Stay tuned

Seems like anytime an employer goes out of the way to thank you, you can bet on it: you’re being let go. Last week I got an email from WBEZ thanking me for the essays I’ve recorded for them over the years. The note went on to say WBEZ is reorganizing their local programming to emphasize live shows. They hope their new formatting will encourage listeners to comment on social media or phone in live and in person. Translation: they will no longer be airing pre-recorded essays like the ones I used to write for them.

Let’s be honest. I’m pretty lucky that WBEZ took me on to write essays in the first place. It sure felt cool to jump into a cab with Hanni or Harper and ask the driver to take me to Chicago Public Radio. So many times the driver was listening to WBEZ as we drove — one of them even asked for my autograph!

And what a kick it was to have someone call or stop me on the street after one of my essays aired. “I heard you on NPR!” they’d say. Or, “I thought the voice sounded familiar, and when I, like, waited until the end, they said it was. It was, like, you!” It was a very, very good run, and I’m sorry to seehear it come to an end.

The WBEZ arts editor did write to ask me to come and meet with her personally to see what this shift might mean for me, so I’m heading over to the WBEZ studio with Whitney tomorrow. Will it be my very last trip there? I hope not. Gee, guess we’ll all have to, ahem, stay tuned to find out.

The Circle Is Unbroken

As Whitney and I prepare for our trip to Hendricks Elementary School this morning, my husband Mike Knezovich weighs in with a guest post:

Beth listens to the radio a lot, and she listens with more attention than most. Last week she heard about a special show at a very special place: Levon

That's The Old Town School's new logo.

Helm and his current Grammy-winning band (not The Band of yore) playing a benefit for the Old Town School of Folk Music. With special guest Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. And warmup Shawn Mullins.

That’s a lot of goodness in one place, so we made an impulse buy. And on the night of St. Patrick’s Day, we traveled to Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood for the benefit.

That's the inside of Maurer Hall, the performance space at The Old Town School.

The Old Town School of Folk Music is a music venue, but more important, it’s a part of the fabric of Chicago. Thousands of kids and adults from all over Chicago take lessons there every week. Who knows how many have picked up a guitar or mandolin or cello or whatever since the school opened in 1957. Beth and I have a half-dozen friends who’ve taken up instruments and taken music lessons there. And they all speak glowingly of their experience.

Before the performance Saturday night, we browsed the silent auction. Instead of sports memorabilia or luxury cruises, this one had lots of concert posters and handwritten playlists and other music memorabilia. One photo froze me in my tracks. There he was, a baby-faced John Prine, probably in his 20s, strumming his guitar while sitting next to the fairly ramshackle registration desk at the original Old Town School location. Hello in There.

There were photos of — and music by — Steve Goodman, the writer of The City of New Orleans. Like Prine, he was an Old Town School icon, but Steve Goodman died way too young. Everywhere I turned, I saw artifacts. Performers from Bob Dylan to Peter, Paul and Mary to Pete Seeger to Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Levon can still drum. And he even sang a little.

The performance? Well, I’m still buzzing. Levon took his place at the drum set, aided by a second drummer. There was a trombone, two saxes, a trumpet, a Hammond B3, a bassist, two guitarists, and two terrific backup singers (though the term backup doesn’t do these women justice) including Levon Helm’s daughter Amy. And Donald Fagen at the electric piano with ultra-cool jazzman sunglasses. The band broke from lots of rootsy numbers into a couple Fagen/Steely Dan tunes, including “Black Friday,” and they did it perfectly. All the musicians were superb. None of the crowd was fiddling with their cell phones, all were enrapt.

Levon, who’s in his 70s now and has survived cancer, looked scrawny and a little frail, yet somehow he seemed to look exactly as he always has. I remember seeing him in The Last Waltz at The Lans Theater in my hometown — Lansing, Ill, in 1974. It was a film of The Band’s farewell performance – directed by Martin Scorscese. Even then, Levon Helm looked old and wise. I was all of 17.

But Saturday night, ages and dates and numbers didn’t matter. I didn’t feel old. I didn’t feel young. I just felt great. Here’s to Levon Helm and to the Old Town School.

This is your brain on music

I happened to catch Daniel Levitin (the author of This Is Your Brain on Music) on the Commonwealth Club on NPR a few weeks ago, and I was so intrigued by the interview that I went online to hear it again last night. This time I took notes!

Dr Daniel Levitin is a cognitive psychologist who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal, and he said music is involved in every region of the brain scientists have mapped so far. Music is processed in the emotional part of the brain. It stays deep in our long-term memory.

