Mother and Child

The Andrews Sisters - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B

See ya, Hadiya

I was disappointed to read another sad and maddening story set in my beloved City of the Big Soldiers yesterday.

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was shot and killed two days ago while hanging out in a park after school. (The park is just a mile from President Obama’s Chicago home.) An honor student, volleyball player and majorette at King College Prep School, Hadiya “had no gang affiliation and likely was not targeted in the shooting attack,” according to CBS News.

Hadiya Pendleton

Her murder is receiving more media attention than other crimes because she had just performed a week ago with her high school band at the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. Now, in the city over which foul-mouthed former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel presides as mayor, she’s become a symbol of escalating violence and another poignant anecdote in the national debate about guns and crime.

I've traveled to Chicago many times – most recently by train with Anita and the kids – and I've loved it every time. Whether I had a meeting on Wacker Drive (a name that always makes me giggle like a 15-year-old majorette), was expanding my brain at the Museum of Science and Industry or expanding my stomach at the Cheesecake Factory on the ground floor of the Sears Tower (I refuse to acknowledge that the building was renamed “Willis Tower” in 2009), I always thought the city had great energy.

I experienced the amazing “Taste of Chicago” outdoor food festival in Grant Park years ago and remember it like it was yesterday. Jazz clubs, Wrigley Field, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Magnificent Mile and the Chicago Water Tower, Lake Shore Drive along the Lake Michigan shoreline, the hot summers and frigid winters...the number of reasons why this city is at the top of my “Places I Dig” list is large.

I never experienced the violence that’s such a big part of Chicago.

More than 500 murders occurred in Chi-town in 2012; 87 percent of these – or 435 – were committed with guns. A total of 2,400 shootings were reported to Chicago police last year.

And things are getting worse. Chicago’s 2012 murder rate was 19 percent higher than in the year before. More than 40 people have been killed in the Windy City just this month.

Just because Chicago is the third most populous city in the country and has a violent history doesn’t mean we should just shrug our shoulders and look away when good kids are gunned down after school.

The White House called Hadiya’s murder “a terrible tragedy.” I think that’s b*llsh*t. To me a tragedy is a car accident. A tornado. A tsunami. War. Genocide. An earthquake. A cowardly gunman running down an alley and shooting at a bunch of kids chillin’ in a park on the corner is different. It’s disgusting. Stomach-turning. Despicable. And what’s most infuriating is that it’s in many cases preventable.

As Hadiya’s devastated mom told a reporter yesterday, “Something does need to change.”

So the young girl who her cousin called “a walking angel” – the one whose biggest transgression was running up her parents’ credit card buying books on Amazon – is in the morgue.

And Shedd Aquarium is no longer the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Chicago.

Rest in peace, Hadiya Pendleton.


Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

~ Carl Sandburg

Sources: CBSNews.com, Chicago Tribune, Washington Monthly, NBCNews.com.

Amsterdam

Kings Of Leon - The Bucket

Before We Kick the Bucket...

Anita and I spent an hour yesterday creating bucket lists.

We had talked about it before – and about specific entries that would eventually appear on our lists – but we never felt like spending the time racking our brains and actually putting ideas to paper until yesterday afternoon.

Once I started typing things into my Excel document, I was tripping over myself to get everything down. Anita, on the other hand, found it helpful to check out other folks’ online lists for ideas. As I write this, in fact, she hasn't finished her list yet. But I’m fighting the urge to lengthen my list beyond the 100 entries I speedily compiled.

We haven’t yet shared our lists. Anita’s traveled more extensively than I have so I expect there are fewer references to other countries and locales on her list than on mine. (I want to see the Great Wall of China, for example, and the Hoover Dam and the Taj Mahal, among other landmarks.) And as I’ve written before, Anita couldn't care less about celebrities so I don’t expect “See taping of television show,” “Meet Motown artist(s)” or “Have dinner with famous person” to appear on both of our lists (unless the famous person was, say, noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson).

