The Race Midpoint That Never Ends by Dave Schanding

The sign reads 35^th St exit 1 mile. Southbound Lake Shore Drive has been closed to allow for the Soldier Field 10-mile run to use this novel running surface. The runners have navigated through this turn-around point. Now we walkers are approaching the half-way point of the race.

In Spring, 2011, Kevin and Dave decided to improve their stamina. They set their initial sites on the Hot Chocolate Run, 9.3 miles from Grant Park to the United Center and back. After its successful completion, they sign up for the Soldier Field 10-mile run. The novelty of this race is completing the run on the 50-yard line at Soldier Field. What Bear fan could pass up this opportunity?

Dave has discovered that walking in a race is a bit different than sauntering down Michigan Av. Participants are required to average 4mph, or a 15-minute mile. Most of us typically walk 2.5-3mph. As Dave nears the turn-around point, his son, Kevin, waves from the northbound path. Kevin has done a combination of jogging and walking. Dave checks his left knee with its titanium insert—no more running after the knee replacement the prior year.

In Dave’s driving mind, 1 mile to the exit at 35^th Street should be reached in a minute. When one is on an expressway, a mile takes a minute. After that minute, Dave doesn’t feel any closer to the exit. His body reminds him that he’s not driving today. Dave looks around and sees ‘the bus.’ Race organizers have paid a pretty penny to have the city shut down Lake Shore Drive, and they are strictly enforcing the 15-minute mile race standard. ‘The bus’ picks up stragglers and returns them to the starting line, without accolades and without the race medal. Fortunately, the bus is a good half-mile away—Dave is a little ahead of schedule thus far.

He notices the next 1/10-mile marker. Each marker should be passed every 6 seconds—10 markers per mile, one minute per mile. That 5/10-mile marker remains annoyingly fixed in Dave’s sights.

Dave maintains a steady pace, staying a little ahead of the 15-minute-per-mile. He is joined by many weekend warriors. There are folks of all ages that seem to think they can run 10 miles but instead have to make frequent stops. It’s the tortoise and the hare all over again. Some folks are actually wearing dress shoes or flip-flops. Dave’s feet ache just thinking about going 10 miles in that footwear.

5 minutes have gone by and that 35^th St exit sign looms just as far in the distance as it did 5 minutes ago. Not really, but it feels like it.

After 15 minutes, the crowd reaches the exit ramp. Another revelation. Dave’s mind is in driving mode again. One zips down an exit ramp only worrying about whether to turn left or right at the end. But Dave is still walking. He wonders if he will have to move into the left-turn lane to legally stay in the race. The exit ramp is interminable. He’ll have plenty of time to figure out which lane to get into.

Dave finishes the race a couple of minutes before the 2 ½ hour time limit. He goes into sprint mode for the final 200 yards, including that magical run on soldier field. His sprinting self-image is dashed as he reviews the photo-for-purchase that shows a lumbering 60+ y/o fellow rather than an athletic 30 y/o. Kevin finished 15 minutes earlier and the father and son team take a couple of pictures of themselves on the field. They proudly wear their medals through the park and cab ride home. They are feeling every mile, but they’ve made it.

D&K finish at soldier field 05262012

If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Don’t Come to My Place

When friends from out of town ask to visit, they know they’ll be sleeping on a pull-out couch. No one seems to mind. But in the summertime, when I inform them I have no air conditioning and no screens, few believe me. The original in-the-wall air conditioner in my 1959 condo conked out in 2006. Replacing it would require ripping up and rewiring th-1 the wall and I’ve never had the inclination to do so. Neither can I bring myself to replace the broken dishwasher or stove.

Hot spells can be oppressive, even claustrophobic. When heat envelops me, I sweat, swell up, get dizzy. At times I feel like I’m going to faint. The failure of my body to adjust disrupts my circadian rhythm and agitates my sleep cycle. To cool off, I sleep with my windows open for the nighttime breeze from Lake Michigan which means on weekends I hear 2:00 am passersby mixing it up from the bars down the street and cars and motorcycles gunning it on my corner. North Lake Shore Drive makes an “S” curve at Oak Street Beach right outside my building and the occasional emergency siren wakes me as it hones in on late night crashes.

Summer sleep can be exasperating. I rise with the sun at dawn because my blinds are open all the time to catch the changing light and moving clouds. Oh, there are some — I’ve run out of wall space, so I hang paintings and dangle sculptures from drapery rods in front of partially closed blinds.