Research shows that listening to music releases certain chemicals in the brain. Dopamine, a “feel-good hormone” is released every time you listen to music you like. Listening to music with someone else can also release prolactin, a hormone that bonds people together. And if you sing together? You release oxytocin, which causes feelings of trust.

I have happy memories of singing “Shine on Harvest Moon” during car rides with my sisters and Flo, I am still bonded to friends I made in my high school band, and yes, I do get a happy feeling whenever I hear a good tune. Everythinghe Levitin said about hormones made perfect sense to me, but his claim later on that humans develop a taste for music by the time we are five years old seemed a bit outlandish.

Then again, my brother Doug did buy us that piano when I was three or four years old, and when I flip through our CD collection, what do I find? A heavy dose of piano players. Randy Newman. Todd Rundgren. Stevie Wonder. Joni Mitchell. Marcus Roberts. Ben Folds Five. Maybe that Levitin guy is on to something after all.

I’m off to play the stereo now. Bring on the dopamine! What music do you like to listen to? Leave a comment — I’d love to hear what sort of music gets you high.

A tribute to Eddie Finke

My dad died when I was three. I don’t really remember him — or even the evening he died. But my older brothers and sisters — who have kept his spirit alive for me over the years with stories about him — certainly do remember that night. Today I am especially grateful to my sister Cheryl for writing this guest post as we remember our dad.

Dion and Daddy

by Cheryl May

That's Cheryl's yearbook picture when she was 15 years old.

Fifty years ago, on January 6, 1962, I was waiting for my friends to pick me up to go to the Elmhurst Youth Center to dance and just hang out together. This is what a 15 year old looked forward to on the weekend. While I waited, I watched The Red Skelton Hour with my dad. No one had T.V. sets in their bedrooms back then, but this small black and white T.V. was sitting on their bedroom dresser.

My dad had been sent home from work a few weeks earlier because he wasn’t feeling well. After a visit to the doctor he was told to get some bed rest and not to exert himself. This was a lot to ask during the Christmas season with five of his seven children still living at home. It was the first time I put the lights on the Christmas tree — a job my Dad had done previous years.

Family and friends came over to celebrate Christmas like always, but daddy didn’t move from his bed — everyone took turns visiting with him in his bedroom. Mom took good care of Daddy and we even rigged up a “new found contraption” that let him read a book while lying flat on his back.

On that evening of January 6, as I waited to go out dancing, Daddy and I talked about the popular music I listened to on the radio. Daddy loved music. He sang with the Illinois State Champion Lions Barbershop Quartet and was a member of The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA). A popular song in 1962 was “Runaround Sue” by Dion and the Belmonts. We talked about the song and Dad said he liked it. I thought that was pretty neat that my dad could like all kinds of music. My friends arrived, and my dad said, “Have a good time!” I squeezed his hand and told him to rest. That was to be the last conversation I ever

Eddie and Flo clearly enjoyed their time together.

have with my dad.

I arrived home later that evening and found Mom sitting quietly in the kitchen with our neighbor Marion. They told me to sit down. “Your dad had a heart attack,” they said. I was not prepared to hear the rest. “He died at home. An ambulance took him away.” I put my head down and sobbed. I would never see or hear my dad again.

After wearing myself out crying, I walked down the hallway to the bedroom I shared with one of my little sisters and caught a familiar smell of my dad from his jacket in the closet. I went and found a picture of my dad taken at my sister Bobbie’s wedding a couple years before. I put it on the table next to my bed.

A while later I heard the back door open. My older brother was home. I had never heard my brother cry like that before. I stared at my picture of Daddy. I was afraid I would forget what he looked like as time went by.

Our lives changed that day 50 years ago. I got a work permit and got a part time job as a waitress after school and on weekends. Mom found a job in a bakery. Our family pulled together and we made it through some tough times.

Daddy was 47 years old when he died. Over the years I would think of all the good times he was missing with his family. I’d think of Daddy when I was at a parade in town, or when my brother took my sister to a Father-Daughter dance at school, or when I’d hear Mom crying quietly in church. When I think of all Daddy missed, I think of what we missed, too. But I sometimes see his smile, his patience, his kindness or his quiet sense of humor when I look at my children and grandchildren. And whenever I hear Dion and the Belmonts I smile at the memory of our last time together.

Update on Harper

Dude has a new toy.

A few weeks ago I recorded an essay about Harper’s early retirement for Chicago Public Radio, and the piece aired last Tuesday onWBEZ.

