In 2008, a microburst hit the shores of Sandy Point Resort. Straight line winds took out 14 trees, threw every boat into the forest, destroyed a boat house and a swing-set, and ripped up the west dock. A stand of birch trees, perched on the shoreline adjacent to our Hole 27 (Walleye) disc golf basket, […]
The Birch Tree Experiment – 18 Years Later Read More »
My first book, a memoir, debuted in 2002. It was a Cinderella story for this writer—a former newspaper columnist and aspiring author—as I received a contract from the very first publisher to whom I sent the manuscript. The book did so well for McKenna Publishing Group that the agency negotiated five more titles under my
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Moments after Pete D’Agostino and I posed for this snapshot, we said goodbye on the corner of Zachary’s Pizza and College Avenue in Rockridge and went our separate ways. Pete headed south while we turned east and waited for the light. Just after he crossed the street, he turned and shouted: “And don’t leave anything
“How does a prospective high school artist go about preparing for the future?” This is the lead to a piece published in The RB Clarion on November 10, 1977. “Rankin prepares for art career By Michele VanOrt.” At the time, Patrick “Pat” Rankin (Class of ’78) was a senior at Riverside-Brookfield High School in Riverside,
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My last days there were like living in an abandoned nest.
9037 — A Touch of Gray Read More »
It happened on the corner of 30th Street and Maple Avenue, a suburban crossroads separating my hometown of Brookfield, Illinois, and our neighboring town, LaGrange Park. I lived one block plus three houses down and one street over from the only potentially perilous intersection on my daily path to school. Sometimes I cut through the
There’s a chapter in my first book, I’m Living Your Dream Life, titled “People Can Be Jerks.” It was true in 2002, most likely true since the Garden of Eden, and it’s still true today. The big difference today, however, is that the jerks no longer bother me. It took a while to let go,
What’s Your Beef, Jerky? Read More »
“Memories cannot die. They are our burden, our pleasure, and our constant reminder of who we are.”
–From A Line Between Friends (2006).
When I was a little girl in the 1960s, each summer my family traveled from the concrete Chicago suburbs to the lush green land of the Great Lakes state, Michigan. We drove through the stench of Argo Corn Starch and what we referred to as the “Indiana Stink” before zooming onto the Indiana Toll Road.