When I was about 10 years old, I occasionally slept outside in the summer on a porch with no screens. Mosquitoes didn’t bother me there. But when I slept inside, the bloodsuckers buzzed my ears until they found a juicy spot to prick my skin. I figured this was because mosquitoes come inside through the screens and can’t get out. I vowed to get rid of all the screens as soon as I had control over my own surroundings. And so I did. th-3 Some visitors are afraid of the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus so they spray gobs of poisonous DEET all over themselves. I’m as afraid of West Nile as I am of getting hit by a bus. Bugs fly in. Bugs fly out. Mosquitoes, moths, flies, bees, wasps — they come in, take a look around and go out.

An occasional sparrow or pigeon may fly in too, but they find their way out once Ozzy the dog wakes up and gets wind of them. City life with all the windows open, nature buzzing around, birds chirping, cars honking, buses burping, lake breezes, the sound of rain on the trees – all of it fills me with joie de vivre. I wouldn’t live any other way.

So, if you’re nostalgic for life before air conditioning, come to my place. You’ll be cooled and calmed by slow-whirring fans and iced lemonade.

Conquering High Rise Nature

I threw down the Sunday Real Estate section, flew out the door and sped toward the city to catch the last minutes of the 1-3 pm Open House in a Lake Shore Drive condominium. View of Lake Michigan, one-bedroom, 900 square feet, 24-hour doorman, close to everything, dogs allowed, balcony.

Balcony? During the hour drive to downtown Chicago from temporary quarters in my son’s suburban home, I fantasized sitting on the as-yet-unseen balcony overlooking the Lake, tending my garden.

“I’ll take it,” I said to the agent as I moved across the living room of the third-floor apartment and saw old-growth trees fully dressed in their summer clothes. Outside the wall-to-wall windows a flickering in the trees revealed a red-headed house finch flitting from limb to limb. And then, there was the balcony.

Before light bulbs, blinds or a shower curtain, I bought clay pots and flowering plants for my new home. Young lime-green sweet potato vines and purple morning glories would grow up hugging each other, curling around the railings, stretching toward the sun, competing for space on the top rail, then spilling over the top, and finally hanging down in a graceful cascade of tangled color.

I laid the pots of soil on the balcony overnight to let the dirt cure before planting, leaving the door open – inviting the overnight breeze to bring on a soft sleep. In the morning I strolled into the living room to find dirt tracked all over the floor. My terrier, Usher—legs splayed out on the balcony floor, muddy nose, dirty paws—held his head high with half-closed eyes basking in the light wind. What do you suppose dogs think? Was he grateful I gave him the opportunity to dig up our new backyard?

Off to Home Depot I went for another bag of soil and over-the-railing brackets to hold the pots up and away from those ancient canine instincts. I planted and watered. Perfect.

My north-facing home juts out just enough on a curve of Lake Shore Drive to have a tree-filled lake view. In fact only the trees stand between my balcony and the North Pole – no buildings, no mountain ranges, not much to break the full force of prevailing winds barreling down the Great Lakes, slamming into my building and battering the sweet potato vines and morning glories. They didn’t last the week.

For three years I tried all manner of perennials and annuals praying for wind resistance. The gardeners at Gethsemane Garden Center finally told me I was in a losing battle. Abandoning the outdoor garden, I still delighted in my tree-filled panoramic view full of sparrows, chickadees and one squirrel that sat on a parallel branch, squeaking and shaking his tail, tormenting the dog.

Eventually the emerald ash borer brought down most of the old trees, allowing more
light to fall on the indoor geraniums that are spread across the window sills and bloom all year. Conquering nature in a high-rise requires unwavering love of God’s creatures and a solid commitment to the game.

A Gucci-Loving Spiritual Seeker Gets It in est

In the late 1970’s, my father attended the Erhard Seminar Training, est, a large-group self-awareness retreat founded by modern-day American guru, Werner Erhard, and known today as The Landmark Forum.

After 15 years of estrangement, I became re-acquainted with my father in 1975 when I had overdosed on drugs and alcohol at twenty-four. He visited me in a New Jersey psychiatric institution to tell me about his own downfall and recovery from alcoholism.

A year later, I took my 9-year-old son Joe for his first visit to his grandfather’s home in Chicago’s Lake Point Tower. He ran his coal-mining business from a 6th floor office overlooking Navy Pier, and lived on the 57th floor with a girlfriend whose name I’ve forgotten.

