Buy him some peanuts and Crackerjack

Here’s one last post I prepared before taking off for my residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Baseball season is finally here, and when I asked my friend Bob Ringwald to write a guest post about his love for the game, he willingly agreed.My brother Doug introduced me to Bob Ringwald years ago — they’re both jazz musicians, and they play together from time to time. Bob is blind, and it sounds like he’s looking forward to baseball season as much as – maybe even more than? – I am!

Take me out to the ballgame

by Bob Ringwald

The New York Giants moved to San Francisco In 1958, and that’s when I became a Giants fan. I was at a game at Candlestick park on a day when Willie Mays hit four home runs! But in the 60s and 70s, after Willie Mays left the Giants, I was working 6 and 7-nights a week as a musician. I had no time to follow baseball.

We moved to Los Angeles in 1979. One night I happened to decide to listen to a Giants – Dodgers game on the radio, and that was it: Vince Scully, the amazing Dodger play-by-play announcer, won me over. He is the best I have ever heard, and believe me, I’ve heard a lot of baseball announcers. I became a dyed-in-the wool Dodger fan.

We moved back to Northern California some 18 years ago, but I’m still a Dodger fan. I bleed Dodger Blue. Dodgers games are not heard this far north in Sacramento, but I can listen to the games using my computer on MLB dot com.

That’s Bob–Molly’s dad–announcing the lineups (reading from a Braille lineup card) at Dodger Stadium.

When we were still living in Tinsel Town, the Dodgers had a promotion once where you wrote in which baseball job you’d like to do: hang with the grounds crew, drag the base path during the 7th inning, sit with the sports writers and write your own story, hang out with the umpires, that sort of thing. I wrote a letter saying that I wanted to be the Public Address announcer. I knew someone in the P.R. department, so I handed the letter to him. That way it wouldn’t get lost in the thousands of letters I knew might come in.

On July 27, 1991 I used my Braille skills to announce the lineup for a Los Angeles Dodgers – Montreal Expos game. Guess I passed the audition: they invited me to announce the players as they came up to bat in the bottom of the 3rd inning, too, and when I put a little extra English on my announcement of Darrell Strawberry’s name, the 50,000 people in the stands went crazy. What a sense of power!

Later I was invited to go out onto the field at Dodger Stadium to see what the pitcher’s mound, bases, base path and home plate really felt like. I jumped up against the center field wall like a big league outfielder. I picked up the phone they answer in the bullpen when managers call from the dugout. I sat in the Dodger dugout alongside the famous drinking fountain that angry players have been known to destroy with their bats, and, as if that wasn’t enough, I also had the honor to sit in Vince Scully’s chair in the press box. My tour that day ended in the Dodger exercise room. Legendary Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda was on the treadmill, and we had a very interesting chat.

In the early 80s, my daughter, actress and author Molly Ringwald, sang the National Anthem at several Dodger games. Fernando Valenzuela gave her a signed baseball. Another time she was given a baseball signed by all of the 1981 World Series Championship Dodgers. I proudly display those autographed baseballs in my office.

From time to time people ask me, “If you can’t see the action, why would you want to go to the game when you could just as easily be at home listening to it on the radio?” I sometimes answer by saying “Why would you want to go to the game when you can see the action better, close up, at home on TV?” I do take a portable radio to the game to hear the play by play. But there is something more. There is the electricity of the crowd, the sound of the ball hitting the bat and mitt, the P.A. announcer, the venders selling programs, ice-cream, peanuts and other assorted goodies. And of course at Dodger Stadium there are the famous Dodger Dogs. Dodger Dogs are just regular Farmer John hot dogs. But, once you walk through the turn styles of the ball park, they become a gourmet repast.

Care to guess where I’ll be later today? Yes . . . . we’re traveling 400 miles south from Sacramento to Los Angeles to attend the Dodgers vs. Giants opening day game at Dodger Stadium. Care to take a guess which team I’ll be rooting for???

You can check out more photos of Bob’s baseball days on his web site. Play ball!

Woman of the Year

We moved from Urbana to Geneva, Illinois in 1994, and during our three years there I worked for the Kane County Cougars (a minor league baseball team) in their group sales office. The staff was young, and refreshingly unimpressed by my blindness. Amy Mason, a recent college grad, was the one who hired me. She figured I could help answer the phone, route calls, and take ticket orders.