Harper didn’t retire until a few days after I recorded the essay, so he was there in the studio sitting quietly at my feet while I sat at the microphone. I don’t cry during the recording, but if you listen closely you’ll hear me get a little choked up. I had assumed my terrific producer Joe DeCeault would cover up my stammers with music, but I guess he decided my verbal stumbles help tell Harper’s story. It’s all me. No sound effects.

Harper’s new family heard the piece, and Chris e-mailed Mike to send a review:

I heard Beth on the radio the other day – her and Harper’s story is always so moving and when I share it with others, they also seem touched by the two of them.

You know what? I find Harper’s new chapter with Larry and Chris very moving, too. I am touched by the three of them.

Chris updates Mike on Harper regularly, and they’ve found that taking him off leash and just walking alongside Harper makes him feel at ease. Soon as the leash goes back on, though, Harper shows anxiety again. Handsome Harper is charming all the neighbors, Chris says, and even George the cat comes out of his hiding place from time to time to say hello to Harper. The biggest news of all, as far as harper is concerned: Larry and Chris bought him a new squeak toy.

If you missed hearing the Harper essay on the radio last Tuesday, you can still check it out online. Listen closely, and maybe you’ll hear the little charmer jiggling at my feet!

Be careful out there

There's our boy with me at the park just outside our place. Gonna' miss him, but he'll be happy in peaceful surroundings. (Photo by Mary Ivory)

Harper and I head to the Chicago Public Radio studios on Navy Pier tomorrow to record an essay about his early retirement. Plenty of CTA buses go from our neighborhood to Navy Pier, but ever since my Seeing Eye dog was clipped by a car last Spring, he’s afraid to take me across the street to the bus stop. We’ll be taking a cab.

An organization called Transportation for America reports that a pedestrian in America is hit by a vehicle every seven minutes. Our friend Dean Fischer was one of those statistics – he suffered a major shoulder injury after getting hit from behind while crossing at Jackson in downtown Chicago. Staff at Northwestern’s emergency room told Dean that they take care of seven or eight people a day who’ve been hit by cars.

Cell phones weren’t around back in the dark ages (hmm, in my case I probably oughta refer to them as “light” ages…!) when I was still able to get behind the wheel. I can only imagine how tempting it must be to send a quick text or answer a phone call while on the road. I’m hoping that Harper’s story might encourage drivers to think twice about that, though.

Harper moves to his retirement home this weekend. I dread saying goodbye to him, so I focus instead on the trips we’re taking during our last few days together. We’ll have fun in the Chicago Public Radio studio tomorrow, and if any good can come of my gentle sweet two-year-old Yellow Lab’s early retirement, maybe it will be to convince radio listeners who hear it to put their phones away, keep their eyes on the road and prevent one more two-footed or four-footed creature from getting hurt.

On the move, and on the air

The memoir-writing class will be there celebrating Wanda’s 90th on Wednesday. Wanda is to my left in the photo (the far right as you look at it).

When I asked Wanda Bridgeforth what she wanted me to bring her for her 90th birthday, she didn’t hesitate. “Harper!” she said. “Bring him to class!”

Wanda is an animal lover. You might remember the beautiful letter she wrote when it came time for Hanni, my Seeing Eye dog, to retire last year. Harper may not be able to handle traffic anymore, but that won’t keep him away on Wednesday. We’ll take a cab.

Wanda joined our memoir-writing class five years ago, and she’s only missed class once in all that time. With her daughter’s help, she self-published On The Move( the first volume of her own memoir) in 2009. Wanda has had a significant hearing loss since childhood, and she sits right next to me during class so she doesn’t miss a word. This turns out to be a privilege for me: I get to hear everything Wanda says, too!

In her 90 years, Wanda has lived in more than 50 different apartments or houses. Her mother was a “domestic” and had to leave Wanda every Sunday to take off and live at the houses she took care of. Wanda lived with one relative one week, a friend the next, and sometimes, with complete strangers. “I tell you, Beth” she said to me once. “I could tell you stories about growing up that would make the hair curl on a bald man’s head.”

A number of Wanda’s hair-raising stories will be included in On The Move, Volume Two, which she hopes to have out by this Christmas.

And speaking of 90-year-olds with published memoirs, if you happen to have missed Hanna Bratman’s interview on Chicago’s WGN Radio Sunday morning, never fear: you can download the interview from Rick Kogan’s web site. Rick Kogan introduced her on air as his “favorite new writer,” and said she was “a natural” on the radio. And once the microphones were off? He whispered to me, “She’s a doll!” I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks her back. And next time, we’ll bring fellow nonagenarian memoirist Wanda Bridgeforth along, too.

