| Forest Park group cares for stray cats |
Five years ago my roommate and I noticed the stray cats in our alley. Socks - named for her little white paws - was pregnant, even though she still looked like a kitten herself. Anxious for her brood, we fed them and managed to trap a kitten that we brought to the Animal Care League in Oak Park. But we didn't know what else we could do.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010 |
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| Welcome home |
It is one of the great lessons America has learned from Vietnam. Separate the war from the warrior. The war in Iraq should never have been fought. Its execution over the first five endless years was botched by the Bush administration.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010 |
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| Cats and more cats |
It is a staggering idea. That there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of stray cats calling Forest Park home. These aren't lost cats which have wandered off from loving homes.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010 |
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| Coping with Forest Park changes |
It's not like I'm losing my best friend, but I do feel sad that Blockbuster is in hospice care right now and that the end is near. I've known Blockbuster for, what, 20 years? For awhile when my kids were still at Grant-White, we'd go over to Blockbuster frequently to get a video that the entire family could watch.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 |
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| Who owns Forest Park's remarkable history? |
It's fine to offer a gift. But there has to be someone to receive it. So we honor the impulse of Mayor Anthony Calderone to potentially donate a piece of property to the Forest Park Historical Society as a permanent home. But we ask this question sincerely: What exactly is the Forest Park Historical Society these days?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 |
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| Forest Park bookstore celebrates 20 years with history and mystery |
I was eleven when Centuries and Sleuths bookstore opened near my house in Oak Park in 1990. The shop had something for each of my phases growing up. The cat-loving child rushed there for the latest "Cat Who" mystery.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 |
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| Postal Service delivers opportunity |
The long reported retreat of the U.S. Postal Service from Forest Park continues. The letter carriers have all recently been displaced from the handsome and historic post office on Desplaines Ave. to the large and modern facility hugging the Eisenhower in Oak Park.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 |
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| The End for video stores |
The video store era is over in Forest Park. The Blockbuster on Harlem will soon close and with it the short span -- what 20 years? -- in which it wasn't Friday night without a trip to scope out the New Releases on VHS.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 |
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| My Muslim allies, my neighbors |
Most of what I know about the month of Ramadan, which began last week, I learned from Eden and Amir. Twenty-five years ago, those two cousins were in the same class at Grant-White as my son, Ben. They lived next door to the parsonage and, with Ben, the three musketeers were in and out of my home a lot.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 |
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| Good news. Long wait |
It's good that officials from multiple state and federal agencies made their way to Forest Park at the close of last week. Bureaucrats from FEMA as well as the state version of the emergency management agency, and the Small Business Administration, all arrived on short notice last Thursday.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 |
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| Barking up the right tree |
The rec board has pluck. And we like pluck. The village's recreation board is a small advisory group existing in the odd space between the village and its small pocket parks, and the park district and its large The Park. We've always found this to be an actively screwy situation.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 |
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| A time-out to shout out |
My basement, like many others in town, flooded once again on July 23. I'd just returned home from a writing retreat (which I spent battling writer's block), found out that all three of my cats were sick (with a stomach bug, which has been recurring all year), and then it started to rain.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 |
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| Dive in to the pool |
It's hard to find an upside in this summer's extreme weather. Heat. Rain. Floods. Mosquitoes. Give us autumn. But here's the hometown high spot: The pool. No one really calls it the Aquatic Center, now, do they
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 |
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| Turn in flood forms |
OK. Back to real life. Real summer. Flooded basements. The deadline for people to submit damage reports to the village is coming up this Monday. Already the village has collected more than 200 of the damage questionnaires.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 |
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| Thank the Energizer bunnies |
It's staggering to listen to the accomplishments of the three folks the village council honored Monday night. The decades of contributions Andy Collis, Dorothy Calderone Tricoci and Rev. Frank Grady have made to our village make this a richer and warmer community.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 |
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| Appreciating the ADA |
July 26 was the 20th anniversary of George H.W. Bush signing into law the Americans with Disabilities Act. I went on full disability five years ago, thereby officially joining what some people with handicaps call the crip nation. Since then, I've grown to appreciate a few things.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 |
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| The blame game |
Robert Marani claims he has hypertension, anxiety and depression. And that it's the village's fault. So, of course, he sued. Claims the village violated his civil rights. Poor baby.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 |
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| To its credit |
If the village failed notably on the man-made disaster of the Tuscan Lofts, it's performing far better on the nature-made flooding disaster of 10 days back. The village's follow-up efforts have been quick, efficient and helpful to residents swamped by the storm.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 |
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| A theater critic recalls Circle's moments in Forest Park |
Everything has a shelf life, a wise friend often reminds me, whether it's a Twinkie, a nectarine, or a relationship. Circle Theatre has been opening hundreds of shows in Forest Park since the mid-1980s. But that period is now suddenly, rather abruptly, over.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 |
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| Good job, village hall |
We're getting tired of "acts of God." How about you? On the other hand, we don't see a better explanation for this summer of flooding. Forest Park, Forest Parkers and their basements got walloped again last weekend - second time in a month - when astounding amounts of rain fell in a very short time.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 |
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