Opinion / Guest Essay


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  • Dad reflects on first Father's Day without his youngest son

    Updated Jun 12, 2024

    Since our son, Conor, was born in 2002, I have always anticipated Father’s Day with joy and expectation. It was one of my favorite days of the year. A Sunday in June when everyone is kind to you and you get to do whatever you want. You receive gifts, some of them handmade (the best kind). Dinner with the entire family. U.S. Open golf on TV. What is not to love? This year, I am not anticipating Father’s Day with joy and expectation. This Sunday will be my first Father’s Day without my 14-year-old son, Sean, joining me for a ro...

  • Officers make final plea to residents to save caucus

    Updated Nov 16, 2022

    The Hinsdale Village Caucus is unfortunately on the verge of disbanding due to lack of participation from the community. Unless new leaders are identified in the next two months, the caucus will be dissolved in January 2023. The caucus is a nonpartisan group of volunteers whose primary role is to identify, recruit and promote qualified candidates for the District 181 School Board, the Hinsdale Public Library Board and the Hinsdale Village Board of Trustees. The Caucus was founded in 1934 and has been a part of the election...

  • You're never too old for something new

    Laura LaPlaca|Updated Jul 27, 2022

    By the year 2030, the almost 70 million U.S. adults in the Baby Boomer generation will be 65 years or older. A recent Chicago Tribune editorial by Darcy Evon and Thomas Kuczmarski eschewing ageism noted that the "movement to end ageism is being driven by the Baby Boomer generation." As a member of that generation, my own lesson in fighting that battle comes from my 90-year-old father, who wakes up every morning excited to learn something new. He has never been one to let a...

  • Graduation speaker offers advice for Class of 2022

    Maurice Tobiano|Updated Jun 1, 2022

    On behalf of the Class of 2022, we’d like to thank Mother Nature, who somehow managed to let it rain during every single Homecoming and prom, but she didn’t let the rain take today, our graduation day. So, thank you Mother Nature. It’s a beautiful day outside! But yet here we are, at our beautiful indoor ceremony! We would also like to say thank you to the administration, faculty, staff, our friends and family, and especially each other, the Class of 2022 ­— we made it! The past four years flew by faster than freshmen...

  • Vietnam vet shares story of a Hinsdale native, hero

    Updated May 26, 2021

    Memorial Day: A tribute to those who gave everything in the line of duty. One such soldier was James W. Robinson Jr., born in 1940 in Hinsdale. He enlisted in the Marines in 1958, and gave his life in battle on April 11, 1966, in Vietnam. I came about Sgt. Robinson’s story when I encountered a framed photo of him at the Hines VA hospital. It spelled out a detailed description of his valor in the face of a fierce firefight with a Viet Cong battalion. Sgt. Robinson moved among the men of his fire team, instructing and i...

  • Small steps toward big goals

    Beth Smits|Updated Apr 22, 2020

    I have a doctoral dissertation to write. It will come in at about 80,000 words. Knowing what a daunting target that is, my advisor suggested that I break it down, for example by aiming for 8,000 words a month. Each month articulates one point I want to make in support of my thesis. That's just one "normal size" research paper a month. No big deal - I got this. Working from home during this pandemic, this advice is serving me well beyond the dissertation. One day, overwhelmed b...

  • Focusing on prayer and hope during Holy Week

    Mary Rayis|Updated Apr 8, 2020

    Watching a livestream of Palm Sunday Mass was a strange experience. Ordinarily, Palm Sunday is a day that begins with a jubilant procession into the church, the congregation waving palm branches in imitation of the crowds that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The rite goes from celebratory to solemn as we recall Christ’s passion and death. Yesterday, though, I watched a priest in an all but empty church preside over the “source and summit of the Catholic faith” — the Mass. A...