I found comfort in our common interests. We attended AA meetings together, ate according to Dr. Atkins, and searched for meaning in the writings of American buddhists Alan Watts and Ram Dass. Over the years, his Kool-Aid obsession with the est Training led him to attend more exclusive retreats, outdoor survival excursions and seminars that would have led to his becoming an est Trainer himself. He relentlessly pursued fellow AAers, the doormen, his girlfriends, passers-by, my sisters and me to hop on the est bandwagon.

Joe loved and admired his athletic, yoga-practicing, Gucci-loafered, new-age grandfather. After my two failed marriages, I thought my father would make a good role model so we moved to Chicago. Before long, I capitulated and went to the est Training. The Trainer coerced me into confronting all the bad decisions I’d made in my life, which tore my soul to shreds and kept it tattered for years afterwards. I helplessly allowed my father to enroll Joe in the Training at age 14, and silently cheered when Joe walked out the first hour of the 60-hour course.

With est’s emphasis on the Self, my father drifted far away from his Jesuit-educated God-centered roots. His spiritual life ballooned into a reliance on his interpretation of the “god within” — that we are all our own gods and are capable of directing our own lives with no outside help. He preached at AA meetings to accept ourselves as we are in the present with no thought of what we’ve done in the past or what we will become in the future. People in AA tell me to this day his greatest influence on them was his constant reminder that no human power could relieve their alcoholism, that dependence on a higher power was essential to recovery. I never knew anyone to challenge him on his illogical, conflicting philosophies.

In October,1979, Pope John Paul II waved to my father as he flew by his 57th floor living room window in an open-door helicopter, his white robes flapping. The Pope landed in Grant Park to perform an outdoor Mass for 200,000 congregants. We watched the ritual on television and my father claimed that day as his reawakening to Catholicism. He didn’t return to Sunday Mass until the est organization dissolved in 1984. About that time I started noticing a slow disintegration in his character. His live-in girlfriends changed more frequently; he concocted fraudulent business deals, pitted my sisters and I against each other, sold his business and exaggerated his wealth.

In the end, he acted like he was his own god, unencumbered by moral obligations or the consequences of his actions. Perhaps he was like that all along.

Disabled List by Sharon Silverman

Senior Citizen, Elder, Geezer, Golden Ager –I’m one of them but still feel about 45 – well, maybe 50. Birth certificates, crows’ feet, and neck wrinkles don’t lie. I’m 72.

Way back when I was 55, I learned how to ride a Honda CB350. I rode it roundtrip from Sydney to Brisbane. “So there AARP! Keep your magazine!” Back then, I was deep in a long distance relationship – Chicago to Sydney is definitely LONG DISTANCE. No aches and pains. No fears or hesitations to try anything new. I ignored voices warning of motorbike accidents or the possible ramifications of unprotected sex. Well, I did worry about that one. Should I have trusted my Australian lover during those long periods of separation?

Fast forward ten years. I don’t feel old, but at this certain age Medicare premiums are proof to the contrary. Only my healthcare providers need know. I’m having the time of my life!

A new love appears. I am now 66 and still “young”. How many 66 year olds find a new love? “AARP, you can keep that card and those discounts for old people.”

Traveling the world, starting my own consulting practice, horseback riding with my grandson, skiing down a black diamond ski slope – is this what an old Geezer does? I couldn’t really be 66 years old.

Fast forward six more years. WAIT! What is that ache in my knee? It seems to be getting worse. Sometimes, I have to stop walking altogether and rest. Other times I can’t continue at all. Walks in the woods to see the autumn colors are no longer appealing. Even my beloved bike riding is at risk. Each turn of the wheel brings stabs to my knee. I’m now on the disabled list.

My friends are having knees and hips replaced. Maybe it’s my turn. Repeated consultations show I do have a knee problem, but it’s not yet “bone on bone”. I guess that’s good. Try physical therapy, take an Aleve. You aren’t a candidate for knee replacement.”

Previous bouts with physical therapy never really helped, so I’m doubtful. Even so, I discover Pam, physical therapist extraordinaire, and start regular treatment sessions. Voila – after many months, my knee is about 90%. Good enough for me, for walking in the woods again, and for traipsing through Italy with my grandson where we walked more than five miles daily for two weeks this past summer!

