The author at Dark Angel Towing 1/24/24. (Portrait by Nick Kam.)
I’ve spent a lot of time on America’s highways.
There was a 1991 Chicago to Santa Monica, CA. trip on Route 66. There have been a few memorable jaunts from Chicago through Memphis and Natchez, MS. to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, including getting caught in a tornado near Kingsland, AR. The Mississippi River Road. I’ve put 68,000 miles on my 2015 Ford Transit camper van featuring excursions that I turned into a book. I’ve never had a roadside calamity.
Until now.
And where did it happen?
On the Eisenhower Expressway [...]
Sanford Cohen at the Homewood, circa 1981. (Photo by Tom Cruze; Suburban Sun-Times.)
I’ve been writing about people for more than 40 years. It has been a cinematic parade of characters, misfits, rogues, and dreamers. Some memories are starting to fade away into a winter horizon. Other figures remain for years, bringing common warmth to a random thought.
Sanford Cohen was one of those subjects.
From 1977 until 1984 Cohen was the effervescent owner of the Homewood Theatre, 18110 S. Dixie Highway in Homewood, south of Chicago. He was larger than life itself, to coin a Roger Ebert documentary. I met him in the [...]
Design by Janet Hill.
The future is the foundation of finding every right house.
People bring visions and dreams into a new landscape. Midcentury Modern, or Post WW II architecture came along at the right time. Midcentury ranch homes emerged in 1949, four years after the end of World War II. Americans were looking towards a different tomorrow, one with a more approachable ceiling. The affordability of automobiles led to the growth of suburbs. People downsized from colonial homes to ranch houses with ample windows and open space. Midcentury architecture became clean and linear.
Westchester, IL. is [...]
Dancing Mr. President and Mr. Bill. (Courtesy of Robinette family.)
William Robinette was more than the ringmaster of the amazing Stay Out All Night Disco in west suburban Stone Park.
He was a ringmaster of life.
Mr. Robinette died Tuesday afternoon after an extended illness. He was surrounded by his family and grandchildren. He was 73 years old. On March 12 he celebrated his 52nd anniversary with his wife Darlene.
Affectionately known as “Mr. Bill”, Mr. Robinette was an accomplished bassist-vocalist who in the early 1970s played in the touring bands of the Marcels and the Vogues. In the [...]
