REMEMBERING WHEN NIKE INC. TORPEDOED OUR PLANS

We streamed the Ben Affleck-Matt Damon movie Air the other day. Set in 1984, it is the air-brushed story of how a talent scout for the Nike Shoe brand successfully pursued Michael Jordan, finally signing him to a massive contract to become the face of Nike’s basketball shoe division. It’s a fun movie, and as we all know, things went pretty well for Michael Jordan and for Nike, Inc. after that. But I’m still not a big fan of the company, and it is because of a bit of non-nuclear fallout from the Cold War.

Remember the Cold War? The duck and cover drills, the Dr. Strangelove mutual destruction scenarios. To ensure our survival, the US military constructed anti-aircraft missile silos throughout the country. Over 200 of these missile silos batteries were deployed nationwide to protect 40 “defense areas.” The name of this massive project? Nike, after the Greek Goddess of Victory.

The Chicago-Gary region was number three on the list of “defense areas.” Twenty battery sites were constructed in the area. Our Northwest Suburban site, Site C92/94 was located in the town of Vernon Hills. The site was active for 8 short years, from 1955 until 1963 when it was supplanted by other local missile emplacements.

The site sat unused until 2000 when the military turned over the decommissioned site to a consortium composed of the Village of Vernon Hills, Community High School District 128, Stevenson High School District 125, and Lincolnshire Prairie View District 103. As a member of the Board of Education of Stevenson, I welcomed the opportunity to utilize the acreage as athletic fields to supplement the ones on our landlocked Lincolnshire campus.

It took some years to develop the site. The Village and the school districts cooperated on plans for a sports complex, a complex to be named Nike in remembrance of the site’s historical significance. But that part of the dream fell away when in October of 2003, Vernon Hills received a letter from Kenneth Kwartler, Nike, Inc’s Assistant General Counsel stating “Neither the site’s location nor its history requires or entitles you to use our famous brand as your own.”¹

We had been swooshed! Instead of The Nike Sports Facility, the Vernon Hills Athletic Complex was born. The seven of us on the Stevenson Board, and the administrative team as well, were initially disappointed, but to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a field, is a field, is a field.

Even so, the Nike episode left me with a sour taste for the shoe retailer. And since neither the lineage nor the history of Air Jordans requires that I ever purchase a pair, believe me, Assistant General Counsel Kwartler, I never will!

Read last week’s blog HERE.

¹https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-11-01-0311010072-story.html

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An Icon Abandoned, and It’s No April Fool Prank!

Oh this is the night…

…it’s a beautiful night.

Lady and the Tramp–1955

Who reads the “Legal Notices” in the back pages of their daily paper? Sandwiched between obituaries and want ads, the notices provide legally mandated information that is hidden away where no one will read it. As a Stevenson High School Board of Education member years ago I remember that’s where we stuck the notices notifying the public about bond sales. I’m sure the notices are the precursors and inspiration for all those annoying fast talking announcements at the end of television car ads. You know, the part where you learn what your “no money down” car is really going to cost you. But the other day in the lunch room I had finished scanning the obits without finding anyone I knew, and my eyes continued to the next column. And in the “Legal Notices” section I found this, and I shuddered:

ABANDONMENT OF TRADEMARK “NOODLE RONI”

The Golden Grain Company…has determined that the Noodle Roni trademark is no longer of use to the company…it will forever relinquish and abandon…all right, title and interest.

It is part of my childhood that is being abandoned! OK, I admit that my family never bought Noodle Roni. My mom was a Rice-a-Roni (The San Francisco Treat) chef. Rice, vermicelli (never knew what that was) and packaged flavoring. A great compliment to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in the blue box — we ate a lot of starch in those days. Noodle Roni seemed like the little orphan step-child of the Golden Grain family. It never got quite the respect, and it really didn’t have as good of a jingle as big brother Rice-a-Roni. But how can you kick your baby sister out the door? Had the world really forgotten Noodle Roni Fettuccine Style?

Well, the truth is actually not quite that depressing. A little research revealed that Noodle Roni was renamed Pasta Roni many years ago. It comes boxed in a few different flavors, and single serving bowls — just zap and enjoy!– are out there too. I guess in this sophisticated, modern world, “pasta” is a far more impressive word than “noodle.” But Noodle Roni was etched into my youth and I will miss it. So if any of you have a case of Noodle Roni squirreled away in your 1950’s era bomb shelter, send me a box. I am sure it had enough to preservatives to survive, even if it’s name will not.

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To the Family Who Will Buy Our House, Whoever You Are

Our house…

…was our castle and our keep.

Madness, 1982

It is late February now. The weather changes from day to day, bright and sunny on Tuesday, windy and stormy by Wednesday. Most of our trees are bare, though we fear these temperature shifts may confuse them into early budding. And we don’t want confusion. We want it all to be perfect. This will be the last spring we will watch the lawn spring to life, the last Mother’s Day weekend Barb will spend planting her brilliant mix of annuals, the last season we will enjoy the magnificent white explosion of the magnolia at the end of the driveway. By spring of next year we will be in our new home, loving it I am sure, but missing this house, the house that has been our castle for so long.

We trust you will enjoy this home and this neighborhood as much as we have. This is the place where our children grew from toddlers to graduate students before heading out on their own. A place of backyard dance parties and Grand Staircase prom pictures. Kitchen table games of “Sorry” as intense as any episode of “Game of Thrones.” Annual Father’s Day driveway basketball challenges against my sister’s family, that always seemed to end with Laury in tears. The chanting of B’nai Mitzvah practices and the tinkling of piano practices. Technology progressing from dial up modem to hardwired home network to whole house WiFi, as Barb and I binged on our favorite anti-heroes: Tony Soprano, Walter White, Jax Teller.

Will you understand the love and care that Barb put into choosing every fixture and floor tile? Will you cherish the master bath light fixture we stumbled on in Las Vegas, the kitchen fixture we discovered while staring through the window of a closed lighting shop on a cold Thanksgiving Day in Charleston, South Carolina? We hope you will appreciate the skill of Stan the Cabinet Man, whose creations support the beautiful marble countertop on the kitchen island. Or maybe you will just like the bones of the house, and will choose to make major changes in the decor. It will be your house, your opportunity. We just hope you are gentle!

We are still debating when to put the house up for sale. Assuming (should we assume?) all goes well, our new Ranch on the Pond won’t be ready until autumn, so we will prefer not to move much before then. But we imagine you are a family with children. You will want to be in your new house by mid-August to take advantage of the great neighborhood schools. We understand– and don’t think for a minute we would be moving out of the Stevenson School District if we still had teens! So we will put the house on the market early, probably a spring real estate listing. Maybe you will see it online, or maybe your realtor will bring you to the house and you will be blown away. Mortgage rates should still be low, so that should be a plus. And who knows, after you see the property you might Google us and come across this blog and maybe that will help convince you to buy. But if the timing is just right, that graceful magnolia at the end of the drive will be in full bloom. And this house will win your hearts.

CORRECTION: The original version of this post stated the Las Vegas fixture was in the dining room. Oops!

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