Still I’m reminded that disabilities may develop at any time. My recurring urinary tract infections have now morphed into “overactive bladder”. I can’t live through those stinging symptoms and the ever frequent urge to void. Can this be fixed? Find another specialist – a uro-gynecologist. Who knew there was such a specialty? At first I wonder if this means he’s from Europe or maybe his fees are in euros. I tell him, I don’t want to go through every day thinking about my crotch?” “Of course, he answers, only adolescent boys want to do that!” I found the right doctor!

My overactive bladder is now resting. Knee pain has abated. Celebrex, Norvasc, Zocor, and baby aspirin help me stay healthy and keep off that dreaded “disabled list”.

This is What Happens When You Opt-In

Looking out my third floor window as I tap words into my MacBook Air, I see three crows bounce from bare tree limbs to the ground and back — caw, caw, cawing at each other about their breakfast. The internet once told me if you look a crow in the eye, it will 12196091_952754094793732_8173525927943455115_n-1 remember you for three years. Momentarily anthropomorphizing these superior animals, I connect to them telepathically. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Crow for visiting me this morning. This connection more than compensates for those mornings when their caw, caw, cawing wakes me earlier than I’d wish.

All of a sudden, something pops up in the corner of my screen: “White House forced to reverse course on Trump’s golfing.” I instantly break off my birdwatching and open the link to this urgent story. I don’t dislike golf, but I’m not interested either. However, since the tragedy of 11/8, I involuntarily relinquish my time to so-called breaking news. I click and read. The next thing I know a little box appears with a photo of a pair of shoes I covet. Hmmm, I wonder if those are on sale. I click.

Pope Francis calls these commercial intrusions “opprobrium of savage capitalism.” Yikes. I’m ashamed. But still I click.

When I retired in 2011, I left behind a well-serviced computer and an outstanding modern invention, the Blackberry cell phone. On my own, I wasted time and money trying to replace these gadgets of convenience. Mourning the loss of IT department expertise, I succumbed to the sales pitches of Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile, gobbling up three different mobile phones within six months. The first one, an android, made sparkling photos. It accidentally slipped through my fingers into Lincoln Park’s South Pond as I leaned over to click a photo of a turtle sunning on a rock. For my second cell phone I decided to forego the camera and try a much less costly flip phone. Alas, my thick Irish fingers couldn’t navigate the buttons. The well-trained manager at T-Mobile suggested an iPhone and showed me how easy it was to use, how cheap it would be on a monthly payment plan and how all the information stored in the cloud downloaded (or is it uploaded?) into the phone.

Acquiring a computer was simpler. I knew without an ever-ready IT department, I had to buy an Apple since it was the only brand with a store on Michigan Avenue, which I equate, rightly or wrongly, with quality. And it has a walk-in IT department.

After a prolonged learning curve, I have enough knowledge to use my gadgets for news, restaurant suggestions, bus schedules, appointment reminders and a depository for my writing, rants and raves. I maintain an online community of friends, enemies, strangers, relatives, and acquaintances, larger than I could ever handle offline.

Well, Reader, it’s time to brake for breakfast. But first I must read two articles that just extralarge popped up: “Is a ‘deep state’ subverting the presidency?” and “Bald Eagle Population Booming In Chicago.”

What Is My Work, You Ask?

1962. My work is to stop laughing like a nervous little girl and start smiling like an unflappable young lady in the coffee shop on the Asbury Park boardwalk. To turn away from the seagulls fighting over dead fish on the beach and write “pancakes” and “bacon” on my notepad. To pay attention to the old telling the story of the 1934 wreck of the cruise ship SS Morro Castle on the beach. To save money for tickets to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at the Asbury Park Convention Hall.

1967. My work is to read Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care and apply its commandments to week-old smiles, cries in the night, a nine-month old sprinter and a child who eats only chicken. My work is to stand my ground in the whirlwind advice from mothers, aunts and grandmothers. To learn to ride a baby on the back of my bicycle. To animate words as I point to clouds, trees and cars as if I’ve never seen these things before in my life.

1976. My work is to bypass the door to the secluded basement with its graveyard of empty vodka bottles. To surrender to my new single-motherness. To trust my untrustworthy father and move from a sandy Jersey Shore cottage to a downtown Chicago highrise. My work is to know this is the best plan for a nine-year-old boy’s future happiness.

1982. My work is to dress up in business clothes, act smarter than I am, eavesdrop on everyone’s conversations in a boiler room full of political operatives, ask stupid questions and digest enough information to schedule Nancy Stevenson in places that help win votes for her husband’s campaign for governor.

