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Recently, a friend I saw at the orthodontist's office told me her family is missing all kinds of teeth. "Me, too!" I practically shouted, excited to know someone else plagued by weird orthodontics. I promptly rattled off our list of teeth that never materialized. It's pretty common, I guess - hypodontia - even Michael Jordan never got his right incisor, but I was happy to connect with my first, and only, no-incisor friend. When I'm plodding through the mundane, feeling a...
These are times that try men’s souls. Someone said that before me, I’m sure. But we are all facing a monstrous challenge. We take different routes in making it through the day. One friend is turning to the grape, happy to drink any wine whose date starts with a 1 or 2. Here’s how I cope. I think of a 20-year-old Sudanese mother who buries her 4-year-old daughter who has died of starvation, weighing 19 pounds at death. I think of the Syrian families whose houses are burned down and who are given one hour to pack all their...
This past week has been a week of firsts - for me and so many others. Ainsley had her first experience with e-learning and Dan had his first experience as her teacher/dean/principal. The three of us participated in our first FaceTime live worship session Sunday. We were new users of Zoom for Ainsley's Sunday school class in the morning and an evening celebration my two neighbors (we all have March 18-22 birthdays). I watched as my mom had her inaugural experience with...
Maybe you were planning to spend spring break soaking in the rays on a Florida beach, touring the historical sites of a favorite European city or relaxing in a remote mountain cabin. Instead, you’re here, stuck in Hinsdale. For years, we’ve run an annual feature headlined “Stuck in Hinsdale for spring break,” in which we talk to those unfortunate souls who aren’t traveling somewhere exotic. This year, that’s all of us. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy spring break. You just have to be a little more creative. Here...
My dog is exhausted. It's one of the unexpected side effects of the "social distancing" we're all doing. Dogs are experiencing, as one Facebook post called it, unprecedented levels of People Being Home. And it's wearing Lizzy out. I feel somewhat exhausted by this COVID-19 situation, too. I've been trying to spend more time outdoors, get as much exercise as I can, keep things in perspective and get lost in a good escape novel (currently Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol"). I've...
Nancy Jean Martin, nee Bierdemann, 89, passed away Feb. 8, 2020. The funeral service scheduled for Saturday, March 28, at Hinsdale United Methodist Church, has been postponed and will be rescheduled. Her obituary ran in the March 12 issue and can be found online at https://www.thehinsdalean.com....
It’s day two of my quarantine back from school, and I, like many other college students, am already feeling the burden of social distancing. Still, from reading various news articles and keeping up with CDC regulations, I understand how important it is to stay away from others during this unprecedented time. However, today when I went for a run around Hinsdale (alone, may I add), I was disappointed to see Burns Field full of kids on the playground and people playing tennis. I am not here to argue that it’s unimportant to fin...
My husband and I have been huge fans of the "Great Courses" DVDs for years. Each of the hundreds of courses available typically includes 24 or 36 half-hour lessons taught by student-recommended professors. Our personal curriculum reveals a deep interest in science, linguistics and history, and our routine is to begin evening TV time by watching a class on the topic at hand. I've been very satisfied with most courses but was 95 percent dazed and confused with our latest,...
Last Wednesday a writer from Crain’s Chicago Business compared the coronavirus to Sept. 11. “Just as 9/11 changed us and how we live, this was the day it truly became clear that coronavirus will do the same here,” Greg Hinz wrote in his column, “On politics.” “Now another day that augurs to be at least as momentous as 9/11 has arrived. Today is the day COVID-19 truly came home to Chicago,” he added a few paragraphs later. We were offended by his decision to connect the spread of a virus to the murder of thousands of...
We are being inundated with 5G commercials and how great it will be for all of us. Lucky Hinsdale, we were even selected to be one of the first for the 5G rollout. So, why are there “Stop 5G” signs popping up all over town? Well, after doing a little research, maybe we should slow this 5G train down and make sure Hinsdale is not the first stop. When you take a closer look at the fine print of a 5G commercial, it reads “Future use of AI, not available for today.” AI stands for artificial intelligence. So, all this great t...
It has become the biggest news story for the last month. Every social media platform and news outlet has had its eyes trained on the latest information, constantly updating their systems, as it seems that more and more dire news has surfaced about the viral coronavirus. What started out as a normal strain of the flu has reached a global pandemic of more than 100,000 confirmed cases worldwide. Schools have been shut down in places like China, Japan and Italy. Travel plans have...
Sixteen years ago, seconds before the curtain rose on my first Community Revue, I received some great advice from our director. “Remember the moments,” he told me. I still have the list of memories I wrote after the 2004 show, “Hinsdale: The Reality Factor.” I have not been as diligent about recording the special moments from subsequent shows, but those three words from Dave Heilmann have stayed with me all these years. His advice reminds me of a piece I had read in the Trib a few years earlier. Michele Weldon wrote in the...
