I am sitting at a dining room table in a “vintage” house in suburban Chicago. It is not a big house but it is sturdy and tidy and has a huge elm tree in the front yard. It represents the middle of middle class living in the middle of Middle America. We may have a [...]
I haven’t caught much of the convention. Ted Kennedy was inspiring. Hillary’s speech sounded good on paper, but I haven’t seen the video. I did catch her calling for Obama’s nomination to happen by acclamation, which was a pretty effective piece of political theater, I thought. Bill was pretty great. Biden’s sounding good — “This [...]
Can you list all of your school mascots? My high school and my undergraduate are the same and relatively common but I’ve had some winners along the way. I’ve been a Viking, a Toro, a 49er, and even (shudder) a Trojan. My most recent school has no mascot whatsoever. This was crazy to me. Sure, [...]
It’s nice to take a road trip every once in a while. You see things you don’t normally see.
We drove north on I-5 all day Friday. If you think there’s a whole lot of nothing along the highways in your state, you should try driving eight hours up I-5 in California.
Finally, as night fell, we [...]
There are no ‘abandoned’ houses in South Central. If a house or building is left unoccupied long enough someone will eventually make unofficial use of the structure. HUD foreclosed houses are no exception even though HUD officers visit them a couple of times each week looking for evidence of occupation. [...]