“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, […]
Pat Rankin: The Biggest Bulldog Read More »
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.