On my first day on the job, however, we discovered one small problem: their phone system used lights, rather than sounds, to indicate which line was ringing. Unfazed, Amy had me make outgoing calls instead. The kind of calls they hated making—contacting groups who hadn’t paid up, or trying to interest schools in special promotions. I didn’t much like these calls, either, but I figured it was a fair bargain. Free game tickets weren’t bad either!

That’s Flo throwing out the first pitch at the Cougars game on her 80th birthday. (Photo by Cheryl May.)

I made a lot of friends at the Cougars during my years there, but I felt especially close to Amy. During one summer when our then-rambunctious-now responsible-nephew Robbie was staying with us, Amy took him out of my hair by putting him to work as an intern. She was a talented athlete and had played high school and college sports, and she cheered on my great-niece Anita, who was a toddler then, to become the basketball superstar she is today. Flo turned 80 in 1996, and when we all decided to invite friends and family to join us in celebrating FloFest in a big tent at a Cougars game, Amy was instrumental in making everything go smoothly, including making arrangements for Flo to throw out the first pitch. It rolled right over the plate.

I sold a lot of tickets for the Cougars, and during my time there I helped the group sales office expand their schools program. Working with a minor league team’s energetic, upbeat and goofy staff helped rebuild a lot of the confidence that had slipped away when I lost my sight.

Today Amy Mason is the Director of Ticket Services and Community Relations for the Kane County Cougars, and the Cougars are now the A Team for the Chicago Cubs. The Pitch and Hit Club is honoring Amy with their Woman of the Year Award tomorrow night, and Mike, Whitney and I will be in the audience cheering her on.

Some other notables will be there as well: former White Sox manager Tony La Russa and Hall of Famer Rich “Goose” Gossage are the headliners, and the entertainment will be provided by, who else? My beloved baseball organist Nancy Faust. The biggest star there, of course, will be Amy Mason. She still stands out as a model for how, with a little patience and very little fanfare, hiring someone with a disability can work out well. For everybody.

Perspective

LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One, November 22, 1963.

Today, November 22, is the day President John F. Kennedy was murdered back in 1963. You have to be at least 55 years old to sign up for the memoir classes I lead in Chicago, so I knew all my students would remember that day. I couldn’t be sure that all of them would want to write about such a melancholy time in our history, though, so I came up with a writing prompt that could be considered in many different ways. The topic: Love Field.

Love Field is the airport where the famous photograph was taken of LBJ in an airplane being sworn in as president. Jackie Kennedy is standing next to him, still in the pink Chanel suit she wore that day. The memoir writers could write about how that day in 1963 affected them, where they were when they learned that JFK had been assassinated, whether or not LBJ being sworn in on Love Field changed their lives. I suggested that anyone who didn’t want to think about those sad troubling times might consider writing about what it feels like to be surrounded by love, a “field of love” sort of thing.

Two students wrote love poems, and another wrote a poignant piece about her enduring love for her husband, who is in his 90s now. Wanda took the topic into, well, left field. She wrote about the fields she’s loved over her 91 years: Wrigley Field, Marshall Field’s, Midway Air Field. She described ushers escorting her right onto the baseball field to meet the players after an East-West Negro League All-Star game at Comiskey Park. She met Larry Doby on that same baseball field years later, after he broke the color barrier in the American League.
Other students chose to write about where they were, and what they were doing, 49 years ago.

Bruce was a young seminary school graduate back then, and earlier that month the preacher at his church had asked if he’d be willing to give a guest sermon on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He opened his essay saying, “It should havbe been so simple.” The Sunday he gave his sermon turned out to be two days after JFK died. Bruce’s downstairs neighbors, both secular humanists, asked to accompany him to church that day. “I kept thinking what can I say that will be meaningful for them. I asked them after service and they said, ‘you did the best you could.’”

