Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
Road Trip # 2
I made it to Columbus Ohio that first day. Altitude 743.9 feet Latitude 40.33 Longitude -88.43 I’m not going to say the rest of the day after Moraine View State Park wasn’t eventful. But I was after all driving on the Interstate. I wanted to stop at the Hen House in Mahomet for old time’s sake but didn’t. Hen Houses were the first chain restaurants we knew of...
Road Trip 2016 #1
January 11, 2016 2110 Caton Road, Ottawa, IL Latitude 41.37 Longitude -88.85 Elevation 608 feet I pulled out of the garage at exactly 7:00 a.m.. Everything was in the Buick. I had made a fresh thermos of espresso, put two sandwiches together, added them to a little cooler, and kissed my wife goodbye. I was off on a five-day solo drive to Florida. I headed for Route 80. Beside me...
What Did You Expect?
Every time I sit down to write a piece about the squalor now called a budget process in Illinois something happens in the news that changes the story. By the time I finish a piece it’s out of date. So let’s start with the past in Springfield, that sleepy Central Illinois town where the people we elect to govern our state strive to act in our best interests. Indulge me...
Baby in the Sun Remembered
If you are new to Dave in the Shack let me tell you how it came to be. I was the director of Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley, a social service agency that serves troubled, abused, neglected and otherwise needy kids and their families. It was hard work. I realized at one point that I had to communicate what my organization did, what we valued, and why we mattered...
Snickers
I was the only male nurse’s aide in the place. They assigned me most every day to the segregated men’s wing. I made their beds, helped them shower, took them to the basement dining hall, emptied their bedpans, persuaded them to sign over their Social Security checks, brought snacks to their room, did all the things nurse’s aides do. It was 1977. I was back from a trip to South...
Waddya know? Santa Showed Up.
I ran into Santa the other night at the YMCA. I rarely go to the Y at night. I do Yoga on Tuesday and Thursday morning, and try to get in the pool Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon like I used to when I was employed. That doesn’t always happen. When I went to the Y that night the place was jammed, parking lot overflowing, street parking mostly taken. ...
Be Calm
I just planted tulips. I spaded up a little bed for red tulips on the west side of the shack a while ago and waited so long I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d lost the planting window and wasted those bulbs. But there it was December 8 and just as it got dark I finished putting 30 oniony looking bulbs in the soft unfrozen dirt wearing nothing...
Seeing the World As It Is
Waking up one morning in 1975 I saw my roommate’s dog Casey, an Irish Setter, sitting against my bedroom wall. “Casey. Good morning. Come here girl.” I made that smooching kissing kind of sound we make to call dogs to us. She didn’t move. I was in the smallest bedroom of a country house I shared with two other guys. I was there temporarily. Well, we all were there temporarily...
An Escape into Food
Last weekend I wore myself out along with my family and many of my friends by preparing and serving a seven course dinner which was auctioned off this spring at YSB’s Blue Tie Event. The successful bidders opted to have the dinner for 12 in the upstairs dining hall of Reddick Mansion, an old Italianate Mansion in Ottawa on the town square. It’s the default dinner site, although we’ll prepare...
Farewell 2015 Cubs and Thank You
So much has been written about the Cubs, but now with the World Series over and the time changed, all the hype fades till February when pitchers and catchers report to spring training. The baseball news gets skinny in the regular press; confined to trades, acquisitions, and the business side of baseball. I took down the Tribune full page player photos and the W towel from the shack. I’ll miss...