We argued briefly about what’s listable and what’s just a life goal. My position was that losing weight or attending our kids’ college graduations, for example, were worthy goals but not the kind of things to go on a bucket list. Riding a zip line, seeing the Northern Lights and meeting the President of the United States were more listable, I insisted.

It was at this point that she told me she was about to add, “Get Pat to mind his own frikkin’ beeswax because this is my list and he’s not the boss of me” to her document.

We did agree that we could put things down even if we've already done ‘em. We each relished the sense of accomplishment we derived from placing an “x” next to some of our entries. When I counted up my x’s and saw that over half the entries on my list have already been achieved, I felt cooler than before our little exercise.

There were some things – some events and memories and accomplishments – that I didn't include even though I thought they were listable. (Examples include sitting on Dolly Madison’s couch in the White House and eating jumbo shrimp or taking professional quality photographs of my laughing child on a merry-go-round, both of which I've done.) And some ideas weren't added because their time has most likely come and gone (like running across the country like Forrest Gump, for example, or competing in the Tour de France) or they’re painful to think about (like reconciling with my firstborn or visiting my birth father’s grave). But there are still plenty of challenges to tackle before my number’s up.

I’m sure I’ve left off some noteworthy ideas, and maybe I cheated by including so many things that I’ve already done. But I’ve already lived for five decades; it’s not like I’m just starting out on this amazing journey. I’m printing my list below (italicized entries have already been done). Tell me what you think, and how does mine differ from yours?

Pat’s Bucket List

Touch water from all five Great Lakes

Touch water from the three major oceans

Drive down crookedest street in America
 See Hollywood sign 

See Mann's Chinese Theatre 

Meet President of the United States

Tour White House 

Be on television 

Be on the radio 

Have name appear in a book 

Have photo appear in a book
Write/publish a book

Create a blog

Visit India

Visit Brazil

Visit China (and see the Great Wall)

Go to the Super Bowl

See taping of television show

Drive along Pacific Coast Highway

Travel across country

Go skydiving

Ride in hot air balloon

Canoe down remote river

See Grand Canyon (and skywalk)

Go whale watching

Go on a cruise

Experience "Taste of Chicago"

Visit major aquarium 

Go behind the scenes at a zoo

Travel by train to Chicago 

Travel by train to Toronto 

Go hiking in national park

Hike part of Appalachian Trail

See Mt. Rushmore 

See Statue of Liberty 

Find the Love of My Life

Rent/own RV and travel country w/LOML

Meet Motown artist(s) 

Work in executive branch of state government

Work in legislative branch of state government

Work for self 

Serve as pallbearer 

Give speech in front of crowd

Sing in front of crowd 

Ride in a helicopter

Visit Hawaii

Drive a motorcycle

Drive a speedboat

Graduate from college

Make my kids laugh

Set foot in all 50 states

Appear in a movie

Have sex outside 

Own a house

Visit Italy

Visit Amsterdam

Visit France

Visit England

Visit Bali

Learn how to play piano

Shave head 

Grow moustache and beard 

Get tattoo

Ride a horse

Have dinner with famous person

Hold a snake

Go to Disney World 

Go on a ski trip

See an opera

See a play on Broadway

Have coffee at an outdoor café in Europe

Witness major surgery

Be the boss at work 

Witness childbirth/cut the umbilical cord

Ride in a small plane

Attend Cannes Film Festival

Ride in a limousine

Ride on a zip line

Stay at Hotel Coronado on Catalina Island, California

Visit Meteor Crater in Arizona

See Hoover Dam

See intersection of Florence and Normandy in LA

Meet Muhammad Ali

Cut down my own Christmas tree

Work out with the help of a personal trainer

Visit New Orleans' Ninth Ward

Travel to the top of an active volcano

See the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

Swim with dolphins

See Andy Warhol's ‘Campbell's Soup Cans’ at MoMA

Fire a gun 

Sleep in a hammock

Play the Old Course at St. Andrews with Anita

See the Northern Lights

Visit Times Square 

Visit the top of the Empire State Building

Ride a roller coaster

Shower in a waterfall

Visit Niagara Falls

Visit a winery

Mya Likes Sledding