Unraveling
Rattling south on Chicago’s “L” with my daughter and 200 pounds of her stuff wedged into six suitcases, I wish Lyda would turn and say she’ll miss me. With her phone pressed to the window, she snaps...
View ArticleOf superhuman bondage
Driving my son and a carpool full of boys to school, the conversation naturally turned to superheroes—or more precisely, superpowers. Which ones would you pick for yourself? Flying, superstrength, and...
View ArticleOn common ground
“Oh God, it must be awful. How do you do it?” For years that has been the too-frequent response, offered with empathy, when people learn about my day job—writing and editing stories about baseball and...
View ArticleThe 43-year kidney
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer released its second studio album, Tarkus, in 1971. It landed in America on August 14 and every day after that my uncle, who was then 17 years old and a drummer, descended to...
View ArticleMayhem on 56th Street
Every dyed-in-the-wool sports fan likes a sports quiz. For example, what sport can be in season and out of season at the same time? Answer? Outdoor ice hockey. How come? Well, if the weatherman...
View ArticleThe urban wild
It’s January 1, 2009. Mason—my seven-year-old early riser—and I are both up before dawn. It’s too cold and icy to think he can ride his bike, but I want to find a way to stick to my New Year’s...
View ArticleMike Nichols’s first career
Of the abundance of obituaries written about acclaimed director and comedian Mike Nichols, EX’53, since his death on November 19, few failed to mention Chicago. It was where he directed his first play...
View ArticleLooking up
There’s a carving on Rosenwald Hall, just to the right of the west exit, that depicts a paleontologist’s satchel flanked by two improbably perfect ammonite fossils. A ribbon under it reads “Dig and...
View ArticleBotching the wedding
We were not supposed to get married. When my girlfriend and I moved into a dark, cramped one-bedroom apartment on a traffic-congested street on the north side of Chicago, one mantra united us. No...
View ArticleOne pilgrim’s promise
From April to June of this year, Laura Gruen, AB’67, AM’68, walked the Camino de Santiago, a traditional pilgrimage route from Saint Jean Pied de Port, France, to Santiago de Compostela cathedral in...
View ArticleA tender coincidence
Nearly twenty years ago, while still a graduate student in English at the University of Chicago, I was invited to contribute to a Festschrift for my father. The looming occasion was his 40th year as an...
View ArticleBowing out
This month the Feminist Press published Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me, an essay collection by Ana Castillo, AM’79. Written over 20 years, the essays focus on her experiences as an American woman of...
View ArticleDamn your meddling ways
As we prepared for our visit to campus, my 17-year-old daughter and I got into a disagreement.“I want to be dropped off,” she informed me. As if this were an innocuous visit to a school friend’s, or to...
View ArticleRumbling down unknown streets
On a family trip, Stéphane Gerson, AM’92, PhD’97, lost his young son Owen when their kayak capsized on Utah’s Green River. Gerson’s new book Disaster Falls: A Family Story (Crown, 2017) chronicles how...
View ArticleThe lost quartet
Part one appeared in the print version of the Spring/17 issue. Part two is a web exclusive.—Ed.Part oneMy first year in college was tough. I grew up in south Florida in the shadow of Cape Canaveral,...
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