Andrea was 14 years old in 1963. She went to school that Friday morning feeling dreamy about the school dance she’d be attending that night. News of the President’s death came over a loudspeaker into her classroom. “My 14-year-old desires collided with sorrow,” she wrote, admitting that while the world watched their TV screens in horror, all she wanted was to go to that dance. “While I waited to hear the dance’s fate, Jacquelyn Kennedy flew back to Washington, D.C., accompanying her dead husband’s coffin,” she wrote. “As I primped my hair and chose an outfit, Mrs. Kennedy planned a state funeral.”

School officials did not cancel the dance. Andrea titled her essay “Perspective” and ended it like this: . “Today, forty nine years later, I can’t remember one single moment of that dance. However, I still feel the loss of a dream.”

After retiring from a long career as a journalist, Giovanna signed up for my memoir class to get more comfortable writing her own story, rather than reporting on the lives of others. She wrote for Life Magazine in 1963 and after the events on November 22 she was asked to head to Washington, D.C. to report on President Kennedy’s funeral.

Life’s Richard Stolley had negotiated for print rights to the Zapruder film, and before she left her New York City office she sat with her fellow reporters in the New York office reviewing the film. Out of decency and respect for the President’s family they decided not to publish every frame. “It was horrific,” she said.

Giovanna worked with Life Photographer Bob Gomel, photographing at two location. “We had credentials to a rooftop where we watched Jackie Kennedy walk with a long stride and a firm step behind her husband’s body to St Matthew’s Cathedral,” she wrote. “Our second spot was at St Matthew’s Cathedral where little John Kennedy saluted the body of his father as he lay on the caisson.” Giovanna’s piece read more like a piece of journalism than a memoir, and after she finished reading it aloud I suggested she might add more emotion, tell readers how these events made her feel. She took a moment to give my suggestion some consideration, and then answered in two simple words:

“I can’t.”

They’d be fools not to hire her

Erin Lukacovic lives in Colorado and has been volunteering as a puppy-raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) since she was 16 years old. She has applied for an apprenticeship to become a guide dog mobility instructor, and if anyone from GDB is reading this, hey: you’d be fools not to hire her! She not only loves the dogs, but she studies, researches, and reads everything she can get her hands on about guide dogs and the work that goes into training them. That’s how she found my book, my blog, and now… me! Whitney and I had a ball with Oscar, Erin and Erin’s family at Coors Field Tuesday night, and I was so pleased when Erin agreed to write this guest post about our Rockies rendezvous.

Laughter in the rain

by Erin Lukacovic

When I read on Beth Finke’s blog that she was coming to Denver I had hoped we might meet, carrying along the realistic expectation that nothing would probably come of it. But what

Beth, Erin, Whitney and Oscar at Coors Field

started as an idle comment on a blog post and a vague hope turned into a wonderful night at a baseball game filled with enthusiastic conversation.

Less than a week after leaving that comment to Beth’s post, I was on my way downtown to meet a fellow blogger and the author of a book I had found by chance at my college library a few years previous.

My last puppy-in-training, Matilda, has returned to campus in San Rafael, so I borrowed Oscar from someone else in our puppy raising club so he could get some socialization. We met Beth at her hotel and after a brief introduction, began the short walk to Coors Field.

Although Oscar was a little distracted, Whitney was composed as she led the way in a strange city. The only break in conversation was a short “you have the green” or “let’s go” as we crossed intersections. We entered Coors Field and found our seats. They were perfect for our purposes: just under the roof and protected from rain. We had a perfect aerial view of the field and even better acoustics: we could hear the strike of ball on bat as if it was yards away.

Our conversation continued throughout the game, touching on topics of puppy raising, family, writing, books, and training with a guide dog. We had a traditional baseball meal of a foot long dog, although the green pepper instead of the more common pickle relish was a little odd.

The game sadly ended in the middle of the 7th inning due to rain. Luckily however, the Rockies broke their losing streak to win against the Chicago Cubs 10-5, despite a lack in fan base. The walk back to the hotel was slightly less pleasant than the walk there. As you can see from the picture, the rain caused both people and dogs to become pretty drenched by the time we had completed our route. We said our goodbyes with a promise of meeting again in the future.

