June Gratitude Challenge

 

OK, I don't recall where I initially found this, but I first took this challenge in November 2014 and I think now is the right time to revisit it.

I begin tomorrow. Let's see how I do. 

 

Sunday Stealing

Stealing The Friday Fill-in

1. A broken heart is not the end of the world. You're more resilient than you know. You'll heal.

2. Coca Cola tastes so good!

3. Sometimes, putting others first is the best way to get out of your own head, out of your own way. I find I feel better about life when I do good.

4. Lake Michigan is breathtaking, really. They call it a Great Lake for a reason. When I look at it, I'm like the Grinch and my tiny heart grows 3 sizes.

5. Well, maybe there is something to be said for hydration. I have been drinking less water than I should and I notice I've been feeling a little ooky.

6.  This week, my plans include a late lunch on Tuesday with a former coworker.

 

I am a woman of many talents ...

Unfortunately, tech is not one of them. Nor am I what anyone would call "handy around the house."

My sad saga began when this behemoth died. I got this Sylvania TV shortly before 9/11.* It was a fine set for its day, but its day is long past. I moved it from the living room to my bedroom five years ago, when Xfinity's system requirements demanded I upgrade. 

The Sylvania was fine. But it was 25 years old. The picture quality wasn't very crisp. I could no longer turn it on/off with the button on the front because the button disappeared into the set. Really. I pressed the poor brittle dot one time too many and the set swallowed it up, so I needed two remotes to operate it: one to turn it on/off and another to change the channels. It's also huge, measuring nearly 20" in depth and taking up the entire TV stand. It weighs 50 lbs. 

Last Friday morning, it just died. Soundlessly – with no snap, crackle or pop – it just went black. It served me well, but it was over.

I had a plan: Buy a new, (slightly) bigger TV for the living room and move the living room set into the bedroom. The new set I settled on has a 32" screen, costs less than $100, and weighs just 16 lbs. This will never fail to amaze me. I grew up in a world where TVs were furniture. 

This undoubtedly uncomplicated scheme took me more than two hours to execute. The first hour was me on my own, and some of it was spent on trying to find my Phillips head screwdriver. (You couldn't just have a little stand that snaps into place, could you?) 

The second hour was spent with the very patient Amanda of Xfinity. She took me step-by-step through getting my new smart TV to talk to my cable box. That call, while fruitful, got off to a rough start with me yelling "rep-re-sent-a-tive!" over and over, trying to get past the automated system.

I suspect this all would have taken my nephew 20 minutes.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the Sylvania TV, which is sitting like a 50-lb. brick of concrete in the middle of my bedroom floor. This may inspire me to get it together and designate more refuse for the junk man to haul away. 

I suppose I could ask for help. But I want to figure these things out by myself, even though these situations do not play to my strengths. 

*It's funny that I remember the set I watched during those dark days after the attack, but I do. 

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Mystical Magical (2025)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

 

Do you think Benson Boone and Timothee Chalamat look alike? Or have I just become one of those old ladies who thinks everyone 30 and under looks alike? 

T. C.

B. B.

1) This week's song is about a new love affair, and Benson Boone bounces between frustration and optimism when he thinks about it. Does anything inspire your mixed emotions these days? My new TV. I will be happy to have a bigger, better picture, but I am dreading the setting up. I am not tech savvy, so I know that will be a struggle.

2) The lyrics mention "moonbeam ice cream," which is something Benson just made up. Last summer, when this week's song became popular, ice cream shops were inspired to create flavors with that name. What's your favorite ice cream flavor, and will you take that in a cup or cone? Mint chocolate chip in a cup, please.

 

3) He sings that "once you know" about a love like this, "you know." Tell us about something you had to experience to fully understand. Romantic love. I've found that it was a little different each time.

 

4) He composed this song at the piano. Do you play piano? No.

5) He first sang in public at a high school talent show, which he only entered on a dare. Can you recall any dares from your junior high or high school days? Oh, yes! When I was in high school, I jumped into a friend's pool as part of a slumber party game of Truth or Dare. It was pre-dawn and late September. Her family hadn't drained the pool yet but had stopped all maintenance. It was very cold and really filthy. I still remember seeing leaves and plants before my eyes as I rose to the surface. By the time I got home, my pajamas were dry and I just threw them in my family clothes hamper. When my mom did laundry a couple days later, she was furious with me because my pajamas were streaked in green and she couldn't get the stains out. "What did you do?" I got an earful about how dangerous it was to swim in dirty water in the dark, how wasteful I was to ruin my perfectly good pajamas, how dumb I was to take a dare ...

