On my last visit home to Florida, on convalescent leave from Walter Reed, limping and wounds still…
Chicago
51 Articles
There was always something wrong with my twin brother, some little kernel of not-right. Chess knew it….
As a child, I was a typical, overfed, pasty and underexercised american with a lower-case a, with…
I’m in a bad mood. I intended to write about music and death today, but the Chicago…
I went to bed last Thursday night a citizen of Chicago’s 46th Ward. I rose the next…
Mojada, Part IV
Reuniting with Dad
After staying with my grandparents for a month in Santa Ana California we flew to Chicago in April to be with our dad. We arrived at O’Hare airport and when we saw Dad, we were simply ecstatic. I thought. “We are finally here with dad.” It is not an easy transition for someone when they first move from one place to another. Imagine how you have felt when you have moved from one house to another or from living at home to living in a dorm. It’s strange. You are entering a complete new world, new culture, new customs, new everything. My dad had rented an apartment for us to live in. He used to live with my uncle and two other men in a different apartment, but when he found out we were coming he made arrangements so that we could have our own place. It was barely furnished and I remember we had to use buckets as chair whenever we ate and our dining table was also the center table in the living room. We definitely did not have much but through my dad’s hard work and support from my grandmother our almost empty apartment began to look like home. Then again I think that us being together was sufficient to call it home.
Dark clouds hang over White Sox Nation.
The final indignity of a season of disappointments will likely soon come, with the contract of stellar lefthander Mark Buehrle expiring today with the end of the 2011 season. With the Sox poised to go into rebuilding mode, it is doubtful the free agent pitcher is part of the team plans moving forward. And that is a shame.
Over the past 11 seasons, Buehrle has been hands-down my favorite player in baseball. For a fan who treats baseball like his religion, this off-season is going to hurt. Last night’s performance — 7 innings, no runs, no walks and pitching out of jams caused by two errors — was typical of the man who can barely hit 89 MPH on the radar gun, yet has consistently fooled the best hitters in baseball with his great control and ability to throw first-pitch strikes. A tater served up by reliever Jesse Crain was the only run allowed in a hollow 2-1 victory.
It was August 1998. I’d been living in my “garden”-level apartment on the Far North Side of…
I avoided an accident today. Maybe even a heart attack. At the very least, I managed to…
It was the Saturday before the mayoral election in the Windy City, and my wife and I were in Chicago running errands. Once a month we make our escape from the desolate cornfields and head to the Second City for shopping, groceries and dinner. Over the years we have started to buy organic, so we always hit Whole Foods Market on North Avenue before heading for home. When we arrived, the parking lot was so jammed packed that it seemed like they were giving away food.
I was already in a pissed-off mood.
I have to say, I am kinda disappointed. This was only the third largest single snowstorm in Chicago’s history. It’s hard to justify the hype.
(To the tune of John Cooper Clarke’s classic, “Evidently Chickentown.”
Warning: Foul Language Ahead.)
Yes, on to Chicaco.