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As a long time resident of Hinsdale since 2001 and having two sons (including a current eighth-grader at Hinsdale Middle School) attend D181 public schools (Madison Elementary and HMS), I have a deep love and respect for one of the finest school districts in Illinois. D181 was the major reason why we moved to Hinsdale in 2001 from Chicago. Therefore, the April 2021 D181 Board of Education election will be crucial given the difficulties and unexpected challenges to education created by the COVID-19 pandemic. I wholeheartedly...
Christine Dannhausen-Brun is a highly-qualified candidate for the District 181 Board of Education. She is intelligent, well-read and a hardworking volunteer. For over 12 years, while her children attended Madison School, we collaborated together in a variety of ways. Christine is an involved parent in her children’s activities, with a wide variety of school endeavors and district initiatives. Her children are very active in Scouts, sports, music and dance, and she often offers her support. At Madison School, she could be foun...
On April 6 there is a vitally important election for the District 86 Board of Education and it is crucial that our community elects Jeff Waters and Peggy James. This upcoming BOE ballot features 10 candidates, which is a testament to the passion and concern of our community for the direction of D86. The seven member BOE has four open seats and it’s composition has never been more important. Three major issues in our district are: (1) the demand from parents to return students to full-time in-person learning, (2) the r...
Remember the old cliché about insanity - doing something over and over again, but expecting a different outcome? That's, frankly, kind of the way I've been behaving for the past year. Same stuff, different day, so to speak. To my distress, I've become accustomed to the monotony, my capacity for surprise dulled into complacency and cynicism. Nothing new happens. Notre Dame had an undefeated season, only to get crushed in their final game. Again. Someone with a name that...
Perhaps you’ve heard the famous Albert Camus quote: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” I appreciate Camus’ message of resilience. Really, I do. But I am not feeling summer, invincible or any other type, within me. This winter — and in particular, this past week — has beaten me. Our high temps since Saturday have ranged from a mere 5 degrees to 24 on Tuesday, with lows ranging from -2 to 13. We might get up to 26 today, b...
My favorite ads on TV right now are ones that feature kids of various ages expressing some level of disgust with their parents. First, there’s the Geico “Scoop, There It Is” commercial. Dan and I have friends — with no adolescent children living at home — who thought watching hip hop group Tag Team dish up ice cream and the play on their hit “Whoop, There It Is” was hilarious. They didn’t even notice the teenage daughter — or her look of disgust as she exits the room after he...
Happy Valentines Day! Sunday is the 14th, of course, but it’s never to early to spread the love. Each year at this time, The Hinsdalean extends “valentines” to those helping to make the community a little more loving place. With a focus on Hinsdale’s nonprofit agencies, we present this year’s honorees as nominated by those organizations. • Charlton Gronlund has been a tireless supporter of Candor Health Education’s mission and has leveraged his position as a leader in the Hinsdale community to continuously advocate for the Ca...
As an over 30-year resident of Hinsdale, I am more grateful than ever for the thoughtful vision, courageous initiative and effective execution of Superintendent Tammy Prentiss and her team in negotiating a relationship that made COVID-19 vaccinations available to all critical employees of District 86 and the LADSE cooperative last week. While there are many more hurdles before our teens, their families, faculty, and supporting staff can achieve their new normal, it is a real gift to the village that Superintendent Prentiss an...
What a service to the community! As vice president of the DuPage County Board of Health, I have come to appreciate the importance of public-private partnerships for the good of the whole community. It is praiseworthy that Hinsdale High School District 86 has developed a partnership with Osco in order to vaccinate teachers and older residents. The DuPage County Health Department has been seeking additional vaccination sites to help increase the rate of vaccination delivery, and District 86 became one of the health...
In my last column, I wrote about getting drenched. I said that the sky above our family was falling and our roof was leaking. Since that column, our monsoon has thankfully passed. My family is dry, and we are together. I mentioned the buckets we placed to stave off flooding. Today, I want to tell you about the umbrellas that shielded us from the worst of the storm. They do not, cannot, mop up the messiness of our lives, collect our pain in buckets and hope it will be...
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I have started paying extra close attention to the way the definition of love has changed over the last few decades. Over dinner the other night, my mom told me about the love story of her parents. My grandpa lived in Panama and kept a long distance relationship with my Grandma, who lived in Switzerland. He would call her every night after he got off work. But with the time difference, this would be around 3 a.m. in Switzerland. My...
3 for '21. Gretchen Rubin's suggestion seemed pretty simple. "If you don't want to make a New Year's resolution, consider writing your '21 for 2021' list," the author of "The Happiness Project" wrote Dec. 15 in her blog. I liked the sound of it - a list of 21 concrete things to accomplish. (I also appreciated the photo of a typewriter that ran with the post!) She listed really helpful suggestions, too, like using the number 21 within this list (read 21 books, visit 21 diners)...
Four times last year we criticized leaders in Hinsdale High School District 86 for the way they handled residents who wanted to express their opinion at a board meeting. Today, we congratulate them. For the first time in four months, the “public comment” section of the agenda was back where it belonged last week, near the beginning of the meeting. Two audience members who attended in person stepped up to the microphone, and comments were read from four residents who submitted them via email. Right now the hot topic is get...