6) Benson was a good high school athlete and competed in diving at the state level. Can you execute a dive off the diving board? I could once. I haven't tried in decades. I am still a pretty good swimmer, though

7) When he was 18, Boone auditioned for American Idol. What were you up to when you were 18? Saving as much money as possible. I had a chance to go to Europe if I could afford it, and I wanted to move out and into my own apartment desperately. Consequently I lived like I'd taken a vow of poverty. 

  

8) Benson has a dog named Max. He's not alone in this. "Max" is one of the most popular pet names in the US today. Have you ever known anyone (furry or otherwise) named Max? Only my friend Barb's dog. He was a feisty little terrier.

 

9) Random question: If we knocked on your door on one of your lazy, stay-at-home days, what would we likely find you wearing? T-shirt and jeans. Always.

 

 

Thursday Thirteen #464

 

 

 

Greetings from the dark side. I love Chicagoland. I'm its biggest cheerleader. We have a Great Lake, four seasons, the Cubs, reliable public transportation, broad front lawns, world class theater, museums and restaurants ... I don't know why anyone lives anywhere else.

 

But when things around here get dark, they go inky black. Here are 13 times the Chicagoland area garnered national attention for something other than Michael Jordan. 

 

1. H. H. Holmes. (1890s) America's first serial killer targeted women during Chicago World's Fair in 1893. He was the subject of the best-selling book Devil in the White City. I started to read that book but got too scared.

 

2. The Black Sox Scandal (1919).  Members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. They were paid by bookies to let the Cincinnati Reds win. A national loss of innocence and baseball's original sin. Players can come back from a lot – including alcohol, drugs and domestic violence – but not gambling. The stain is so great that when my grandfather came over from Germany and landed in Chicago more than a decade later, he became our family's first Cubs fan. As Cub fans we've watched as much bad baseball as good, but we've all always trusted that the games were honest. 

 

3. Leopold and Loeb. (1924) Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were two University of Chicago students who killed a 14-year-old boy just to prove they could. They believed they were so brilliant that a) they were entitled to do it and b) they could get away with it. While they were certainly depraved, they were not criminal masterminds. It took the Chicago Police less than 10 days to solve the crime, even with 1920s-era forensics. Legal genius Clarence Darrow famously saved them from the gallows. This case has inspired everyone from Alfred Hitchcock (Rope) to TV's Columbo to Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling (Murder by Numbers).

 

4. St. Valentine's Day Massacre. (1929) Seven mobsters were lined up in front of a garage wall and executed by rival gangsters, masquerading as Chicago cops. Now here is where Al Capone differs from Leopold and Loeb (see above). Though it's universally understood that Capone was responsible, no one – not even any low-level members of his gang – went to trial for the murders. They not only left no witnesses, there was no physical evidence to tie the crime back to Al (who was vacationing in Florida at the time). 

 

5. John Dillinger. (1934) John Dillinger became a national folk hero for robbing banks and eluding law enforcement. The FBI gunned him down in front of The Biograph Theater, burnishing J. Edgar Hoover's legend. (Though I find it more than a little disturbing that agents engaged him in a shootout on a city street.)

 

6. Richard Speck. (1966) Oh! The nightmares little me had about Richard Speck! He broke into a dormitory and killed 8 of the 9 student nurses living there. He used a gun to force them into a bedroom where bound and gagged them, taking them one by one to another room to strangle or stab them. He unwittingly left a witness. He was so high he lost track of how many he held captive and how many he killed. Corazon Amurao slid under the bed and stayed perfectly still and silent for hours. I didn't have to look up her name, since I'll never forget her. When morning came, she wriggled out from under the bed and screamed out the window until help arrived. She described Speck in detail to police, including his "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo. During the citywide manhunt, he attempted suicide and she was taken to the hospital to identify him, and that tattoo. She faced him again in court. A new immigrant from the Philippines, she endured terror I can't imagine and behaved courageously, impeccably, to bring him to justice. I know she went back home, where she became a nurse, a wife, and a local politician. I pray she found peace.

