barb was volunteering at Lake Forest Hospital that afternoon; I was the designated pick-up driver.

I pulled up to the airport just as Wendy started texting me that she had landed and would be ready to be picked up shortly at Terminal Two. In the intervening minutes, Wendy also got a text from her husband Bill back on the West Coast. He had COVID! Distraught with Bill’s news, Wendy greeted me with a “No Hugs” warning and slid into the car.

We were just driving past Terminal Three when Wendy uttered those awful words. “Les, I can’t find my phone!”

With a hard pull to the left, I turned into the recirculating lane for a loop back through the airport. Despite Wendy’s urging to “Go faster” and “Don’t stop at that red light,” I kept my cool. Even so, it couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes before we were are the spot where I had picked up Wendy. She leaped out of the car, searched the curb, and held up her hand, triumphantly showing me her phone.

But I still didn’t get a hug.

Now let’s travel to our flight last week from Warsaw to Krakow. The Lot Airline hostess glowered at Barb and told her “You must put your little purse under the seat in front of you for takeoff. You must do it immediately while I stare at you and make you feel extremely uncomfortable.”

Barb scrambled to accommodate and the purse wound up under the seat in front of me. Two hours later we were in an Uber leaving the Krakow Airport when Barb reached into that little purse and said “I can’t find my phone! I’m sure it fell out of my purse when SHE made me stick it under the seat.”

This time it was the Uber driver who made the airport recirculation drive. and directed us to the Information Booth. The attendant there sent us to the Lost Luggage station. Barb picked up the connecting phone and spoke to a second attendant.

“I left my gold iPhone on the plane from Warsaw. It has a picture of a couple with two grandchildren.”

“Yes, we have it. I will bring it to you in a moment.”

It was the attendant who got a hug.

How about you? Are you a finder of lost phones? Let me hear about it at chidoc@post.com

Help Me Fight Prostate Cancer

Hello, family, friends, and colleagues,

As September nears, it is time for me to once again reach out to you to ask for your support in the fight against prostate cancer, by asking for a donation to the SEABLUE Run and Walk.

Prostate cancer continues to be the single leading malignancy in males in the US, and the second leading cause of cancer death. Zero Prostate Cancer is a nationwide organization assisting men and their loved ones navigate diagnosis and therapy.

Although I have retired from my professional career as a prostate cancer pathologist, I still have a strong personal reason for joining the cause. My father, Harold Raff, died in 1993 at the age of 80 from advanced prostate cancer. This year in his honor, I am proud to have created the RAFF’S RIDERS team for the SEABLUE event.

Please sponsor me and our team with a donation. Any amount is appreciated.

To donate, click here.

With deepest appreciation,

Les

From Göppingen to Auschwitz–We Must Always Learn From The Past

I don’t usually write travelogues, but those of you who have noted an absence of posts for the last two weeks may wonder where I have been. To unabashedly steal the title of a John Le Carre spy novel, Barb and I began our travels in a small town in Germany.

The town was Göppingen, a burg with a population of about 60,000, a 40-minute train ride outside of Stuttgart. The occasion was an exhibition of about sixty pieces of art created by my great-grandfather John Elsas. From about 1925 to 1935, Elsas created over 25,000 watercolor satirical paintings and collages, each approximately 8 inches x 10 inches in size. Each piece was adorned with a short statement or poem, many reflecting on the political situation in Germany, culminating in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Barb and I attended the invitation-only opening of the exhibition where we were warmly greeted by Dr. Dominik Sieber, Director of the Städtische Museum im Storchenm. The introductory presentation was given by Dr. Dorothee Hoppe, the archivist who introduced me to my great-grandfather’s works and after years of investigation knows more about the German side of my family than I do!

From Göppingen we traveled to Berlin. Here we spent three days exploring Germany’s capital, including the political, historical, and Jewish aspects of the city where my father lived until immigrating to America in 1933. Throughout, remnants and memorials to the Cold War and the Holocaust were never far away. With our next stop, the full weight of the Holocaust bore down upon us.

We flew from Berlin to Krakow via Warsaw on Lot, the Polish national airline. While we enjoyed the sites and atmosphere of the lovely central Oldtown, our main reason for traveling to Krakow was an hour’s drive to the west; here we reached the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp and its partner camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Visiting the camps there is no escape from the horrors of the Final Solution. We were surrounded by residual structures, photos of the dead, surviving confiscated shoes, and an emotionless recounting of the murder of over a million people by our tour guide. For Barb and I, it was a reminder of what we already know; we hope for the many other visitors it opened their eyes to what must never happen again.