1990. My work is to be a motherless child. To lament the loss of my uterus and ovaries, and, my boyfriend. To escape to Paris and London with my twelve-year old niece. To atone for all my past sins.To feign self-confidence while running the Illinois Democratic Party.

1993. My work is to take Prozac on the way to Washington to join the management class of the Clinton Administration. To imagine I have power and to hide humiliation when I’m exposed. My work is to honor the ruling class. To recognize they are human. To protect myself from evil-doers and self-promoters. My work is to mourn the loss of naiveté.

2006. My work is to shield myself and others from Cook County Government officials who believe if you are happy at your job you’re not working hard enough. To cherish those I lead for what they are today and not for what they will be tomorrow. To protect them from those who refuse to know their names.

2017. My work is to record how far my shadow falls behind me. To tell the truth about myself and trust God with where the words go and what they do when they get there. My work is to proclaim the US Constitution guarantees me the freedom to assemble publicly and express myself openly without retribution. My work is to say I love America and when the saints go marching in, oh! how I want to be in that number.

Inspired by “An Address to My Fellow Faculty,” by A. Papatya Bucak, from brevitymag.com

The Incorrigible Scottish Terrier

Ozzy compulsively reads the d-mail of those who have preceded him along the sidewalk by sniffing low-lying boxwood, wrought iron fences and hardy city trees. Some would think this slow walk an aggravating willfulness and train the beast to move on. Not me. I appreciate the instincts and habits of this tamed wild animal who yanks me from one spot to the other, forward and backward, reminding me of his constant presence.

High-rise apartment buildings bookend each corner in Ozzy’s block of early 20th Century townhouses. At one corner, Gary the doorman entertains his Thompson Hotel guests by pop-flying Milk Bone dog treats for Ozzy to snatch in midair. Their RBI reaches 80% most days. Rounding the corner on Oak Street, Ozzy sniffs out bowls of treats laid down by strangers at the shops I think of as clothing museums – Dolce and Gabbana, Tom Ford, and Carolina Herrara.

The Scottish Terrier is notoriously independent. My twice-a-day walk with 20-pound Ozzy has wrenched my left shoulder to the point where I have had my entire shoulder joint replaced. One remedy for outwitting the domineering dog is to attach the leash to a loose chain collar and when he pulls, snap the leash so he’s startled by the scritching sound of the sliding chain. I tried this for a while.

One snowy evening last winter, I gathered my dog-walking storm gear – neon green caterpillar coat (easily seen in the dark), slip-proof gloves (for hanging onto the leash), cleated boots, Ozzy’s sweater, and dog boots to protect from the stinging salt. We trudged across Michigan Avenue to East Lake Shore Drive by the Drake Hotel. They continually shovel and salt a long stretch of pavement there. The wind blocked any possible noise from street traffic, and the snow muffled foot traffic. We marched down the street then back, across Michigan Avenue, into the dog entrance of our building, up the elevator and into the hallway of our apartment. I loosened and lowered my hood and looked down to find Ozzy’s iced-up chain collar melting on the carpet – but no Ozzy.

Pounding on the elevator door I screamed, “Is my dog in there?” I flew down three flights of stairs, out the dog entrance, and into the middle of the intersection where Michigan Avenue meets Lake Shore Drive. Ozzy’s black body would easily show in the white snow.

“Oh God! I know you’re punishing me for not picking up after him tonight but it’s too much to bear! Please.”

I screamed out to passersby as I crossed to the Drake where the doorman yelled, “Yes! Hurry! I saw him running toward the lake!”

Another, a dog-walker, “He went over there!”

And another, “I saw someone take him to 209!”

At 209 the unfamiliar doorman said, “I was hoping you’d come by, since I didn’t know how to find you.” He retrieved unrepentant Ozzy from the package room and I carried him the one block home. The following morning’s walk took us to Walgreen’s to purchase a proper dog collar.

On Winning: The Cubs and Cleveland

Susan Keegan and I hopped in her shiny new red Cadillac Crossover in Chicago and booked out of town to Ohio.

Our mission: canvass voters for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Ohio was a battleground state where we had friends to accommodate us for the five days leading up
to election day. Our canvassing territory was Ohio City, a quaint restored section of Cleveland. Thirty-eight hours before we left town the Chicago Cubs won the World Series against the Cleveland Indians. The final game had taken place in Cleveland, and conscious of the seriousness of our mission to win over Cleveland voters, we vowed to keep our Cubs hats at home. I even told someone I was from Toledo to curb anticipated antagonism.