Catching up

Some updates on the people you read about this past summer here at the Safe & Sound blog:

• Let’s start with my husband Mike’s guest post about White Sox pitcher Chris Sale. Last night Mike and I took the El down and got cheap tickets at the last minute to see Sale face Detroit’s Cy Young winning Justin Verlander. Alas. A rain delay. We were left to enjoy our beers and polish sausage while watching the Bears game on the JumboTron at White Sox Park instead. In the end, the game was postponed altogether. We still have Love for Sale, though.
• A cousin in Ohio read the post I wrote about my brother Doug bringing his trombone along on a visit to Chicago and sitting in with some jazz bands here. He forwarded the post to his son and daughter-in-law in Chicago, and Jason and Keely surprised us at one of Doug’s gigs. Friends from the neighborhood came, too, and I had great fun showing off my big brother.
• When Chicago trombonist Tim Coffman taught at that Jazz Camp for adults that I attended in July, I had no idea he knew my brother Doug. The post I wrote about jazz camp described the difficult time I had keeping up with the other jazz campers, and Tim’s reaction when he ran into me at one of Doug’s gigs confirms I was not exaggerating. “You’re Doug Finke’s sister?”
• If you read Sandra Murillo’s guest post about her friend who competed in the 2012 London Paralympics, well, Anjali Forber-Pratt’s races did not go as well as she’d hoped. “I proudly wore my Team USA jerseys,” she said when asked about returning home without a medal. “And I had the experience of a lifetime racing in front of sold out crowds of 80,000 in the stadium.”
• After I mentioned in a post here that Molly Ringwald’s father is blind, her proud dad (and fantastic jazz pianist) Bob Ringwald sent me a link to another Interview she had regarding her new book. Molly is currently on a 15-day book tour, and my brother Doug may be playing with her dad in San Francisco later this month.
• After a guest post by Sue Martin was published here, another guest post she wrote was published on the blog of the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Health Information during National Suicide Prevention Week.
• If you were intrigued by my post about the essay I recorded for Race: Out Loud, they’ve archived the content created for the series. You can hear all of it now by linking to the WBEZ web site.
• I had such fun with the six-year-old great niece I blogged about in July that we invited her back. On her second visit, “Baby Flo” went on a field trip to the Old Town Aquarium store with her Great Uncle Mike. And I mean that word “Great” in every sense of the word.
• And lastly, speaking of great, a blog reader forwarded my post about chef Laura Martinez to an executive chef at a downtown Chicago restaurant. The chef had Laura in for an interview right away. From all accounts, her interview went well — she especially nailed it when asked how she handles challenges in the kitchen. The executive chef is looking to find a spot for Laura on his staff, and in the meantime, she is teaching a cooking class!

I’ll leave you here with the information about Chef Laura Martinez’s class. Sure wish I were 21 again so I could sign up. I could stand to learn from her knife skills!

Chef Laura Martinez is still hoping for a full-time gig. In the meantime, she’ll teach a cooking class for young adults.

The Chicago Lighthouse Vision Rehabilitation Center proudly presents cooking classes with
Chef Laura Martinez
Mondays, 5:00pm-7:00pm, September 24 – December 12
222 Waukegan Road, Glenview, IL 60025
Ages 13-21

Learn to cook: Chinese fried rice; pizza; brioche; couscous; “not your boxed” macaroni and cheese; Grandma’s recipes, and student requests.
Explore: the history and culture of the food of the week; menu planning; seasonal fruits and vegetables and budgetary factors.
Laura Martinez is a graduate of the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary program at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago. She is totally blind, and excels in knife skills and in her use of herbs and spices, through her senses of touch and smell. Her finished product is as accomplished as any young chef, although Laura had the prestigious honor of being a chef at one of Chicago’s highest rated restaurants, Charlie Trotters.
To register contact:
Pam Stern, Manager of Youth/Senior Programs
847.510.2054 or pam.stern@chicagolighthouse.org

Love for Sale

Here’s my husband Mike Knezovich back with another guest post.

Chris Sale stands 6’7” tall, weighs less than I do (I’m 5’ 10”) and when he’s on the mound pitching for the Chicago White Sox on a windy day, his uniform flaps around him like a loose nylon jacket on a

Mr. Bones, comin’ at ya.

speeding motorcyclist. Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers baseball announcer Vin Scully refers to him as “Mr. Bones.”