We had to hustle to make connections back to Chicago when our direct flight from Krakow to O’Hare was canceled immediately before boarding, but we arrived home just one day late. As I write, I reflect on the places we visited, the international meals we dined on, and my great-grandfather’s art. But also on the wondrous people we met: the Moscow businessman who insured yachts and thought Putin was crazy, the Irish statistician who was in Poland to organize a juggler’s convention, our Uber drivers, our guides, and our hosts.

All in all, it was a trip well done.

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What Does a New York News Site Know About Chicago Pizza?

You love Chicago pizza. We love Chicago pizza. In my high school days, it was Pizzaria Uno or Due downtown–before their reputations were sullied by franchisization. Then came a My Pi phase–enjoying pizza at the original shop down the block from the Loyola El stop.

On my first date with Barb, sandwiched between watching a polo match at the Chicago Armory and a visit to a Chicago magic bar, we munched on the piping hot cheese pizza at Gino’s East. We enjoyed Gino’s again on the night we got engaged, and completed the Gino’s hat trick on our wedding day, walking from the Drake Hotel for a late-night snack after our afternoon nuptials.

And these days, any excuse is a good excuse to enjoy a Lou Malnati’s pie. Barb is partial to the Lou Special (hold the cheddar cheese, please) while I like to indulge in some pepperoni on my slices. Best when eaten in one of Lou’s sit-down restaurants, the delivered pizzas are nearly as perfect. Even the frozen version can brighten up a weeknight dinner at home.

What do all these pizzas have in common? They are all Chicago legends and they are all deep-dish pizza. Deep dish is what Chicago is known for, as iconic as Vienna Beef Hot Dogs, Garrett’s Caramel and Cheese Popcorn, and Alinea’s five-star meals.

Yes, Giordano’s stuffed-style pizza has its devotees, but that is an anomaly. Single-layer deep-dish is where it is at.

So I was amazed to read an online article in Bloomberg, informing me that the Chicago pizza style that is “taking over the US” isn’t “pudgy deep-dish” but instead cracker thin, crisp-crusted, tavern-style pizza. It’s the rage in Brooklyn, wowing the Northwest in Portland and Seattle, and truffled up for wine-pairing in Napa Valley.

Is it true? Is Chicago’s bulky, broad-shouldered pizza about to be replaced by a crispy cracker slathered in tomato paste? I hate the idea. But I suppose if I can root for The Bear’s Carmy Berzatto to be successful in turning his Italian Beef shack into a Michelin-starred restaurant, I have to be open to food evolution in other Chicago classics as well. Maybe I will try the crispy ‘za at a restaurant in Westmont recommended in the Bloomberg piece.

Just don’t start putting ketchup on my Superdawg!

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Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away

Often the hardest part of writing my blog is picking a suitable image for the top of the column. Sometimes I have a photo on my phone that will do, sometimes I pick one from our old photo albums. Occasionally I will use Dall-E, an artificial intelligence tool from the folks who brought us Chat GPT to create an appropriate depiction of my post’s theme. And sometimes I will search the World Wide Web for something to punch up my words.

Of course, one has to be careful when choosing images from the Web. Many are copyright protected and should not be appropriated for other uses. When my posts were part of the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow site I was allowed to use the Tribune photo files—at least according to the ChicagoNow Guru, Jimmy Greenfield. That gave me a lot of creative photo choices.

There are other options. Once a week, the website Deposit Photos sends me a link to a Photo of the Week that can be used for free as long as I give proper attribution. So yes, that is where today’s stunning illustration is from. It’s such a marvelous photo of a Clydesdale that I knew I wanted to use it to head up my blog. The only problem is that I don’t have much to say about…horses!

I have ridden horses a few times. I recall a summer vacation with my parents in upstate New York where trail riding was an afternoon activity. And when our kids were 6 and 8 years old, we spent a marvelous week at Peaceful Valley Dude Ranch in Colorado. Although I am sure I took a daily ride through the mountains, my strongest memories are of Michael in the kid’s rodeo, and watching Laury screw up her courage to go for a ride. The cowboy hats from that adventurous summer are still on the high closet shelf in our bedroom.

I may not have been on a horse in the last 30 years, but I have ridden a camel. That took place somewhere in the south of Israel during a tour in 2008. My ride was uneventful; I wish I could say the same about the ride of one of our tour companions who was unceremoniously dumped from her “ship of the desert.” She had a dusty, painful landing!

How about any of you? Great horse stories to tell? Something to make that fiesty Clydesdale at the top of the page proud? Send them to me at chidoc@mail.com, or leave them as a reply.

Just remember, if you fall off your horse, or your camel, screw up your courage and get back on. We will ride those wild horses, someday.

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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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The Play’s The Thing. Where I’ve Been And Where I’m Going.

As my retirement roars past the half-year mark, people have two questions for me; how am I spending my time, and why am I writing fewer blogs? The answers are somewhat intertwined.