We met old and new friends – Keith from Sonoma, Carol from Washington DC, Jamie from Oakland, Dennis from Virginia and even Vivienne who flew in from Ireland for the effort to nail the Trump coffin shut in a small patch of the American body politic.

News from my iPhone said Chicago’s parade for the Cubs win would be held the next day beginning at Wrigley Field, rolling down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue to Grant Park, right past my condo building. “Oh Noooo,” I groaned in the car, “I’m going to miss it.” “Do you want to go back?” Sox fan Susan asked half-jokingly. No, we were off to do God’s work. No turning back.

I texted my 19-year old grandson, C.J, and told him to go to my place to watch the parade. He’d already been planning to bring his brother, 10-year-old John into town from their suburban home to spend the night and get a good position on the parade route. “Thanks for letting us stay,” C.J. texted, “John borrowed your Cubs hat – I hope you don’t mind.”

By the time Susan and I arrived at Cathy and Marc Dann’s vintage Tudor outside Cleveland we were exhausted from talking the entire seven-hour drive about Hillary’s winning campaign. All the polls said she was going to win. The betting community said she was going to win. Astrologers said she was going to win. The last time the Cubs won the World Series, the incumbent party won. Since Hillary was the incumbent party’s candidate, we took that as one more sign we were about to have our first woman president. Women were prohibited from voting for twelve more years after the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908. Women had won the pennant in 2016. This election was our World Series.

From my third floor balcony, C.J. and John each took iPhotos and videos of the Chicago Cubs open air buses with the players, their families, friends, team managers, coaches and owners as they crept down Lake Shore Drive onto Michigan Avenue. Cubs first baseman and cancer-survivor Anthony Rizzo lifted the trophy above his head as fans shouted, “We Never Quit.”

Fourteen hours after the polls closed in Ohio, Susan and I drove home. We had no trophy, no win. But we vowed, like the Cubs, to never quit.

Vampire Portrait

The portrait represented my not-surprisingly-sad six-year-old self. People told me as far back as I can remember that I looked sad. Some would even ask why I looked so sad. How does a small child answer such a question?

The oil painting, a three-by-four foot gothic with a gilded oil-rubbed frame looked like an antique. I have a vague recollection of my mother taking my two sisters and I to the artist’s home in Washington, DC, where we had moved for a few years after World War II. We all sat for separate portraits. Mine was the only one the artist completed before my father ran out of money. The artist gave them all to my mother nonetheless and it was one more reason for me to feel superior to my two sisters – my portrait was the best.

I was painted from the waist up seated in a mahogany armchair. Dressed in black velvet with a rounded white lace collar, I held a doll similar to the one my father gave me when I had to stay home from school with the mumps. He bought her in the gift shop of the hotel where we lived when we were evicted from our home. The painting’s forest green background mimicked the dark green velvet of the doll’s coat.

Our family moved around the Midwest for many years before my mother left my father in 1960 – Terre Haute and Indianapolis, St. Louis and Clayton, Chicago and Lake Forest. Those childhood portraits made it through all the evictions, storages and moving vans until I finally got married and my mother gave me my portrait. I hauled it through my own two marriages, divorces and geography. Wherever I hung it, someone inevitably asked who was that sad little girl. I once wanted to rid myself of it when a friend said, “It’s your heirloom.” And so I brought it to a new home in Chicago, where I returned after a stint in Washington, DC during the Bill Clinton years.

My home of 15 years is the first condominium where I’ve had a storage locker. I don’t have a lot of storage items. I figure if you can’t wear it, sit on it, or hang it on the wall, there’s no point in keeping it. For a few years my sad childhood likeness laid in darkness in the basement next to some pictures of my grandchildren and a large suitcase.

Then one day, I needed the suitcase for a two-week trip to San Sebastian, Spain with my California friend Cappi Quigley. I thought I’d bring the portrait upstairs while retrieving the luggage. I couldn’t find the keys to the locker’s padlock so I asked Marcel the building engineer to meet me in the lobby with a bolt cutter. We descended to the basement where Marcel unlocked the steel door to Locker Room B. We located the locker assigned to my condo unit.

The padlock was gone and so were all the contents of the locker.

Regan Burke

Author "In That Number" from local booksellers or Amazon

Tag: Chicago