Hope Idiotic | Part 11
In the dining room, the party was getting more and more raucous. Music was blaring as it competed for dominance over the laughter. One sixty-year-old woman referred to one of the women in her quilting group as “a total cunt.” Gifts set aside, Lou, Michelle, Chuck and Lexi joined in.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 9 — The Unfinished Line
By the time this is published, the Chicago Endurance Sports (CES) training group I’d been running with this summer will be gathering at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have their last long-ish training run before Race Day. I will be asleep. Or maybe I’ll have dragged my fickle body out of bed to bang out some work before the kid wakes up and the dog needs to be taken out and the wife needs her coffee. The point is that I won’t be at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have a run. Because I’m not running the Chicago Marathon.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 29, 2019
I am limping proof that hopes, prayers, and positive thinking are no match for reality and action.
Hope Idiotic | Part X
Two days later, Lehman Brothers Holdings collapsed, causing a massive wave of panic throughout the financial world. The Great Recession had begun. That day, with no companies to call on, Lou’s entire team was glued to streaming videos and news stories about the collapse. Lou played online Tetris.
Hope Idiotic | Part IX
Chuck regularly passed out wearing his glasses and just as regularly would lose them in the middle of the night. He’d either pull them off his face and throw them across the room or lose them in the pillows and sheets of his bed or cushions of a couch. But they weren’t in the cushions.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 8 — Broken Down?
At the end was when something hurt. This was new. This wasn’t sore. This was different. Yet, I chocked it up to, well, just having run twenty glorious, goddamn miles. I guzzled water, I stretched, I ate a banana, I rode my bike home. At home, I stretched, I took an ice bath for ten minutes, took a nap. Katie and I hung out at the 312 Block Party at Goose Island for a bit before calling it a night at nine. All day, my right leg would blast with pain at every step.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 22, 2019
I respect the guy, but Malcolm Gladwell is not a genius. He’s not even that interesting. He’s perceived that way because he’s a well-spoken black guy. Yeah, I said it. And you’re all racists.
Hope Idiotic | Part VIII
Lou finally began making a little bit of money when he broke through to the Chi Star, a free daily paper owned by the Franklin News. It was designed to be a newspaper with training wheels in hopes that as the young readers aged, they would make the switch from the free commuter rag to a more mature newspaper subscription. It was the struggling newspaper business’ effort to survive by adapting the drug trade’s tactics; get ’em hooked for free when they’re young.
Hope Idiotic | Part VII
By mid-November, Lou had been living with Michelle for two months. She provided half of the dresser for him and cleared out space in the bathroom cabinets and her closets for him in an effort to make her place his place, too. But she refused to let him hang any photos of his friends or family. And there was no way he was putting his film trophy on display anywhere.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 7 — Easy Does It
Marathon training puts time and distance into relative perspective. Once you prove you can run seventeen miles on a Saturday morning, jogging a quick five constitutes an easy run. Six miles is nothing. It’s a breeze. It feels like less work than walking across the street to pick up my dry cleaning. Christ, I hate running errands.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 15, 2019
It’s okay to admit that you don’t know or understand something. In fact, it can be beneficial. It gives you the opportunity to listen better, differently, to learn something new and one day be the know-it-all you always knew you were.
Hope Idiotic | Part VI
The week that Lou arrived in Chicago, Franklin News, one of the largest media companies in the nation, laid off a thousand people. In the three months he’d been back, many other companies in his field had done the same. He wasn’t picky about whom he worked for, he just needed a gig. But every newspaper, magazine, radio station, marketing firm, advertising agency and public relations agency he could find wouldn’t even meet with him.
Hope Idiotic | Part V
Lou hit the San Francisco city limits just as night was coming down. He used the hostel book as promised to find a well-rated spot with a good view of the city. He’d never stayed in hostels before and was curious. He’d hoped to meet a few strangers he could make friends with for the night and explore the city with, but the place was pretty empty. It was too early in the summer for college students or Europeans to be backpacking their way through the country.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 8, 2019
Ed Sheeran makes club music for moms and preschoolers.
Hope Idiotic | Part IV
Years of overeating and not exercising had finally taken their toll on Chuck’s mom. She collapsed from a heart attack in her Indiana home — the same small, rundown place where Chuck was raised. She was recovering at the nearest hospital a few towns away. It was a massive attack requiring surgery to add stents and to repair the lining of her heart’s wall. She also had a deadly case of type-2 diabetes. Her body was crumbling. She was in a fragile state, and death seemed imminent.
I’ll be Disappointed if My Son Becomes a Cop
A young boy wanting to be a cop is not as bad as a young man becoming a cop. But a want that sticks around long enough is often gotten, especially if my son is raised to be the achiever we want him to be. If my son becomes a cop, if his want becomes his achievement, I’ll be disappointed. Not disappointed in him as much as I’ll be disappointed in myself and my wife. Because if my son becomes a cop, we were not good parents.
Hope Idiotic | Part III
A MONTH LATER AT WORK, JUST BEFORE LUNCH, CHUCK BURST FROM HIS OFFICE into the area where Lou and I sat. He ran his hands through his short hair, clawing his scalp.
“Fucking Jesus!” he said.
Lou and I swiveled our chairs toward him and leaned back ready for the meltdown.
“Department meeting!” Chuck said. “Now! Cuba Café! Neal, you drive!”
“I can’t. I have to get gas.”
“Good. Get it on the way back.”
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 1, 2019
I admit that I’ll be disappointed if my son grows up to be a cop.
Hope Idiotic | Part II
Moonlighting as a drunkard, Chuck Keller was the assistant manager of the communications department at palm gaming, the largest hotel and casino company in Las Vegas and the world. After Chuck graduated from Nevada State, he was hired as the news editor for Valley Life, the alternative weekly rag, where I worked as the A&E editor.
Hope Idiotic | Part I
SHORTLY AFTER THE HEIGHT OF AMERICA’S FLAGRANT PATRIOTISM FOLLOWING 9/11, and just before the dawn of The Great Recession, there existed a wonderful Italian restaurant called Bella’s Ristorante. It was built into the foothills of the Black Mountain Range just outside of Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada, a few short and dusty miles from the Strip at the edge of a wealthy suburban subdivision. My best friends Chuck Keller and Lou Bergman adored the place.
How do you want to be defined? By one action? By some opinion that could evolve? By a mistake, regrettable only with hindsight? Or by the sum of your parts? Okay, do that for other people. Start the trend.