A teardown wave is once again causing consternation in the village of Hinsdale. A generation ago, it was the scourge of new McMansions dwarfing neighboring older homes and altering the community’s landscape. Today, in an era when reality programs show us how easily old can be made new, the hand-wringing is over the demolition of vintage homes. Twenty-four homes have been torn down in the Robbins Park neighborhood since that area was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The village board is poised to i...
Four months ago Stop 5G Hinsdale & Neighbors was formed. Since then, we have made significant progress, but much more remains to be done. We have had town hall educational presentations. We have diligently worked with our village board and staff, resulting in the hiring of a lobbyist and an engineer who will review each telecom application for its impact on our community. We have convinced Sen. Durbin to cosponsor a federal bill (S2012) and Rep. Mazzochi to sponsor a state bill (HB-4653) that will allow the return of local au...
The Open Meeting Act provides the public a statutory right to address public bodies. Per OMA, the rules for addressing a public body may only impose reasonable “time, place and manner” regulations that are necessary to further a significant governmental interest, such as maintaining decorum during the public meetings. Having watched the live telecast of the Dec. 12 D86 Board of Education meeting, it seemed pretty clear that the D86 BOE did not follow OMA when they stopped three community members from reading a letter that had...
If you have not yet seen “Hinsdolopy” at The Community House, then make time this weekend for some fun entertainment. I ended up smack in the front row because I was a late purchase on Saturday. The best part of being so close was that I had a new appreciation for all the costumes and set design. The crew literally made a Monopoly board come to life. Not only were they spot on to the actual game board, but they were extremely well done! After reading so many humble remarks about performing in the Stagebill, I could not hel...
Changing habits can be difficult, especially when it's a choice and not something that is forced upon you. When I first lived in Belgium more than 30 years ago, the grocery store provided single-use plastic bags, and I used them. But a combination of factors, including extensive government campaigns about the environmental impact of these bags that made me feel guilty and bag taxes that made me not want to pay for them, changed my habits. I assembled a favorite collection of...
We all have those songs that transport us back to a particular moment in time. Play Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" and I'm on the dance floor at the Hippodrome in London on one of the final days of a college short-term trip in January 1988. A few lines of "Some Enchanted Evening" and I'm back at James Hart Junior High School, watching the eighth-graders perform "South Pacific" and my closest friend's heartbreak (long story). And when Barack danced with Michelle...
“From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contribution went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built American was as vital as that of the men whose name we know so well.” — President Jimmy Carter With those words, our nation’s 39th president designated March 2-8, 1980, as National Women’s History W...
The human heart has many surprising angles. Some we can see and some we just have to feel. There are the angles of the stories told during February. Think about Valentine’s Day, the Hallmark Channel and Go Red for Women. There are the many angles that make up the anatomy of the heart. Ventricles, valves and veins all working together in vibrant harmony. Finally, there are the angles of love. Expansive when we are attracted to someone and gentle when we need forgiveness. The a...
Midwestern winters require more than just the recommended fur-trimmed puffy coat. Dressing in warm layers is helpful. But, sometimes it's simply not enough. I have learned over the last few years that it takes a certain amount of outrageous optimistic thinking to face a particularly cold and gray forecast. I used to think news reports of people wearing flip flops while Christmas shopping in the snow and nearly naked people running into Lake Michigan for the polar bear plunge...
Chocolate. Alcohol. Social media. Did you give up any of these for Lent? I've always found Lent to be an interesting time of deprivation bookended by indulgences (paczki on Fat Tuesday, baskets filled with chocolate bunnies on Easter Sunday). As a practicing Methodist (read non-Catholic), I found the 40-day period confusing. Why give something up just to overindulge again a month and a half later? I posed that question in a column years ago and received a rather condescending...
Leap Day! That quadrennial quirk of our time-marking system — rendering the shortest month a little less short and making winter seem a LOT longer — is upon us. But we shouldn’t complain about more days on the calendar. It’s a gift, really, these extra 24 hours that open wide the doors to experiences and activities that would be unthinkable in a normal 8,760-hour span. Activities like The Community Revue that hits The Community House stage tomorrow and Saturday, for example. How many times over the last few decades have yo...
I've discovered words of wisdom in unexpectedly places recently and thought I'd share. In response to my favorite closing question in an interview - "Anything else?" - Penn Jillette told Tim Ferris ("The Tim Ferris Show" #405) his goal is to stop using the words "us" and "them." "They say one of the worst things about Hitler was he turned his enemies into him," Jillette said. "The people that really, really dislike Trump, for very good reasons, have become so unkind and so ang...
Don’t state the obvious. We’ve all heard that advice before — and it’s especially relevant for those of us who work in journalism. And yet we’ve violated this rule countless times as we try — repeatedly — to convince Hinsdale residents that they should not leave their cars unlocked with the key fob inside. Just take a look at these headlines: “Best deterrent for car thieves: lock car doors.” That gem ran Aug. 9, 2018. Two weeks ago we ran a similar headline: “Police advise residents to lock cars, deter thieves.” Unfortuna...