When I moved my household from Washington, D.C. into storage, I got rid of about 100 books. Some were obvious choices, like the global trade textbook that was required for a class I took in 1989 but irrelevant both to me and the current study of economics. Some gave me pause, like the novel "London" by Edward Rutherford. It's an informative history of the city wrapped up in a gripping 2,000-year narrative, but it comes in at 829 pages and weighs a ton. As I went through this...
Imagining what the inauguation would look like in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic was difficult for me. Would Planet Fitness sponsor "pods" for first responders to view the events, as they did at Times Square on New Year's Eve? Would 6-foot circles be chalked on the ground, with invitees bringing their own lawn chairs to sit in them? Would everything be broadcast on Zoom or Google Teams? Having stood - wedged shoulder to shoulder - with other attendees at the first inaug...
Welcome, Tier 2! Now we can get back to high school basketball games, eating at our favorite restaurant and inviting 49 of our closest friends over to watch the playoffs, right? Wait a minute, that’s Tier 1. Tier 2 is much less exciting when it comes to life in Hinsdale. Museums (one) and casinos (none) can open at limited capacity, and indoor fitness classes can be conducted with up to 10 participants. The move to Tier 2 is good news, though, for high school athletes. Teens on the boys swimming, boys and girls bowling, girls...
In September 2019, I thought it would be wise to get my doc's clearance prior to running 26.2 miles on a Sunday the following month. In my check up, he asked something typically not asked by a doctor - "What do you eat?" Although I ate relatively healthy at the time, he strongly encouraged focusing on a plant-based diet. He recommended some Netflix documentaries ("Forks Over Knives" and "The Game Changers"), a website (NutritionFacts.org), and a book ("How Not To Die" by Dr. M...
Responding to Reid McCollum’s letter last week (Jan. 14) regarding Republicans, it is hypocritical to say one party uses racial stereotypes when your party has the history of racial exploitation and seeking power by maintaining a permanent underclass. Cancel culture and media bias are real. How can we have an honest dialogue and any reconciliation when one side’s facts are labeled as propaganda but then replaced with the other side’s false narratives? — Joe Craig, Hinsdale...
The best advice I encountered for 2021 as 2020 came to a close was hilarious. And prophetic. "Nobody claim 2021 as 'your year,' " the Facebook post advised. "We're all going to walk in real slow. Be good. Be quiet. Don't. Touch. Anything." Unfortunately, a whole bunch of people didn't get the memo. We're still recovering from the events that took place at the nation's Capitol Jan. 6, but I for one refuse to believe this country is irreparably broken. Nor do I feel discouraged...
Like so many facets of life since COVID-19 hit, blood drives and blood donation centers were shut down or severely restricted as a health precaution. Thankfully, those activities have resumed, and individuals are being urged in January — National Blood Donor Month — to help meet the need for blood, which the pandemic did not suppress. Those who have recovered from COVID-19 are particularly encouraged to give blood because of the potential antibodies it contains. One step further would be a plasma donation to help address the...
A lack of bipartisan civility is not what led Trump supporters to storm the Capitol last week, resulting in five deaths. Opportunists from one political party encouraged conspiracy theories, resulting in 82 percent of Trump supporters believing that Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Even after the violence, 147 Republicans voted against certifying election results. For years, some leaders of one political party have used racial stereotypes and ethnonationalism to divide us. Right-wing propagandists turn perpetrators into v...
T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock once famously stated that he had "measured out (his) life with coffee spoons." In these parlous times, however, I've found myself measuring out my life by limited streaming series. Normally, all I do is read, but it's been difficult lately. At least, it's been difficult to concentrate on the type of fiction I normally read - that is, realistic fiction about everyday people in everyday settings having everyday problems. Honestly, that kind of wri...
If there’s one thing the past 10 months have taught us, it’s patience. We learned patience when we were told, after staying home for two weeks in March, that we would have stay home longer in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. A lot longer. We learned patience on Nov. 4 and in the days that followed as we waited to see who would be the next president of the United States. We learned patience this week as votes were counted in the Georgia Senate run-off, with the Senate majority hanging in the balance. Of course, som...
From a global pandemic to a tumultuous U.S. presidential election, 2020 has wreaked havoc on our minds, bodies and spirits. It was a soul-crushing year, yet - despite it all - I've learned some valuable lessons along the way that I'm looking forward to taking with me into 2021. As I look back on this past year, I'm proud of how my family and I navigated uncertainty and maintained consistency when the world around us was rapidly changing. In a year that was spent social...
With November’s election behind us, sharp focus should turn to the April 6 consolidated election. One important issue on the ballot that can drastically impact real estate value is the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 Board. Education costs amount up to 80 percent of our property taxes here in D86. In order to remain competitive with Chicagoland suburbs and private schools, voters in D86 must be informed on the issues and vote accordingly. Our kids are hurting. They are struggling emotionally, socially and academical...
