Straight Talk is Rare During Silly Season

This column was first published here on October 27, 2010.

Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

“Be a little skeptical about what you see and hear in the days and weeks to come. Remember, it’s Silly Season in politics.”
So stated 23rd Ward Alderman Mike Zalewski at a recent rally on Archer Avenue.

True, Alderman, true.

The negative campaign ads get more shrill by the day, as candidates attack their opponents. And judging by the radio and TV ads, you’d think that only hardened inmates from the Stateville pen are allowed to run for office.

• “He partied with his Mafia pals and blew your child’s only chance to go to college.”
• “He released criminals to your church social.”
• “He voted to send puppies to the gas chamber.”
• “She sponsored a bill to outlaw Girl Scout cookies.”
• “He stole candy from babies and wants to take away your grandma’s pension.”

OK, so I exaggerate. But not by much.

On the flip side, those same candidates, when talking about themselves, promise more than they can or will deliver: “On my first day in office, I’ll end corruption, cut taxes, increase services, balance the budget, find you a better job, tutor your children, wash your car, walk your dog, shine your shoes and whiten your teeth while you sleep. And the next day, I’ll send you a box of chocolates and a dozen roses.”

Sure.

Kind of reminds me of the fall of 2002, when gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich pledged to “put an end to business as usual.”

It got him elected. But in the end, voters were given the business. As usual.

One kind of politician I admire is the one who gives us the straight truth---which in politics is dangerous, because most voters seem to want candy-coated marshmallows.

My all-time favorite political straight talker is Winston Churchill, who in 1940, during Britain’s darkest days when people were desperate to hear even the slightest bit of good news, told his people: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.”

If that’s not honest, nothing is.

In the current crop of major candidates, the only one I see consistently giving us the straight truth is Governor Pat Quinn.

For example, everyone knows that a tax increase is needed to get our state government out of the financial mess it’s in---thanks partly to the economy and to the Blagojevich Administration. Any politician who says otherwise is a liar or a fool.

Much as I dislike any tax increases, I give Quinn a lot of credit for being honest enough to publicly state that a tax hike is needed---and to do so in an election year.

And if I see him at this Saturday’s Pumpkin Parade on Archer Avenue, I’ll shake his hand and say thanks. (Parade starts at 11:00 a.m. at Archer and Nordica.)

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And on Tuesday I will head to my local polling place, do my civic duty and curse the voting booths as usual.

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss the old voting booths from the 1970s and ‘80s.

Remember them? Each booth was big as a Buick and probably as heavy, but as least the curtain gave you a measure of privacy.

I get no sense of privacy with today’s plastic-and-cardboard voting booths or stations or whatever they call them. They are too much in the open, too close together, and are so flimsy they look like they’d blow away with just a modest gust of wind.

They look like a toy, a child’s version of a grown-up voting booth. I half expect to see the Fisher-Price logo on the side.

But the good news about Tuesday is that we’ll see an end to this season’s political attack ads. The bad news is that we’ll immediately start a new round with Chicago’s mayoral and aldermanic primary---not to mention the many suburban municipal races.

So hang in there, and try to take comfort from Will Rogers, who said “It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.”

See you next week….

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

Remembering June Cleaver

This column was first published here on October 20, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,

in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

I used to hate June Cleaver.

Years ago, when I was a young wife getting adjusted to married life and having those first-year squabbles that I think all newlyweds have, one of my common sarcastic retorts to my husband was, “Sorry, I’m not June Cleaver.”

Back then, I viewed the “Leave it to Beaver” mom as an impossible standard of womanly perfection (created by men, of course)—the human equivalent of a rigged carnival game of skill that looks easy enough, yet leaves you broke and feeling like an idiot after you try and try and fall short every time.

On a tree-lined avenue in the tranquil suburb of Mayfield, June Cleaver ran the perfect household. She wore stylish yet sensible outfits. She cooked a perfect roast, never burned the toast, and had the good manners of Emily Post.

Check out citymomchicago.blogspot.com, where I have a “June Cleaver” video link posted, as well as a link to the actual blueprint of the Cleaver home at 211 Pine Street.