A note from the author

That's Hanna, the author. (Photo by Nora Isabel Bratman)

Loyal blog readers will remember Hanna Bratman, the matriarch of the memoir-writing class I teach for Chicago senior citizens every Wednesday. Hanna grew up in Germany. Her family was Jewish, and Hanna escaped on her own before World War II. She was only 19 years old when she arrived, alone, in the United States. Others in her family didn’t make it out in time.

Francine Rich from Blue Marlin Publications read an excerpt of one of Hanna’s essays posted here on my blog and was so moved by it that she volunteered to edit and compile Hanna’s collection of essays into a readable format. When she finished, she decided to go ahead and publish them into a book for Hanna. Francine’s husband Jude got involved, going online to find images and photographs from the time periods Hanna wrote about. Their son Dominick designed the cover.

Francine titled the collection”What’s In My Head” after something Hanna’s mother had said when tensions started building in the early 1930s. “Hitler won’t last,” Hanna’s mother told her daughter back then, reassuring her that things would change soon. “You know, they can take everything away from you, except of what’s in your head.”

Hanna’s family surprised her with the book last weekend when they were all here in Chicago for Yom Kippur. The best way to describe Hanna’s reaction is to excerpt a note she sent afterwards:

When my daughter Rudy announced on Saturday night after the Holy day dinner that she had an announcement to make, she made sure that I was listening. I expected her to probably announce that my Great Grandson Eli at 4 months was now able to sit in his high chair or slept through the night. The whole family and friends had assembled around the dining room table, standing room only. Rudy was next to me and reached into the bag that was hanging on the back of the chair. “Mom, You are the author of this book.” Applause. I am looking at the book, not quite comprehending what I am looking at. The first thing I recognized was the picture of the Synagogue in Mannheim, I still don’t realize, that this is the book of my stories. I am totally speechless, I am dreaming this, it cannot be true.

Hanna said she had come to the dinner with her daughter’s family and had quite a bundle to carry when it came time for her son’s family to drive her home.

That's Francine on the right, publisher of "Hanni and Beth Safe & Sound" and "What's in My Head." Her husband Jude is on the left.

I am not only carrying some delicious leftovers but also 10 copies of my very own book. I hardly slept that night thinking of all the many people that have helped me to make this dream a very sudden reality, and all the friends and few relatives who would want to have a copy sooner rather than later. Given my age and energy level nobody ever expected that this book ever will become a reality. I, Hanna L. Bratman has reinvented herself as the author of her memoires, of a beautiful book. Francine I am adjusting to this. The word THANK YOU does not adequately describe how I feel.

I fully well appreciate the many hours you have spend with me, a total stranger, the sacrifices of your family and to see the whole thing through including the publishing and printing.

THANK YOU ALL.

Francine had dozens of copies made for Hanna. “I don’t want her reimbursing me,” Francine told me. “The book is being presented to her as a gift and should be “regifted” to others in the same fashion.”

Author Hanna Bratman will be appearing on Rick Kogan’s “Sunday Papers” radio show on WGN-Am 720 in Chicago this Sunday, October 16 at 7:00 a.m. to talk about her book and how it got published. If you’re awake that early on a Sunday morning, listen in!

A note from Clara

That's Clara Livingston on the right, with her pals Allie and Glen, at last year's walk.

Chicago Public Radio asked me to write a commentary about stem cell research back in 2004. In the recorded piece I mention a couple girls I know who have Type 1 diabetes:

Raechel is 13, goes to Prairie Middle School in Barrington, and loves to dance. Clara just turned eight. She goes to Lincolnwood Elementary in Evanston and can’t wait for summer, when she can head to the pool and go feet first down the water slide.
Both girls have worn insulin pumps. Both prick their fingers six or more times a day to monitor their blood sugar levels.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (also known as juvenile diabetes) 45 years ago. Insulin pumps and home blood monitoring devices were not available when I was a little girl. Thanks to those advancements, Raechel and Clara have a good chance of avoiding the disease’s dreaded complications – including blindness.

I pointed out in my commentary how much Raechel and Clara have already benefited from research and technology. “But without more research, both girls will have to continue living with the disease.” I told public radio listeners that I can’t know whether stem cell research will find a cure for diabetes, or if it will help prevent rejection to those of us who opt for new islet cells or a new pancreas. “But I sure wish we could find out.”

