The Purloined Play Lot

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Play lot

In 1984, a tiny Lutheran grade school on Chicago’s North Side received an infrastructure upgrade in the form of a small rear play lot. This was an exciting event for the student body. At the time Pilgrim Lutheran did not have a gymnasium (I believe it still does without) although the auditorium was suitable for physical education because there was no permanent seating to be considered. But a new park, hidden within the school’s property like a small faux green oasis! For a then-working class, inner city neighborhood institution, it seemed so luxurious.

The two most vivid memories I have from my days on the play lot both involve music videos. This is as it must be. In 1986 Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” from the True Blue album was everything. It definitely was for young Becky. I recall sitting on the tire bridge with a few of my little gal pals having one heck of a singalong. Knowing every lyric and note as though they were the Gospel read in First Communication class, I was the envy of all. A self-aware eight year-old with a rough home life rarely experiences that level of peer triumph.

That same year, I was enthralled by Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” – song as well as MTV experience. Trying to duplicate one of the band members’ high-wire stage floats, I stood atop the play lot’s multi-colored, metal geodesic dome structure. I’m an infamous klutz so you can probably predict what ensued. I did a half flip off the dome that concluded with my person lying on the AstroTurf in an ignominious heap, head colliding hard with the bottom rung. I escaped concussion but the Jon Bon Jovi stage diving career was over.

Last week Tuesday, the day after birthday number 38, Bob, Jude and I walked down the alley behind our building to find the play lot lying on the school’s basketball court in disassembled pieces. From my vantage point since moving in with Bob in June 2015, I’ve watched my alma mater grow in population and funding, using its resources to make positive investments in facilities and programming. I’m proud to see the institution that counts my maternal grandparents, mother, sister and I as emeritus, surviving and thriving.

But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the play lot without warning. Self-inflicted head injuries aside, nothing bad ever happened to me there. There aren’t a lot of environments about which I can say this from that period of my life. I took a disbelieving Bob for a viewing of the site on our first date. He’d lived 150 feet away from the mini-playground for three and a half years without ever suspecting its existence. It was a safe, happy space that felt like the special secret of 22 years’ worth of children who passed through Pilgrim’s hallways. Kids like myself who had no other place to channel Madonna with abandon.

I have no idea what they plan to do replace the old turf and dismantled equipment. I was hoping that the project workers would move pieces of the geodesic dome into the alley dumpster, where I’d look for an advantageous time to swipe a memento. A metal bar that may once have supported my small head. But it seems like there was an independent pickup of the play lot’s remains. I hope it means the stomping grounds of my early childhood will be rebuilt somewhere else, allowing spirited little girls to perform modern musical acrobatics.

Change is a necessary part of life, although it would be swell if it were less painful. I’m keeping an open mind. For all I know the old play lot simply made way for something even more thrilling. A place to build new memories. School starts again next week and Bob and I can always use a date night.

Are You Ready for Some Football Wrigleyville Nation? Probably Not

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Cubs

“This season has been an emotional roller coaster. Wrigleyville Nation hasn’t been able to look away for a minute. And with the Cubs’ back to being the best team in baseball, with certain playoff odds (Don’t take my word – as of this morning, Baseball Prospectus lists them at 100 percent), I have little energy or enthusiasm for a fantasy draft. How we can we possibly think of football at a time like this?!

Obviously this post is written with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek, but just a little. My NFL fantasy league draft is set for September 4 and I have to give the commitment some real thought. In years prior, I welcomed gridiron distractions from lackluster baseball seasons, but this is the dawn of a new era. If the baseball gods smile fortunately upon the North Side of Chicago, we’ll be watching Cubs action through October – eight full weeks past the NFL kickoff. What’s a sports fan with only so much emotional bandwidth to do?”

Read the full post at Wrigleyville Nation.

Hillary Clinton’s Patriotic Ride Reinforces DNC 2016’s Savvy, Inclusive Message

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clinton001

“I never understood why the left let most of the 2000s and a good part of this decade pass playing defense. As if somehow wanting a country that works for all instead of carrying the water pail for the one percent, while indulging the cultural wars of the religious right, was heretical and un-American. The purveyors of the Iraq War (Part 2), who passed unprecedented, unaffordable tax cuts and made a Constitutional Amendment against gay marriage a centerpiece of the party platform mystifyingly won the PR battle for which movement represented “real Americans.”