June kept her husband content; and her sons were good-hearted boys who only got into trouble so minor that it easily be cleared up in 30 minutes each week---with everyone enjoying a wholesome chuckle just before the credits rolled and the screen faded to black.

She even wore pearls while cleaning the house!

Seriously, who among us could live up to that?

But as the years went by in my marriage---and the ‘80s became the 90s and then the new millennium, June Cleaver changed, even though “Leave it to Beaver” ended in 1963 after 234 episodes.

Or was it just me maturing as a wife and mom?

Reminds me of what Mark Twain once said:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

Over time, as I watched re-runs of the show, I started to look at June Cleaver differently. I looked past the pearls, the perfect dinners, the meticulous manners. And I saw that I was wrong in my assessment of Wally and the Beaver’s mom. June was not the 1950s version of a robotic Stepford Wife, as I once had believed.

Thanks largely to the acting skill of Barbara Billingsley, the character of June Cleaver was often more complex and substantial than I had seen in years past. She showed wisdom and compassion. In the context of life in the 1950s, she was assertive when she needed to be and showed restraint when it was prudent.

Over time, I grew to appreciate June Cleaver; and in a good way. She was a mom’s mom. She was always there and always got it right. She became a standard against which I measured myself---even though I knew I would always fall short. But so what? Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, right?

So when I read in the newspaper that Barbara Billingsley, 94, died last Saturday in her home in Santa Monica, I felt a deep pang of sadness. In a larger sense, I felt as if I lost a member of my family. She was always there, in the background, and I was happy she was there.

In real life, Barbara Billingsley’s children actually likened her to June Cleaver; and they meant it as high praise. Her son Glenn described her as “nurturing, classy and lovely” in real life as June Cleaver was on television.

So in honor of Barbara Billingsley, may every wife and/or mother reading this resolve to do one thing---just one thing---in the next seven days to re-connect with our husbands and/or our children. Even something as simple as an extra hug, kiss or I Love You.

See you next week…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.
Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

"Perfect" People Make Me Sick

This column was first published here on October 13, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

Newspapers love to report “human interest” stories on people with Lou Gehrig-like devotion to duty.

A paper in Rotterdam, New York told the tale of high school teacher and coach Rick Pepe, who retired after 37 years without once taking a sick day. When asked how he could never be sick for nearly four decades straight, Pepe gave credit to “the good genes and good work habits he inherited from his parents.”

Another paper in New York reported on the death of New York City garbage man Louis “Gags” Gagliotto, “an icon in the Department of Sanitation,” who worked on the back of a garbage truck from 1957 to his retirement in 2007. Not once in those 50 years did he take a sick day.

Then there was the story about Chester Reed, 95, the oldest employee of the U.S. Postal Service, who retired last July after 37 years at the USPS Processing and Distribution Center in San Bernardino, California. When asked if he ever worked sick in 37 years, Reed said "Nope, I'm pretty healthy. I eat onion sandwiches. It's very simple: You take two slices of bread, you put a lot of mayonnaise on either slice; then you cut a great big slice of onion and put it in between. The vinegar in the mayonnaise will kill the heat in the onion; and then you'll have a delicious sandwich, which is very healthy."

With all due respect to the homeopathic qualities of onions, I think Mr. Reed’s explanation is more a baloney sandwich than anything.

To be blunt, people who never, ever call in sick make me sick. Sometimes literally.

Because with the truly rare exception of perfect physical specimens who are never actually ill, people who never call in sick sometimes come to work sick. And they often spread germs and disease to me.

My husband shares my view. He typically refers to “perfect attendance” awards as the I Infected Others Prize.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that a lot of people who don’t call in sick when they should, do so because they don’t have paid sick days. No work, no pay---a terrible thing in this down economy, where folks are scrapping for every nickel.

And devotion to duty is a great quality, of course. But what worker-bee types never seem to remember is that their duty to keep the hive humming includes not spreading germs that makes other bees sick.

Because even if you think you’re tough enough to handle a case of influenza, others are not. There are literally millions of people in the Chicago area with fragile immune systems. Babies and pregnant women are at increased risk for serious complications related to the flu. So are people with asthma, diabetes, and HIV infection---as well as folks receiving treatment for cancer.

