365 Memories

Another Chicago memory, this one very fuzzy. I was perhaps six or seven. It was the mid-1970s, and my parents and I lived in the Lincoln Park area of the city. All three of us had gone out grocery shopping, so I assume it was a weekend morning or afternoon. Back then, the family had a car, too (thematic connection with the prior post unintended). I don't remember being inside the grocery store, although I remember distinctly that it was an A&P, and I remember the orange and red colors of the letters in the logo. My father was driving. The reason that this day of mundane domestic activity stands out, always has, is because of a little girl who was possibly my age, maybe a little older. I don't remember her name, though I'm sure I must have heard it. My mom must have asked. I don't remember anything about this girl's specific circumstances; I don't recall for certain how it came to be that our lives intersected for even the shortest time. The sequence of event...

I remember one evening in Chicago. This is when I was there as an adult, on my own. I was living in the Streeterville neighborhood, working at Edelman Public Relations. I still had my car, which was a liability downtown and not at all needed. I walked to work, but even if I hadn't, the public transit system is good enough to make owning your own wheels completely unnecessary. I would part with the car eventually, but for the moment, I was heading up Lake Shore Drive with a boyfriend in the passenger seat. He was visiting from out of town. We'd had an instant attraction at a friend's wedding, then started writing to each other, calling, and then he sent me cassettes (yes, they were still in use; that dates me!). He was a musician, a small-town guy, smart but hindered by an incomplete education and a general lack of exposure to anything beyond his backyard. His music didn't suffer for it—he wrote clever lyrics, composed catchy guitar riffs—but his emotional health did. ...

I remember an olive green, plastic recipe box. Really just a filing box for index cards, I think, not necessarily designed in any special way for recipes. I remember it sitting on the kitchen counter of the condominium we lived in during our last year or so in the Windy City. I remember the window at the end of that galley-style kitchen; I think I remember a loose plaid wallpaper pattern left over from the family before us (excuse: it was the 1970s). I remember sitting on the counter, swinging my dangling legs, talking to Mom while she cooked or baked. I also remember that it was here I saw my first ever big-city cockroach, perched on top of the paper towel roll that was mounted under the sink, attached to the inside of a cabinet door. The roach was big, brown and glistening, and it sent Mom running to the store for boric acid. End of roach. End of roach memories, because really, it's not something you want to linger on—certainly not in a post about recipes. Like all memories, my ...

I was driving back into downtown Chicago from Midway Airport: Cicero Avenue to the Stevenson, which is I-55, connecting to 90/94 West. Friends from Saint Louis had come up for the weekend—my girlfriend, T., and the man she was dating at the time, whom we called Mr. Zima (though not to his face). Remember that drink of the 1990s? Alcohol that wasn't beer, wine, or hard liquor; a clear, citrusy , malt-based drink with an identity crisis. It became known in most circles as the ultimate wussy drink, so really I salute my friend's boyfriend, for being able to ask for it with a straight face and no shame. People can say what they like. But this is beside the point . . . unless we want to contemplate the potential value of Zima as a wet blanket to a fireball. On the expressway back from the airport, before the exchange with I-90, traffic slowed nearly to a standstill. Up ahead, the right lane was blocked, so cars were merging to the left. We saw black smoke and, when we got close en...

No, nothing to do with Mrs. O'Leary's cow. How old do you think I am? But I do have two memories of Chicago blazes, each seen from my car while driving city streets or highways. The first was late at night, in Cabrini-Green, notorious breeding ground for all of America's urban housing-project woes. This was in the mid-1990s. I had just moved back to Chicago, alone, and I still had a car, although I lived in the downtown Streeterville neighborhood and really did not need one. I will mention the make of the car, only because it really does make a difference to the story: imagine a single, young, white woman driving through the projects in the middle of the night . . . in a Saab. What the hell? you might well ask. Well, I was returning home from a late-night excursion in Bucktown or Wicker Park, probably the latter. I really wasn't thinking about where I was, only about where I wanted to go, which was back to my apartment to crash. I was tired. But not too tired to be ...