 

7. The Democratic National Convention. (1968) This is when the phrase "Daley Cop" was born. Mayor Richard J. Daley (aka "Da Mare" or "King Richard I") was completely freaked out by the notion of protesters disrupting the Convention. So what did he do? Deployed literally tens of thousands of cops and National Guardsmen. Anti-war protesters were roughed up. McCarthy delegates were roughed up. Even CBS correspondent Dan Rather was roughed up. Now I don't mean to imply that the all the protesters were "angels" – that was the phrase: "it's not like they were angels." A lot of what they did was really gross (I remember there was proud public peeing). But what the country saw on TV was police brutality, and it did happen. Way too often. The DNC didn't hold another convention here until 1996. 

 

8. John Wayne Gacy. (1970s) John Wayne Gacy was a contractor who killed at least 33 people. Twenty-nine of his victims were found decomposing in the crawlspace under his home. (Hence the local joke: How's the weather at Gacy's house? 29 below.) Gacy lured young men and some boys still in their teens to his home with whatever it took. Some were promised booze or drugs, others money in exchange for sex, some thought they interviewing for summer construction jobs. Then he raped and killed them. In real time, this case sensitized me to LGBTQ issues. Gacy was able to carry on like this for years because some of the boys were gay runaways disowned by parents who never reported them as missing. Some bodies were identified but never claimed. That's how appalling parents can be when it comes to a child's sexuality. Better dead than gay. Yes, Gacy is the one who killed them and he was a monster. But these parents! How very Christian to deny your child a Christian burial. 

 

9. Patty Columbo. (1976) Patty was a pretty 19-year-old with feathered Farrah hair who seduced an older man and got him to help her kill her parents and her 13-year-old brother so she could inherit all the money. Because she appeared so normal, and the crime took place in a lily white village where brutality just doesn't happen, the nation was riveted. Patty and I are approximately the same age, and my family had a connection to the case – my mother's high school classmate was her public defender. My mom had some very juicy gossip about it that I shant repeat here but Patty was not a nice girl, nor was she especially sorry when not in front of the jury. She is still serving her 200 year sentence. I don't believe in the death penalty, but I'm fine with her staying exactly where she is.

 

10. Helen Brach. (1977) The Brach fortune was built on candy corn, and Helen inherited a ton from her late husband, Frank Brach. When she was in her 60s, she went to The Mayo Clinic for her annual check up but never returned to her mansion. She never got on a plane. She didn't rent a car or take the train. She just POOF! Vanished. No body has ever been found. She had been seduced – sexually and financially – by an unsavory man who got her to invest heavily in race horses that weren't worth anything. After she dumped him, she was never seen again. It's presumed that he disposed of her before she could file charges, but this has never been proven. He did serve time for defrauding her, but no body has been found and no one has been held responsible for her murder. Law & Order corrected that, though. Jack McCoy get a conviction in an episode that tracked very closely with Helen's case. 

 

11. Tylenol. (1982) Every time you wrestle to open your OTC meds, think of Chicago. Somebody tampered with Tylenol capsules and put the bottles back on store shelves throughout the area. Seven people – including a little girl – died of cyanide poisoning. No motive was ever established, no one ever went to trial for these unsolved murders. But you feel the effect of it today. First of all, there are fewer powder-filled capsules and more solid tablets on store shelves. Then there's the packaging. Now boxes are sealed shut and foil has been added to the mouth of each bottle so it's evident if it's been tampered with.

 

12. Jon Burge. (1980s-1990s) A very bad cop. This police commander participated in or approved the torture of suspects that resulted in over 100 false confessions. Men in his custody were beaten, burned with cigarettes and shocked with a cattle prod. I have a personal connection to this case, too. My dear friend John served on a jury that sentenced a man to death for murdering four people one night in 1984. John was raised Catholic and imposing the death sentence weighed heavily on his conscience. Still, he reasoned, the law is the law and the defendant had confessed! Well, guess what: That confession came after hours of torture at the hands of Burge himself, who applied electric shocks to the balls. (Yes, you read that right.) Fortunately Burge was brought to justice and the ten (10!) men put on Death Row by Burge were pardoned. But that trial, and his role in it, really messed with my friend John. Imagine walking around knowing you could have helped put an innocent man to death. John was a victim of Burge's, too. There's such a ripple effect to these stories. PS The phrase "Daley Cop" resurfaced when Burge's bad deeds were revealed in the 1990s, for Richard M. Daley, aka King Richard II, was Mayor at the time.