And I love him. Chris Sale that is. He’s won 15 games and lost five. He makes great hitters look like me when I was a little leaguer. And he is the quintessential White Sox story—that is, a great story, but still somehow not the story.

This Sunday night on ESPN, Sale will be on the mound against the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander—last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player. For true blue baseball fans, it’s a match made in heaven. For lots of casual fans, it will be the first they’ve heard or seen about Mr. Bones. That’s just the way it is with the Chicago White Sox. They’re like the solid big brother to their shrill drama queen little sister on the North Side.

I grew up in a household where both Chicago teams were always on the radio and TV. My mom and dad were both baseball fans, but my mom was the greater influence – Esther was the type who talked and yelled at the radio or TV during games. She grew up near Pittsburgh and worked summers as a waitress in Cleveland. An independent-minded woman who embodied feminism before that word existed, she was a fan of the great Bill Veeck, who owned the Cleveland Indians and eventually, the White Sox (in fact, he owned the White Sox two different times). Veeck put up the exploding scoreboard and (gasp) added players’ names to the back of their uniforms while he was here in Chicago. He also got Harry Caray to sing “Take Me out to the Ballgame” at Comiskey, introduced uniforms that included shorts, and oversaw the debacle/triumph known as “Disco Demolition.” He was not boring.

Veeck was a renegade who irked the establishment. Exactly the kind of person my mom adored. Between that and our proximity (when I and other school patrol boys got a special outing to a ball game, it was to Comiskey Park on the South Side), the Sox became mine, and I became theirs.

Almost heaven. Me at Game 1, 2005 World Series.

A friend who works in baseball once said to me, “It’s important to care deeply about something that doesn’t matter.” That’s how it is with baseball, and for me, with the White Sox. There has been heartbreak (Damn Yankees and others in the 50s and 60s, Oakland As during the 70s, the strike in ‘94) and indescribable joy (2005!).

Back in 1983, I introduced Beth to my parents at a game at old Comiskey Park. The day after our wedding, Beth and I and some dear friends who had traveled in from Washington, D.C went to a game. In July of 1985, just before our first wedding anniversary, Beth and I visited her eye doctor for a follow-up visit after a last-gasp surgery to save her eyesight. We learned that she would not see again.

Before heading back to Urbana to face our new reality, we drove to Comiskey to have a Polish sausage with onions (“wit” onions is the correct pronunciation), and take in a ball game. Twenty years later, in 2005, Beth and I and her Seeing Eye dog Hanni got seats in the handicapped section for the playoffs against Boston. Later, I sprung for game 1 of the World Series.

This year the White Sox are defying low expectations and leading their division. They’ve had a parade of rookie pitchers come through in the clutch. They have a rookie manager who’s never managed at any level before. A starting pitcher who is excelling after unprecedented surgery to fix a gruesome injury (a chest muscle tore free of the bone). They have Yankee castoffs (Jose Quintana and Dewayne Wise) and a Red Sox throwaway (Kevin Youkilis) starting. A guy from Cuba nicknamed “Tank” starts in left and one of his countrymen, Alexei Ramirez (“The Cuban Missile”) plays a sparkling shortstop.

It can be irksome, the way the White Sox story routinely gets lost in the shuffle. Then again, on a whim, Beth and I can decide to get on the Red Line, get off two stops later, get tickets at a decent price, have some great food, and see this phenomenal baseball team. So really, it’s just about right. They’re not a media sensation. They’re a baseball team. My baseball team.

P.S.

If you want to learn a little more about the White Sox, past and future, I hope you’ll read one of my favorite writers–Roger Wallenstein–at one of my favorite Web sites–The Beachwood Reporter. 

Perfection

My niece Jen and her husband Brian are flying in from Orlando later this morning to stay with us over the weekend. You might remember these two from a post I wrote last year when my previous Seeing Eye dog, the heroic Harper, helped me officiate Jen and Brian’s wedding.