So what exactly did I do with those Chicago summer lemonade stand profits? What do you do with pocket money when you're younger than ten and the basic necessities (food, shelter, clothes, books for education) are provided by your parents, as they should be? I remember the first significant purchase I ever made exclusively with my own money, and although I can't be 100 per cent sure without asking my mom, I'm willing to bet that the lemonade stands in Lincoln Park were partly responsible for funding my acquisition. And what I acquired was a little girl's dream: a delicate bride doll, the kind that while not made of porcelain (my generation was, sadly, pretty plastic already), was in that china-doll style. What was it about that doll? My girlhood was not, in fact, filled with tales of weddings, marriage—not in the sense that this what I was "supposed" to aspire to; not at all. I was raised reading books like The Practical Princess , a beautifully illustrated co...

When the weather got hot, when I was between the ages of six and nine and my family lived in Chicago, my mom would kindle the entrepreneurial spirit and set us to work in the kitchen. We'd cream sugar and butter; add eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder; we'd overdose the chocolate chips and spread the batter in a pan. I remember the smell of gooey bar cookies fresh from the oven, chocolate still shiny with heat. We'd do a taste test for quality control. We'd get a giant pitcher, fill it with cold water and scoops of Country Time Lemonade mix, stir well. We'd take the lot of it, along with an antique ice-cream table and chair set (wood table top and seats, iron legs and backs), and head across the street from our apartment on Lake View, into Lincoln Park. We'd set up at a sidewalk intersection, where people came frequently in and out of the park, and do a brisk business in lemonade and cookies. I remember the Dixie cups, the repeat customers (especially joggers, ...

It seemed like a good idea when I first thought of it. Of course, when you're six or seven (or even much older), lots of things seem like good ideas that aren't, including conning a babysitter into letting you wobble around the neighborhood wearing your mother's high-heeled boots, many sizes too big and in any case off limits; or else sticking a tiny seashell up your nose, far enough so that a couple weeks later—because you'd done this on the sly and were afraid to say anything when it got stuck—the shell had to get vacuumed out at the pediatrician's office. You know, stuff like that. (What? You mean to tell me you never put a shell up your nose when you were little?) Anyway, this was no big thing, didn't have any serious consequences. No getting in trouble, no trip to the doctor. Still, it marked me for its foulness, and I've never forgotten. To give some background: I don't know whose idea it was, mine or my mom's, but together we started a mini t...

Used to be, on a Saturday night, I was only home if I had work to do. If not, I'd be out. And, in the mid-1990s in Chicago, "out" for me had multiple associations. At the same time as I was finding my way in the literary world (see Fish Stories post here ), I was also volunteering to help in another community within the city: the community of those at risk for HIV/AIDS. Although I no longer remember how I first heard of the organization, nor do I recall the details of my initial contact with them, I had decided to donate time and effort to STOP AIDS Chicago. The "how" is now blurry, but still the "why" resonates. I was in early high school the first time I heard the acronym AIDS in a health class and learned what it stood for; that was in the mid-1980s, and although no one was yet talking about an epidemic (at least, not to high school students), still I think we sensed something ominous. At the time, I was in a dance-intense program with others hopin...

Sometimes you never know where things will lead, if anywhere. And yet . . . there is an inexplicable impulse, a vibe, a premonition perhaps, that drives you on. I was browsing in the then-new (now closed) Waterstone's book shop off Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Spring 1995, standing before the sleek black shelves and colorful book jackets. I had recently come to the end of a creative writing class that I'd been taking in the evenings through Northwestern's University College (their continuing education department). The class had me thinking for the first time about the possibility of writing fiction, attempting to get published in the genre. And of course my instructor encouraged me to get my hands on a bunch of literary magazines and start reading, researching the market, requesting submission guidelines. It's the same thing anyone will hear who takes even a half-step in the direction of fiction, at least where short stories are concerned. So, there I was, on the outsi...