Democrats should not have needed the Trump phenomenon to help them articulate a vision for the country that also conveys love for it. After all the party’s planks, even before Bernie Sanders helped pushed them farther left, are about creating equal opportunity and freedom for all – not just rich, white, cisgendered males. And liberals shouldn’t have required the impetus of an ominous, fearful and whitewashed RNC 2016 to point out that say, the GOP might not speak to who and what we are after all. But better late than never I suppose.”

Read the full post at Contemptor.

The GOP Is F*cked…And It’s Bad For America

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trump-baby

“The absolutely pathetic Republican showings in the 2008 and 2012 national elections are on track to be a source of GOP wistfulness this year, as numerous polls show Hillary Clinton set to trounce Donald Trump. As of this morning, The New York Times has the former Secretary of State at an 87 percent November victory likelihood. Memories of the electoral disappointments of 2000 and 2004 prevent relaxed exhalation but given the Republican nominee’s post-convention nose dive and Clinton’s stellar debate skills (if there are, in fact, debates), there’s reason to believe we’ll get through this without a President Trump.

But what will be left of the Republican Party? I don’t pose this rhetorical question as an exercise in schadenfreude.”

Read the full post at Contemptor.

August 1980

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1980 dice

This past Tuesday, my beloved partner Bob turned 36 years old. Next week Thursday, my adored baby sister Jennifer will reach the same milestone. My two favorite people of all-time made their worldly debuts a mere nine days apart. August 1980 was a hugely important month that impacted the trajectory of many lives for the better.

In between the 2nd and the 11th lies my own birthday number 38 – on Monday the 8th. I often joke that I was born first, therefore Bob and Jenny ought to pull up stakes and find their own months. But the truth is I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t feel lost in the shuffle or stuck in the middle. I’m also not a big believer in destiny but this year more than others, I’m awed by the quirks of timing.

Since meeting and falling in love with Bob, and following our unspoken commitment to remain by each other’s sides, an incidental gift is enjoyed each summer. For a week plus the three of us and our families are afforded the opportunity to give thanks for our own lives as well as two others that fill it with so much joy. Those nine days are a hectic flurry of planning, shopping and well-wishing, but it’s important to sit still for a moment and be in that place of gratitude. To wonder at the happenstance which insists my love for these two sit at the conscious forefront for an appropriate two percent of the year.

Birthdays can be a selfish time. As a woman who in her 20s publicly wore a crown every August 8th, and promoted what I now recognize was a completely obnoxious “Shopping Day Countdown” for friends and family, I know a little something about self-immersion. I’ve grown and changed in so many ways and one of these evolutions is a downsize in celebratory approach. It’s not that I enjoy my birthday any less. Rather I understand that I can’t fete myself in a vacuum. It is the other people who render my existence as fulfilling as it is. Were there no August 2nd and August 11th 1980, I don’t know where I’d be.

Nope. My day is not lost. I no longer carry the resentment of a child who hated sharing parties and presents with her kid sister who, oh by the way, was six weeks early and should have been born in the fall! I am thrilled to have my birthday sandwiched between the arrivals of my own dynamic duo – the comedians, support network and good, kind people who challenge me and everyone around them to do better.

Two nights past, Bob asked me where I want to go, what I’d like to do on my day. I told him the truth. I look forward to Monday morning’s contest between Bob and Jenny over who gets to wish me “Happy Birthday” first. Last year Bob had to wake me at dawn to get the edge. Afterward I’ll go work. In the evening, I’d like to sustain our Monday night routine of grocery shopping with drink in hand (bless you Mariano’s) as we talk and laugh.

There have been years filled with mounds of material presents when all I really wanted was the sort of satisfying, messy normalcy (punctuated by much lovable oddity) I savor every day because of two babies born nine days apart in August 1980. There’s nothing more the world can give me to guarantee health and success over the next 12 months that I wasn’t already gifted 36 years ago this week.