For them and for most people, the flu knocks you on your backside. It comes on like a Mack Truck and leaves you feeling like road kill.

I had the flu several years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. One moment I was up and about, feeling fine. It seemed like only an hour later I was on my back, wrapped up in blankets, battling a chill I had never known before, and being attacked from the inside out. The virus was attacking my joints like a prize fighter hitting a bag in the gym.

I hadn't known such pain with an illness. My husband wrapped me in five blankets and I couldn't stop shaking. The fever raged on. I just wanted it all to stop.

What got me most is that I am certain I got infected by a co-worker one cubicle over, who hacked and coughed on several of us for a week and refused to stay home.

So this fall, do yourself and others around you a favor. Get a flu shot; and a pneumonia vaccination, if you’ve never received one. See your doctor, go to your local pharmacy or call your local health department. This year, shots are more available than ever.

You don't need to be Lou Gehrig, or even "Gags" Gagliotto. Just "think prevention" and think of the other guy.

Stay healthy, and see you next week…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

Fun With Fakery

This column was first published here on October 6, 2010.

Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,

in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

You probably read in the news about the man who on the evening of Thursday, September 9, walked into the CTA bus barn near 103rd and Stony Island and so successfully impersonated a driver that he made off with a bus---and actually picked up and dropped off passengers on the South Side, even returning his bus before he was found out and fled.

Incredible.

I wonder if the driver was inspired by the antics of Vincent Richardson, the 14-year-old Police Explorer cadet who in 2009 used a Chicago Police badge, a uniform and a whole lot of gumption to walk into the Third District Police HQ at 71st and Cottage Grove and successfully talk his way into working a beat car for five hours before he was discovered.

Is this the start of a trend? Mostly qualified yet uncredentialed people doing jobs without permission and without want of a paycheck?

If so, I have a few suggestions.

** Faux Maid: a local woman dons an apron, convinces me she is a fully qualified housekeeper and cleans my house---and yes, she does windows. Cheerfully.

** Wanna-Be Taxi Driver: a local man pulls up to my curb in a spacious sedan and gives me rides here, there and everywhere to get errands done.


** Imitation Pet Care Specialist: he walks my dogs, picks up the poop, and even cleans out the cat’s litter box.

** Spurious Chef: she may not really be the classically-trained executive chef she claims to be, but she whips up a good meat-and-potatoes meal for my family.

** Pretend Painters: one day, a half-dozen 20-year-olds show up at my front door, insist they are college kids struggling to put themselves through school, and proceed to paint my walls, ceilings and outside trim. And then clean up after themselves.


** Rogue Road Crew: sure, they don’t really work for IDOT; but they have the equipment, materials, expertise and desire to show up at two o’clock in the morning and quickly fix the Harlem Avenue overpass and any other axle-busting local road projects that have been sitting half-finished for what seems like forever.

And my favorite, Ersatz Eccentric Millionaire Philanthropist: not quite a real millionaire, but he has plenty of dough and desire to pay all my bills. Hey, I’ll play along!


Fun stuff…

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Moving from the fake to the factual: It seems like everyone has a cell phone these days, right?

Wrong, believe it or not.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 82 percent of American adults own a cell phone; yet among those of us age 65 and up, that figure falls to 57 percent.

Among the 43 percent of seniors who don’t have a cell phone, the reason is very often cost. It’s just not in the budget.

Yet a cell phone can be a valuable lifeline when you need an ambulance or police, and you can’t get to a landline phone.

Knowing that, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is collecting old cell phones for seniors in need. (Even without a wireless service plan, donated cell phones are reusable because any working mobile phone call dial a 911 call center---which is a federal requirement.)

If you have an used cell phone that you’d like to donate, go online to cookcountysheriff.com and find the drop-off site nearest you (city or suburbs); or call Katie Walsh at the Sheriff’s senior services office at 773-869-7878.

Tell her the City Mom sent you.

What’s junk to you may wind up saving another person’s life.

Have a great week…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.

Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com