 

13. Heather Mack. (2014) A teenage girl doesn’t want to wait to control her $1 million trust fund. So she brings her boyfriend, Tommy, along on a vacation with her widowed mother. Destination: Bali. Explanations for what happened next differ, but this is indisputable – Mom's bloody body was stuffed into a suitcase and left in Balinese taxi as Heather and Tommy tried to return to Chicago. The body was discovered before they could board their flight. To make matters juicier, Heather announces she's pregnant. Tommy thinks he's being a stand-up guy by saying he acted alone but no one believes him. Both were tried and sentenced to an Indonesian prison, where Heather's baby was born. This story is ongoing, and if you're interested, just plug her name into the Google Machine or ask the AI of your choice. I'm just so sick of Heather!

How about your town? Do you have a hall of shame?

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

 

A much-appreciated shout out

 

My right foot has been killing me. Since February. It's Achilles tendonitis. My recovery has been steady but slow – chiropractic adjustments, massage, laser treatments. I'm trying to avoid anything more drastic (like cortisone treatments). I shared this with my yoga instructor, Rachel, and she gave me a new move ("nerve flossing") to add to my morning stretches.

During yesterday's yoga class, Rachel was discussing how yoga can help forestall or even avoid surgery altogether. She told us about her brother-in-law, who seems to view elective procedures as a quick way to relief but she wished he would try movement instead.

"Of course, to move through the pain you have to be a warrior. Like The Gal over there."

I'm a warrior! I like that.

  

 

Illustration by Muhammad Afandi on Unspl

I'm sorry I looked

I went to the dentist yesterday. It was a quick, painless appointment. X-rays, a cleaning, a baggie filled with free toothpaste and mouthwash, and I was on my way. This may seem run-of-the-mill to you but it was a cause for celebration for me. I haven't had a dental appointment this uneventful since 2019.

I've had teeth pulled ... gum surgeries ... root canals ... implants ... veneers ... That's countless hours in the chair.

And $22,506.25. That doesn't include meds.

Now I have had good dental insurance – both through my employer and now on my own. (But dental is not included in Medicare.) And it still came to $22,506.25.

When I worked I had paid time off. If I didn't have good insurance, if I didn't have sick days, I couldn't have afforded to do what it's taken to get my oral health in order. While I'd be lying if I didn't admit some of this dental work was handled the way it was because I wanted a nice, white smile, it's also true that oral health is important to one's overall health. Diabetes, heart disease and sepsis have all been linked to untreated dental issues.

Well, my dental issues have certainly been treated. To the tune of $22,506.25. (Or $3,215.15 a year every year for 7 seven years.*) I hope that the hardest work is over and, from here on out, all my dental appointments will be quick, painless and uneventful.

  

*If I'd invested that every year in a HYSA earning 2.5%, I'd have an extra $35,000. Like I say, I'm sorry I looked.

Photo by Quang Tri NGUYEN on Unsplash 

WWW.WEDNESDAY

 

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? And Never Let Her Go by Ann Rule. My library's algorithm says I'll like this book, and it's right. But I didn't have to check it out, I already have it. I read in 2001.

 

Ann Marie Fahey had a good job, working for the governor. She had a wide circle of friends. Finally she had a boyfriend she wanted to settle down with. And then she disappeared. It was when the police started looking for her that her secret life came to light: she'd been having an affair with a powerful older man.

 

This book reminds me of vacations. I was in a hotel room in the spring of 2001, moving kind of slow one morning, on a spa getaway, when I saw Mark Harmon on Regis and Kelly. He was promoting the made-for-TV movie based on this book, in which he played the powerful older man. I didn't see the movie but I remembered the title. Months later, in Key West, I was reading the book while sipping a boozy drink onboard Captain Runaground, a completely unseaworthy boat permanently docked and converted to a restaurant. I was alone because my friend Henry had to work that day and besides, he never understood my affinity for this dive. 

 

2. What did you recently finish reading? Nothing but the Night by Greg King and Penny Wilson. 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, were Jewish, gay, and intellectual. They were also very twisted and in 1924, they kidnapped and killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks just for fun. They wanted to toy with authorities and see if they could pull off "the perfect crime." They could not. They got caught in no time (little more than a week), and that was with crude 1920s-era forensics. Their wealthy parents hired no less than Clarence Darrow to save them from the death penalty in the first "trial of the century."