It was not an everyday treat, rather an indulgence. In Chicago in the 1970s, when I was in the earliest years of elementary school, my parents would sometimes get the car (which was used on weekends and for road trips) and drive northwest to the city's   Ravenswood neighborhood, stopping at 2458 West Montrose Avenue. This is the address for Lutz Continental Café and Pastry Shop, which I'm happy to learn is still there (though no longer operated by its founders, Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Lutz ). The authentic Bavarian pastry shop, also called a " konditorei ," was opened as a corner store in 1948 in its present location. In the mid-1970s, when we frequented Lutz , the shop had just expanded to include the café and an enclosed, seasonal garden space. If we ate meals there, however, I don't remember them at all. About Lutz I remember only one thing: marzipan. This was the place where, to my knowledge, I first tried the traditional confection of almond paste and suga...

At night, tired from a long work day, strange things surface. What would make me remember a story I hadn't thought about in decades—a story that isn't even mine, although it belongs to my childhood? When I was young, I loved to tell jokes. Knock-knock jokes in particular, as my son tells now, and when I was older, jokes from the "Truly Tasteless Jokes" series of books (I think there were many volumes; I had at least one of them, with a black cover). Then for some reason I stopped being able to remember jokes at all. I've rarely told any in my adult life, though I like to think I've managed to keep a sense of humor anyway. The jokes were often quite long, with complicated stories leading up to a punch line. This is probably why, in time, I became unable to tell them. I'd remember the punch line but not the setup. I do know that some of my old jokes were rather inappropriate, especially for a child telling them. One involved a rip-off artist in a house of il...

Every year, we've got to pay The Man. The Tax Man, I mean. The government. April 15, time to pay for all that stuff they do that we don't even know about until it's too late. Not that there aren't good uses for tax dollars. But this is not a political blog. It's a memory. I am in Chicago at the age of twenty-five. I had just left a job with a PR agency to test my hand at something more editorial, and while waiting to land a salaried job I started doing a little freelance work. I had not done it before, so this was a first lesson in entrepreneurship. It was scary, but exhilarating. I did a couple of projects that were passed along to me by a writing teacher who developed a lot of texts for a healthcare -related organization. He landed the jobs, then subcontracted to have me help with certain chapters, usually to do with management tools or patient education in hospital settings. The work was interesting enough, and the pay was okay, though nothing to live on. I kept ...

Senses swimming in a deep, blue hue. An unexpected bath of color, and the feeling of being washed clean. In the intimate, empty auditorium of the Musée Chagall, in Nice, France, I sat in shafts of light made dazzling by the stained-glass windows of the artist's spiritual genius. Outside, at the base of the hill on which the museum perched, the January air did little to keep beach goers off the Promenade, but my mom and I preferred being inside, in this museum. I am surprised we did not go back daily while in Nice. It was 1990. I was living my twenty-first year, and in that moment, in front of that three-panel installation of Chagall's windows, I could allow myself to feel that I was just then, only then, beginning to live. In fact, the windows are called La création du monde , or "The Creation of the World," dating from 1971–1972. I was two to three years old when they were made, so we were very nearly born at the same time, the windows and I. The auditorium was u...

It's Easter—at least in the non-Orthodox world—and, setting aside the commercial lure of bunnies and bonnets, creme eggs and Peeps, I consider it a day for two visual symbols: it's a day for crosses and lilies. I saw both in church this morning. A processional cross and candle announced the beginning of the service; potted white Easter lilies stood front and center, amid an explosion of springtime color in bloom (an embarrassment of floral riches at the foot of the pulpit). I have to say, I don't pay much attention to lilies at any other time. There is something about the most popular varieties of the flower that I find a bit showy, though the beauty is undeniable. In terms of lilies, I prefer to think of lilies of the valley. And I think of them because they were named once, long ago, by my mother as a favorite flower. I was older than five, younger than ten. We were living in Chicago, bordering Lincoln Park. Daily at this time, my mom and I would walk along North Lakeview...