Jen and Brian will be married in a civil ceremony today, and I’ll officiate the public ceremony tomorrow. I can read Braille, but I’m so slow at it that if I “read” my lines we’d all still be there Sunday waiting for the part where Brian finally gets to kiss the bride. So I’ve recorded all my lines on a cassette. I plan to have an earpiece in one ear and my finger on the “pause” button. The recorder will read a few sentences at a time, and I’ll repeat what I hear. I am so, so flattered to be asked to do this for Jennifer and Brian, and I could go on and on and on and on here about how terrific it makes me feel that they trust me with this honor.

That's Brian, the happy groom, walking me and Harper to the altar just before the ceremony began.

That wedding went on without a hitch. Jen and Brian are a perfect couple, and their happiness was contagious. The crowd at the reception was lighthearted, loving, and lively. Flo did the chicken dance, and the entire day was, well…perfect.

The visit to Chicago this weekend is a gift from Jen to Brian for his birthday –Brian is a Boston Red Sox fan, and she got him tickets to see them play the White Sox with us this Saturday night.

The game tomorrow will mark just one week since White Sox pitcher Philip Humber pitched a perfect game. There’s been a lot in the news about it — he was put on waivers until the White Sox picked him up, he wasn’t a regular major league starter until just last year – but one important fact has been lost in all the celebration.

The perfect game was played away, in Seattle. I was listening on TV, and the Mariner fans were strikingly quiet after the very last pitch. But as the announcers chatted away, describing Humber’s teammates piling up on him in celebration, I listened closely and heard the crowd slowly swell up in applause.

Those Seattle Mariner fans are one classy bunch. They lost the game, but they witnessed perfection, and they appreciated what they saw. They were a perfect audience.

It is very cold in Chicago this weekend. Our Florida family members will probably have to borrow winter coats and gloves for tomorrow night’s game, but hey – sitting in the stands, watching baseball with people we love? We’ll be perfectly happy. Go Sox!

Settling in

White Sox home opener, 2012. Hot dogs, fireworks, Jack Ingram singing the national anthem, cheering, a fly-over. Both pitchers settled in right from the start, but it took Whitney a little longer — it was the fifth inning before she could sit down!

The White Sox put on a great show – Mike and I had a ball. It was one heck of a well-played, entertaining baseball game. If you appreciate the game, you appreciate great defense, and there was a lot of it: a diving catch in left field by Dayan Viciedo, and shortstop Alexei Ramirez started a double play with a terrific play behind second. Jake Peavy, who suffered a horrendous injury (a muscle literally tore off the bone) two years ago pitched great. The Detroit starter, Max Scherzer, was almost as good for most of the game, so the game went quickly.

Whitney doesn’t yet appreciate the game, so I’m afraid her favorite part of the day was trotting down the ramp to leave the park and go home!

Opening Day started a week of firsts for Whitney. It’s Spa Week in Chicago, so I’ll be celebrating Monday, getting my first massage since coming home with Whitney in December. Will she sit quietly for the entire hour? We’ll see.

And then, this Wednesday Whitney takes a train with me to Champaign where she’ll be asked to sit through her first university lecture: I’m giving a talk to an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois. I plan on telling the students what it’s been like transitioning to a new Seeing Eye dog, then going over some of the qualifications necessary to become a guide dog instructor. Most guide dog schools require instructors to have a college degree and then do an apprenticeship, and some apprenticeships last as long as four years.

Considering that guide dog schools are non-profit organizations, I would guess the pay for apprentices and instructors is far below what a lot of today’s college educated people expect to earn. If you’re looking for job satisfaction, though, this kind of work must be pretty dang rewarding – I’m hoping my talk might motivate some of these University of Illinois students to consider it as a career. I’m also hoping Whitney will settle in to her first university lecture a whole lot faster than she did for her first baseball game – there won’t be any fireworks or hot dogs, and everything I’ll be talking about will be old news to her!

Another great-grandchild for Flo: Addie Rose.

We’ll cap off our week of firsts on Friday when Whitney will attend her first birthday party for Flo, who will be 96 years old on April 20. We’ll ride a commuter train to Elmhurst and meet Flo and other family members to celebrate at the wine bar across from the train station. No need to bring presents; Flo says she already got the gift she wanted. Her 20th great-grandchild, a healthy little girl named Addie Rose, was born on Friday. We’ve got a lot to celebrate, and It’s going to be one joyful celebration. Cheers!