 

This book did a very good job of invoking Jazz Age Chicago. WWI had been an earthquake. The old rules suddenly didn't apply, and society was in tumult. Before I picked up this book, I didn't realize that the Leopold, Loeb and Frank families lived within three blocks of one another. This made it easy for the press to put the Kenwood neighborhood under siege. I was also surprised by the condensed time frame. Poor Bobby was murdered in May, and Leopold and Loeb were sentenced in September (4 months). Justice moved faster in 100 years ago. For example, in the next "trial of the century," Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were found dead in June 1994, and OJ Simpson was acquitted in October 1995 (16 months).

 

Still, I didn't love this book, and not just because Leopold and Loeb were odious. The authors made some rather sensational claims and didn't back them up. It felt as though they were just saying shit to make their book stand out among the true crime tomes. Too bad. This case gets under my skin because the murder was so pointless. I want to learn why it happened, not to hear baseless conjecture. 

3. What will you read next? I don't know.

 

  

 

Still in his caterpillar phase

Spent some time with my nephew this weekend. So much has been going on with him and it was good for me to get some clarity. I'm worried about him, because worry is my comfort zone. But I think what he's going through needs to happen. He's got to experience all this to come through on the other side.

His career is not working out as he'd hoped. In April, a competing baseball website approached him and he took an interview. He was flattered and he was considering it. Then the unexpected happened: his current boss let him go. He didn't realize how much he loved his job until he lost it.

Fortunately, the competitive baseball website snapped him up. But here's the thing: they assign him articles. At the job he loved, he wrote any baseball story he wished, as long as it was ready post on deadline. He's not crazy about the restrictions but you know what? That's what being a writer for hire is all about. It's time he learned that. (News flash: I didn't choose to write a post explaining the difference between a transmission flush and a transmission fluid exchange. It was an assignment and I got paid. That's how it works.) 

Also, neither his old job nor his new one actually employed him. No insurance. No 401k. No paid time off. He's in his mid-20s now and still in his childhood bedroom. He jokes that his car is older than he is, and it is. 

He's in love with Bobbie. I met her, and she's lovely. But she's a little older and divorced. I can tell that he's seeing his life through her eyes and now it looks different. 

So he's revisiting an old ambition: to become a teacher. With his degree in political science, he thinks he'd be good at American history.* I think with his chill demeanor, he'd be good with younger kids.

He's still in the exploration phase. It's going to be hard for him to pull the trigger and actually make the career switch. His original baseball writing job made him so happy. But even when the going was good, it didn't pay well, and the economic realities of independent media mean even more belt tightening on the part of employers.

I asked Bobbie what attracted her to him. She said his "authenticity." I can see her influence in this. He was once sincerely attracted to teaching. It's more stable and financially rewarding than baseball writing and it appeals to him more than general-assignment journalism (as opposed to writing exclusively about baseball).

I love him and am sorry he's hit this bump in the road. On the other hand, I love him and want him to transition through this so he can embark on the next phase of his life and career.

 

*Are you still reading, Kwiz? What do you think?

Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash
 

Sunday Stealing

Memorial Day Questions

1) What freedom are you most grateful for? I'm a fan of The First Amendment, even if the current occupant of The White House is not.

We'll miss you, Stephen Colbert

 

2) What book are you currently reading? Nothing But the Night, an examination of Leopold and Loeb and the murder of Bobby Franks (the first "trial of the century"). It's fascinating but so depressing.

3) What have you been listening to? The Beatles. 

4) What shows or movies have you been watching? I'm addicted to Issac Brown's YouTube channel. 

 

Saturday 9

 Saturday 9: Soldier (2016)

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

Memorial Day is a federal holiday that honors men and women who served and died in the United States Armed Forces. We want to make sure that message is not lost this weekend.

1) Are you a veteran? Are there veterans in your family? Do you know anyone who is active military? We are grateful and want to hear about it. My dad was in the Marines during Korea. My favorite uncle was a foot soldier in Vietnam. My oldest nephew was in the Navy.  