I am doing the standard “stuff” for a fairly young retiree. There’s plenty of time for sports. I’ve discovered I enjoy golf more than I thought I would, and that no matter how hard I try, playing both tennis and pickleball leads to poor results in each. At least that is my excuse!

Barb and I have done a spot of traveling and the planning for some upcoming trips to Germany and Australasia has also consumed many hours, planning that I am sure will prove worthwhile.

In addition, I’ve started to volunteer regularly at the Northern Illinois Food Bank, and I really do find that retirement has given me more time to spend with family, especially as an emergency babysitter. All four grandkids are adorable, so I enjoy every minute of that, as well as long leisurely walks with Cooper the Wonder Dog.

I’m doing a little consulting work in pathology, though it is a bit less than I had anticipated. That is the first reason the blog count has dropped–not as many pathology/medicine topics are coming to mind.

The second reason for the falloff in blog volume is more adventuresome–I have started to write a play!

An idea that was in the back of my head has germinated, and my writing time has mostly been spent on getting inside the heads of some characters I have created. For writing instruction, I dived into reading some great American plays, finding the buried humanity in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, the total lack of humanity in Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and the overwhelming out-datedness of Woody Allen’s Play it Again, Sam.

You ask what I am writing about? You will get no answer from me on that question, for as Barb can tell you, I do not share my works-in-progress willingly. All I can tell you is I have taken the “write what you know” philosophy and thrown it out of the window.

I am taking what is for me the unusual step of working with a collaborator. Doctor Joel Cornfield, who I have known for many years, is an established playwright who is very active in the Chicago theater scene. He has agreed to take me under his wing to see if I can learn to fly. I’ll be sending him my first draft in a week or two.

So retirement rocks! Or as the greatest playwright who ever lived put it “Tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age.”

It never hurts to end a blog with a bit of Shakespeare!

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No Use Crying Over Spilt Blogs!–Read on to find out why.

Some of you have asked why there hasn’t been a new blog in a few days. Here is the sad reason why.

Last week I wrote a lovely blog
Deep thoughts and inspiration
It took me hours to get it right.
A mighty fine creation.

My fingers danced upon the keys
Choosing words and illustrations.
When I read the piece back to myself
I felt trembling sensations.

In all my years of writing posts
No one was ever better.
I knew I'd found the perfect place,
For each comma, verb, and letter.

I was sure I'd win a prize
For the column that I wrote.
Perhaps I'd get a Pulitzer,
Or some other plum of note.

A movie would be made of it
With big stars like Jane Fonda.
They'd have to film the closing scene
On location in Uganda.

I would go to Hollywood
Where an Oscar they would hand me
And if they gave me two or three
Well that would be just dandy!

In my speech, I'd want to thank
All my family, pets, and friends.
Then drive away in a fancy car,
A big blue Bentley or a Benz.

But I'm in tears, because you see
This all won't happen ever.
I forgot to "Save" when I finished my piece,
I lost the whole endeavor.

So words of advice to my loyal fans
Who have followed through this story.
Always remember to save your work,
Or bye-bye to your fame and glory.

Hey! Can you do me a favor? If you are a subscriber and enjoy my blogs, please email them to friends and contacts. And if you read my blogs on Facebook, please share them! We are always looking for new readers.

You can always get a hold of me at chidoc@post.com Look forward to hearing from you.

Read last week’s blog here!

No Use Crying Over Spilt Blogs!–Read on to find out why.

Some of you have asked why there hasn’t been a new blog in a few days. Here is the sad reason why.

Last week I wrote a lovely blog
Deep thoughts and inspiration
It took me hours to get it right.
A mighty fine creation.

My fingers danced upon the keys
Choosing words and illustrations.
When I read the piece back to myself
I felt trembling sensations.

In all my years of writing posts
No one was ever better.
I knew I'd found the perfect place,
For each comma, verb, and letter.

I was sure I'd win a prize
For the column that I wrote.
Perhaps I'd get a Pulitzer,
Or some other plum of note.

A movie would be made of it
With big stars like Jane Fonda.
They'd have to film the closing scene
On location in Uganda.

I would go to Hollywood
Where an Oscar they would hand me
And if they gave me two or three
Well that would be just dandy!

In my speech, I'd want to thank
All my family, pets, and friends.
Then drive away in a fancy car,
A big blue Bentley or a Benz.

But I'm in tears, because you see
This all won't happen ever.
I forgot to "Save" when I finished my piece,
I lost the whole endeavor.

So words of advice to my loyal fans
Who have followed through this story.
Always remember to save your work,
Or bye-bye to your fame and glory.

Hey! Can you do me a favor? If you are a subscriber and enjoy my blogs, please email them to friends and contacts. And if you read my blogs on Facebook, please share them! We are always looking for new readers.

You can always get a hold of me at chidoc@post.com Look forward to hearing from you.

Read last week’s blog here!