Next thing you know, I’ll be writing for Hallmark

I didn’t buy a lottery ticket last week. I wasn’t afraid of the odds, I just knew money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.

I know, I know. Too many pink Sweet ‘n’ Low packets. But hey, it’s not all saccharine. There really is evidence-based research on this lottery happiness thing.

Back in 1978, psychologists from Northwestern University right here in Chicago published a study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Our Illinois State Lottery had just begun back then, and the researchers asked 22 winners to rate their happiness months after the initial elation of winning the big bucks. In addition, they asked the winners how much pleasure they were taking in mundane activities like reading a magazine or meeting friends for coffee. Then they interviewed 58 people who had not won the lottery but lived in the same neighborhoods as the winners. The results showed that months after the winners were announced, the non-winners were just about as happy as the lottery winners, And by then the so-called losers were finding much more pleasure in everyday activities than the winners were.

As long as they were at it, the researchers decided to interview 29 people who were injured in accidents that same lottery year, too. In each case, the accident left the victim paralyzed. After initial sadness and depression, the newly-disabled people rated their pleasure in everyday activities slightly higher than that of the lottery winners, and their life satisfaction was nearly the same.

Interesting.

It’s Monday. After I finish the cup of coffee Mike made and poured for me after we woke up together this morning, I’ll flip on the radio and listen to some pop music while getting dressed. Ben Folds? Jackson Five? Warren Zevon? Stevie Wonder? From there I’ll head outside with Whitney. It’s a cool, sunny, spring morning in Chicago. Maybe we’ll take the long way home, listen for birds, smell the lilacs.

Back in the apartment, I’ll spend a few hours on my part-time job for Easter Seals and then give Flo a call. She’ll tell me about everyone who phoned her over the weekend. She’ll say how much she is looking forward to sitting outside today and let me know what she has planned for the rest of the week. Her credo is to do only one thing each day that takes her out of her apartment. No more, no less.

Flo is one happy woman.

Our call will end the way it always does. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too.” Flo turns 96 later this month.

Out with Whitney again. Maybe this time I’ll brush her, too. Mike is working from home today, so I might listen to a book while waiting for him to finish. I’m re-reading my favorite book from childhood, one my older brothers and sisters read aloud to me when they were teaching me to read: The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

After my trip to the 100 Acre Wood? Off to Costco! I’ll hang on to the back of the cart, eavesdrop on people from all walks of life, try to decipher the dozens of foreign languages I hear, all while Mike pulls us through the aisles. He’ll stop periodically, say “Feel this!” and drop an enormous oversized jar of some unknown substance into my hands. “Miracle Whip!” he’ll exclaim with glee. I always roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh, too. And I can’t help but relish, ahem, the $1.50 hot dog and pop we enjoy before we leave. Free refills, too!

After unloading the Land of the Giants groceries at home, we might slink over to Hackney’s to share some wine with friends: Mondays are half-price bottle nights.

Back in our apartment building, if our favorite maintenance man James is working, we’ll stop and talk baseball before stepping into the elevator. Opening day is coming up, Chicago! A dear old college friend emailed today to say he can’t make it to the White Sox home opener on April 13. He’s mailing us his tickets. For free. Who wouldn’t think they’d won the lottery after a day like today? And the thing that makes me the happiest: I didn’t even buy a ticket!

And to all a good night

I am the youngest of seven, and I have 16 nieces and nephews. Eleven of those nieces and nephews have children of their own. A new grand-niece is on the way, and one of my nieces has two grandchildren already! As my husband Mike Knezovich likes to say, “It’s not a family. It’s a nation!”

Buying Christmas gifts for this brood is out of the question. So we pick names instead. But here’s the rub: you have to make a gift for the person you choose.

Mike chose our six-year-old grand-niece AnnMarie this year. Our dear friend Siobhan might describe AnnMarie as suffering from “verbal incontinence.” In polite terms, we might say that AnnMarie has strong verbal skills. When Uncle Mike tires of hearing AnnMarie talk, he gives her a maniacal look and repeats, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” until AnnMarie stops blabbing, shrieks in laughter and runs away. Works every time.

I told you he's maniacal.