2) This song is about the courage it takes for soldiers to march into battle. Gen. Patton said, "The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers." He was emphasizing that each individual's dedication is essential to the unit's success. Do you work well as part of a team? Or are you better on your own? I'm an independent soul, but I think one of my strengths is recognizing my weaknesses. That enhances my ability to acknowledge I can't do it all alone and helps me be a good team player.

 

3) As of 2025, California is the state with the most military bases. Have you ever visited or lived on a base? Nope.

 

4) At the turn of the of the 20th century, wristwatches were considered non-essential jewelry items, with pocket watches preferred for everyday timekeeping. During WWI, soldiers in the trenches needed to both synchronize actions across the battlefield and keep their hands on their weapons, so the wristwatch went from "fashion item" to "standard issue." Do you often wear a watch, or do you depend on your phone for the time? I wear a watch at work or if I'm en route to meet someone. The rest of the time I use my phone. Unless I'm at the keyboard. Then I refer to the display on the upper right side of my laptop.

 

5) Jeeps were originated by the US Army during WWII. Back then they were specifically for soldiers deployed to the European Theater, today there are more than 18 million Jeep-branded vehicles on the road all over the world. Have you ever driven a Jeep? Nope. My friend Barb only drove Jeeps, though, and she loved them.

 

6) While Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses are a timeless symbol of cool, they were designed during WWII for a specific purpose: to give American flyers relief from glare at high altitudes. Tell us about your sunglasses. My sunglasses are my prescription glasses. They transition and darken in sunlight. The frames are cat's eyes by Ralph Lauren.

7) Memorial Day kicks off the summer season. What's your favorite picnic food? Potato salad. 

8) This marks the weekend when Americans traditionally step up their outdoor activity and do things they may not have been able to do during the cold winter months. For example, when is the last time you worked in the garden or tended the lawn? 50 years ago. I'm not kidding. I haven't done yardwork since I left my parents' home.

9) As you answer these questions, is there an air conditioner or fan on? The fan was on earlier today, but it got chillier after the sun went down, so no. No a/c and no fan.

 

 

How cool it must be!

Last weekend, The Cute One – as Will Ferrell referred to Paul McCartney – was the final guest of the season on Saturday Night Live. During his monologue, Will listed some of Paul's most popular compositions and included "Coming Up," saying it was his personal favorite. During the show, Paul did the customary two songs that SNL guests do. Then, in a third number song performed over the credits, Will got to sing "Coming Up" alongside Paul and was so into it! It was a joy to watch. 

 

Then last night, Stephen Colbert got to interview one final guest on The Late Show. That honor went to Paul McCartney because, well of course it did. First of all, the show originated from The Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Beatles made history with their first appearance in 1964. Who better than Macca to turn out the lights? Paul is the likely the most recognized/respected musician in the world right now and this was an important moment in media and The First Amendment.* And his song, "Hello Goodbye" was perfect for the occasion. Stephen sang alongside him.

Watching these two performances I was acutely aware that Sir Paul is an artist who knows he's on his final lap. In a matter of weeks, he will be 84 years old. While I enjoy his newest song, "Days We Left Behind" is a poignant ballad sung by an old man with a reedy voice.

So right now I'm reminded how much he means to so many people. I've loved him so much for so long that I forget he's not just mine. Stephen Colbert wanted him for the biggest moment of his career. Will Ferrell just wanted to be around him. I recall the women, strangers, I sat with during this November 2025 concert here at the United Center. Their mother, with a walker, sat on the aisle seat. Then there were her two daughters, then me. Their mom – like Paul she was born in 1942 – has "given up" and they thought it might inspire her to see Paul, still vibrant and still performing, at 84.

There were 23,500 people at the United Center with us that night in November. It was just the last of 19 stops. Everyone who goes to see him now has their own personal reason for being there, and it felt important to each of us.

It must be enormously cool to have meant this much to this many people for so long. I hope he feels it.

*Though in a funny bit, Paul is seen as pinch-hitting for the only guest who could possibly top him, Pope Leo.

Thursday Thirteen #463

 The "I blame J. Edgar Hoover" Edition. According to Goodreads, I am not quite on track to complete 38 books this year. This is in large part due to G-Man, the 900 page biography of J. Edgar Hoover. It took me nearly two months to plow through that 896 page book.

I realize I'm making myself feel bad for not meeting a completely voluntary and ultimately meaningless metric I set for myself, but hey, that's how I roll.