Although I am an only child, I paraded through childhood with a group of kids who felt very much like family—they even lived in my house. They were fictional characters, but no less real to me. Actually, while I was growing up, they often seemed more real to me than real people did. That is, they were much more honest. They didn't try to stuff you with platitudes or false optimism when things weren't going well, but they gave it to you straight . . . including giving you the knowledge that you'd make it through whatever it was, intact. These characters most often were the brainchildren of one or the other of two classic children's book authors: Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume . (In fact, they're so classic that I almost worry it's cliché to remember them here.) While living in Chicago, I started out with Beverly Cleary and her neighborhood of kids on Klikitat Street. Ramona may have been a "pest" to her sister Beezus —and as a parent, I tend to agre...

In my experience, it's generally true that people living in city apartment buildings don't really get to know their neighbors. Of course there are exceptions to this, but more often than not, the neighbors-turned-friends are people who, I think, must live in other areas. I think of small town blocks lined with shade trees and kids who run from house to house, "Our Gang" style. But sometimes it happens that a building's inhabitants are drawn together; they rely on each other for the occasional ingredient that's no longer in the kitchen or for childcare in a pinch or even for genuine friendship. Most places I've lived, I couldn't tell you the names of the neighbors—it's not that I don't remember them, rather that I never knew them in the first place—but in the last apartment we had as a family in Chicago, I remember there was the S. family across the hall. I remember the mother, Dolores, and the daughter, Jenny. I don't remember the father (w...

March 26 was Easter Sunday in 1978. I was nine years old. I have had many memorable Easter celebrations—among them, one in Ireland and one in Greece, both when I was an adult—and I'll certainly write about them in coming weeks, but the general spirit of a childhood Easter season will always belong to 1970s Chicago. Between the ages of five and ten, those years in which holidays are perhaps most magical, we lived in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. It was here that I still believed in the Easter Bunny (a tradition that seems odd to my French in-laws, since for them it's the "bells of Rome" that fly overhead dropping eggs down to expectant children; really, I guess that's no stranger than the idea of a rabbit "laying" eggs—we also go round about whether the Easter Bunny is the reason why "Americans don't eat rabbit," which of course we do but not as much as in France and, it's true, often not in childhood). And it was in Chicago...

Whinnying, stomping, snorting, sweet-sweating horses. Horses short or many "hands" tall, sleek or barrel-bellied, good natured or mean tempered, nervous or lazy; horses that would jump or rear, balk or bolt. I loved them all. I first used to ride at Bailey's Stables in Chicago, when I was somewhere between the ages of five and nine. This was in the mid- to late 1970s—a time that may also bring to mind for native Chicagoans the highly publicized disappearance and (it was later ruled) murder of the candy heiress, Helen Brach ; Richard Bailey, stable owner and despicable con artist, was indicted in soliciting her murder and was ultimately sentenced in the mid-1990s to what amounted to a de facto life term in prison, given his age, for a complex scheme of fraud and a trail of sordid crimes that included murdering many horses as well. I shudder to think of what must have been going on behind the scenes of my weekly riding lessons. All I remember was the gentle giant of a hors...

It's Saint Patrick's Day, and if a country could talk, today America would say, "Pinch me, I'm Irish," just as many of its citizens do entreat, whether the claim is legitimate or not. (Here I confess, I never did understand the pinching bit.) On March 17, you may as well just stick an honorary O' in front of your name, call in Irish to work, and set up a pint or two at your local pub. Sláinte !  I am willing to bet that nowhere else in the world could you find a bigger deal made out of St. Paddy's Day, and I can tell you from firsthand experience (details to come) that it's a much greater event (by far) here in the States than it is in the "old country." I'm glad, actually, that this is so. It would seem a bit off-putting—not to mention totally out of an often self-deprecating character—for the Irish themselves, in Ireland, to parade so lavishly on their own behalf. Here, though, especially in my home cities of New York and Chicago (to sa...