Through the magic of the internet, Mike discovered Target sells $12 DIY snow globes. “Our Photo Snow globes are fast and easy; No gluing required. Just follow the included template to cut your photo or artwork, and slide it into place.” What made this particular DIY snow globe that Mike found especially special was that one could make a recording, too. The lucky recipient of this gift can press a button on the bottom of the snow globe and hear your personalized holiday message.

Mike the maniacal Christmas elf got to work. He slid his close-up photo into the globe, recorded himself repeating “blah, blah, blah” over and over, and wrote an instruction card for AnnMarie:

• Step 1: Press the button on the bottom.
• Step 2: Run away!

And you know what? It worked! AnnMarie opened her gift, laughed at the funny picture of Uncle Mike, pressed the button, shrieked, and ran away! She did this so many times that her mother finally had to take the snow globe away from her with a promise she could play with it that night when they got home.

Without the Blah Blah Snow Globe to distract her, AnnMarie started talking again. I called her over. “Have you ever heard of this word?” I asked her, pronouncing e-a-v-e-s-d-r-o-p-p-i-n-g slowly enough for her to take in each and every syllable. “People who are blind like me are pretty good at it, you don’t look at the people you’re eavesdropping on,” I told her. “Just close your eyes, be quiet and listen.” I demonstrated. Keying in on a conversation behind us, I heard AnnMarie’s Uncle Ben mention a man’s name to Mike: Robin Ventura. Next it was Theo Epstein. Rebuilding. “They’re talking about baseball,” I whispered to AnnMarie. “They say the new year will be interesting to watch.” She said “oh” and raced off to play with her cousins.

Our little family really scored with the homemade gifts we received this year. Our great-nephew Grant made a desk lamp for Mike, and our son Gus will stay warm in Watertown, Wisc. Wrapped in the Snuggie his Godmother Caren decorated with Milwaukee Brewers logos. My present from AnnMarie’s dad isn’t quite finished yet, so I got a “substitute” gift: With the help and patience of her big sister Anita, AnnMarie read and recorded the book The Night Before Christmas for me to listen to.

AnnMarie (with some help from big sister Anita) recorded a wonderful talking book for me.

I am not a weeper, but I about cried as AnnMarie turned the pages for me to listen to her recorded voice reading that poem. How thoughtful! How sweet! The Night before Christmas is no easy read, and it’s fun to hear this little girl struggle – and succeed—at reading phrases like “droll little mouth” and “nothing to dread.”

My 95-year-old mother, Flo, enjoyed listening to the book with me, too. Flo sat right next to me the entire night, describing each homemade gift as it was unveiled: jigsaw puzzle, barbecue rub, homemade play-doh, bracelets, painted pint glasses, a fleece blanket decorated in school colors. Even Whitney got a gift: my sister Cheryl bought her a homemade fleece pull-toy at a craft fair. My personal favorite (after the Blah, Blah Snow Globe, of course!) was the energy drink my nephew Brian made for his cousin Colin. The drink is called “Colinade.”

After the festivities, Flo brought up more serious stuff. Her good friend Dorothy had died on Friday. Dorothy had always been a big help to my mom, very caring, always wearing a smile. “You’re going to miss her.” Flo nodded, then reached out to hold my hand.

My friend Denny and his sister Maureen had lost their mom on Friday, too. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to attend both funerals. Flo understood. Babies cried, wrapping paper was collected, teenagers called out NBA scores from downstairs, and Flo squeezed my hand until a certain six-year-old tapped my arm to interrupt the moment.

Me: AnnMarie! I didn’t know you were there!

AnnMarie:I was eavesdropping.

Me:What’d you learn?

AnnMarie: You were talking about funerals.

She left then, and the chaos continued. And so, life is too short, friendships are precious, we learn far more by listening than we do by talking, and it is a joy to be around those we

At the end of the evening, we Skyped with Caren and Mark's family, who live in Minneapolis. Flo wasn't really believing what she was seeing and hearing.

love. I could go on and on about how poignant this particular holiday season has been for me, but hey, we don’t want to make poor Mike feel pressured to make another Blah Blah Snow Globe for me this time, right?! I will end here instead, leaving you with the final line of one beautifully read holiday poem: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.