So it's taken me to mid-May, but here are the first 13 books I've read this year. 

1. The Family Holiday by Elizabeth Noble. Fiction

2. Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica. Thriller

 

3. G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage. Biography

 

4. Nobody Heard a Thing by Angela Henry. Thriller

 

5. Silver Spire by Robert Goldsborough. Mystery

 

6. The Last Coincidence by Robert Goldsborough. Mystery

 

7. Kids, Wait Til You Hear This by Liza Minnelli. Autobiography

 

8. Twilight of Camelot: The Short Life and Long Legacy of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy by Steven Levingston. Non-fiction

 

9. The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz. Mystery

 

10. Suitable for Framing by Edna Buchanan. Mystery

 

11. Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell by MC Beaton. Mystery

 

12. A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures by Ben Bradlee. Autobiography

 

13. Conversations with Kennedy by Ben Bradlee. Memoir

How about you? Have you set any reading goals for 2026? If yes, are you on your way to meeting them?

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Nothing but the Night by Greg King and Penny Wilson. Leopold and Loeb, two rich Chicago college students kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy, just to see if they could pull off "the perfect crime." Though it happened more than a century ago, this 1924 crime still comes up. My friend Nancy laughingly told me about how she heard Broadway composers Lerner and Loewe (Camelot, My Fair Lady) referred to as Leopold and Loeb by a confused coworker. When I saw Hitchcock's Rope at this year's TCM Film Festival, Professor Jacqueline Stewart introduced the film about a pair of thrill killers and couldn't resist adding that she, Leopold and Loeb all have ties to the University of Chicago.

 

So now I want to learn more about the truth behind the legend. This book, published in 2022, promises to give me a more nuanced look at the first murder to be dubbed "Crime of the Century." I know the original press coverage leaned heavily into the wealth, Jewishness and homosexuality of these two, obviously trying to "other" them. I hope this book examines whether that was a fair depiction.

 

One impression I have thus far is "too much, too soon." They both skipped grades and found themselves at U of C at age 14. They were not emotionally ready for the social and philosophical milieu they were thrust into. I'm not saying this explains what happened, but it didn't help.

 

2. What did you recently finish reading? Conversations with Kennedy by Ben Bradlee. The last two words of this book are "warm and kind." I'd say that about sums it up. Ben Bradlee and his wife became the couple that most often joined John and Jacqueline Kennedy for  dinner for four at the White House. The Bradlees also spent weekends with the Kennedys in Palm Beach, Virginia and Camp David. 

 

This gave them a view of the couple, and of life as First Couple, others didn't see. I enjoyed those glimpses. The President liked being teased by his wife, who called him "Bunny." He made bets but didn't honor them. He swore like the sailor he once was (saying "bastard" the way some of us say "shit"). He liked Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence records. It was the dawn of the space program and he loved hanging with the astronauts, just like any other red-blooded American boy. Except for sailing and the occasional game of golf, he was not at all outdoorsy and hated being dirty. His idea of "roughing it" was Bloody Marys on the veranda. Jackie, with her horseback riding, tennis and skiing was the jock of the duo. As I was reading, I found myself hoping that someone could give me a similar view of Abe and Mary Lincoln or Barack and Michelle Obama when they were at home and off the clock.  

 

My favorite part of the book was when the President insisted on including the Bradlees in an on-going argument he and Jackie were having. Apparently, in 1961, Jackie spent $40,000 on "department stores." That would be $400,000 in today's dollars. The President asked her to explain this, and she could not. She was embarrassed and baffled, but unable to make her own case. So her husband brought in Carmine Bellino, the FBI accountant who specialized in organized crime and money laundering, to help his wife budget. It's good to be king.

 

The couples were so close that immediately after the assassination, the Bradlees waited with Jackie at Bethesda Naval Hospital as the President's autopsy was being done. Yet by the time this book was published, Jacqueline Onassis no longer wanted anything to do with Ben Bradlee and cut him dead whenever their paths crossed. At first her behavior confused me, because this book is so affectionate and funny. But it's also very intimate. There's a lot about how they related to their young children and how they were with one another and family members. My guess is that it didn't bother Jackie that this memoir put them in a bad light, because it doesn't, but that as a private person she didn't want these anecdotes published at all. 

3. What will you read next?  Something light!