Those two little girls I mentioned in my radio piece are lovely young women now. Raechel is in college, and Clara goes to Evanston High School. Time flies, but still there is no cure for diabetes.

Our dear friend Russ is Raechel’s dad. Every year he rides in the century bike ride Ride to Cure Diabetes to raise money for diabetic research. Mike rode with him a few years ago, too. Clara’s family participates in the annual Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes in Chicago every year, and that’s going on tomorrow, Sunday, October 2. There’s still time to pledge online to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and join in the search for ways to cure, better treat and prevent Type 1 diabetes. Here’s Clara’s letter explaining why this is so important.

Hello! This year, we’ll once again be taking part in JDRF’s Walk to Cure Diabetes, along with one-half million other walkers across the country, as we try to reach our goal of raising $89 million.

I was diagnosed at the age of four years old. Over the past eleven years I have raised over $133,000! This year we hope to top $150,000 total. This can only be done through your generosity and support.

JDRF is our best hope for finding a cure. It funds more type 1 diabetes research than any other charity worldwide and it’s making progress along many promising paths toward better treatments and a cure. We are asking you to help support our fundraising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible gift will help make a difference in the lives of people with type 1 diabetes.

It is faster and easier than ever to donate. Simply click on this link to donate online.

Any amount, great or small, helps JDRF get closer to its goal of finding better treatments and a cure for type 1 diabetes. We greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on our progress.

Sincerely,

Clara Livingston

If you prefer mailing a gift check to JDRF in Clara’s name, leave a comment here and I’ll email you the Livingston’s mailing address. If you choose to donate by check, you should make the check out to JDRF, just make sure to include “Livingston Family Team” in the memo section. Thanks to all of you for taking time to understand what juvenile diabetes is all about, and…go, Clara, go!

Seeing a bigger picture

Harper and I head to Madison, Wisconsin today, and one of the things we’ll be doing there is this:

Apart from the conference, Madison is one my favorite destinations.

“The Lindbergh Lectures”
Thursday, September 29
12:00 – 12:50 PM
Room 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building
“Seeing a Bigger Picture”
Beth Finke
NPR commentator, Teacher and Journalist
Author of “Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound”

Abstract:

Thanks in large part to assistive technology, people like Beth Finke, who are blind, live full, creative and pleasurable lives. But what if AT researchers stretched the boundaries even further? Beth Finke discusses the assistive technology she relies on today and the AT on her “What if?” list.

My “Seeing a Bigger Picture” lecture is free and open to the public. It’s in conjunction with AT Expo 2011 at the University of Wisconsin (also free and open to the public), and I was invited by Jay Martin, the director of the University of Wisconsin’s Assistive Rehabilitation and Technology Design sequence. Jay and I met last year when we appeared on a public radio show about technology that helps people who have disabilities.

Jay walked my (now retired) Seeing Eye dog Hanni and me to the University of Wisconsin Union after our interview, and that walk gave me a chance to ask him one question that didn’t get asked over the radio. “What motivated you to get involved in assistive technology in the first place?“ That’s when he told me about his son’s accident. Liam, now age 27, was paralyzed in a diving accident in 1999. From a University of Wisconsin article:

At the time of Liam’s accident, Martin was director of UW–Madison’s Engine Research Center and had studied internal combustion for nearly 20 years. But upon returning to work after his son left the hospital, he found that disabilities, rather than engines, were constantly on his mind.

Jay talked to a mentor in the engineering department about switching his research focus to assistive technology. A number of his colleagues were interested in doing similar research, and in 2002 the Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (UW-CREATe) was born, taking an engineer’s approach to improving the lives of people with disabilities. Again from that UW article:

Today, more than 10 faculty and staff researchers and four times as many undergraduate and graduate students carry out the center’s academic goals of teaching, learning and research.

Jay urged me to come to the AT Expo last year, and I’m sure glad I did. In addition to being exposed to all sorts of new technology, I got to meet his son.

Liam finished high school with his graduating class and went on to receive a degree in psychology from University of Wisconsin. When I met him last year, he was working at a booth at AT Expo as a mentor for Midwest Alliance, an effort to encourage students with disabilities toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math. He noticed me there struggling with my cell phone to call for the hotel shuttle to pick me up. “Would it be easier if we gave you a ride?” he asked. “I’ve gotta go back to my office anyway.” He and his colleague Chris ended up chauffeuring me back to the hotel.

This year I’ll be a bit more high-tech savvy, what with my talking iPhone and all. But if asked, I’ll sure let Chris and Liam chauffeur me home again.