Saturday’s front-page Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Gut Check: Will the Bears leave Bourbonnais?

The WISCH LIST

June 27, 2009

When you pull off University Parkway in Romeoville and roll past a sweeping brick entrance onto the campus of Lewis University, it’s immediately apparent how serious the 1,200-student Catholic institution takes its athletics.

There, on your left, sits Brennan Field, home of Lewis Flyers baseball. Just ahead, a sign points the way to a summer basketball camp. And, if you turn the corner, you’ll weave your way past the Division II school’s softball diamond, soccer fields, tennis courts and track.

In sum, there are 16 varsity sports teams – including a nationally-ranked men’s volleyball squad – at Lewis. But that still doesn’t mean strapping junior Ken Hare gets to play his favorite sport at school.

“I’d like to,” said Hare, 20, of Chicago Heights, who’s spending his summer manning the university’s security booth. “But Lewis doesn’t have football.”

Yet, Lewis wants to host a football training camp.

Namely, the Chicago Bears’.

Make sense to you?

If not, you’re in good company (or, at least, my company). Because, I too found it something of a head-scratcher how a school can set such lofty goals.

When it doesn’t even have a set of goalposts.

Come July 31, the Bears will kick off their eighth summer of staging training camp at Olivet Nazarene University, and by all accounts the move to Bourbonnais from Platteville in 2001 has been nothing but a smashing success.

The locals love it. The crowds that flock from the city and the suburbs love it. The Chicago media loves it.

And I love it, too.

Not just because the camp has been well run and fan-friendly each time I’ve come down to visit, but also because the Bears’ presence at ONU has officially put my hometown on the map.

These days, it’s far less often that I get a puzzled looks from Illinoisans less geographically savvy than myself when I tell them that I hail from Bourbonnais.

“Where’s that?” has instead become, “Oh, sure, where the Bears train.”

There’s no doubt that hosting the Bears is a source of civic pride. And that’s surely one big reason why Romeoville and Lewis want them.

This August, the Bears’ current two-year contract with ONU expires. And although it includes an option for 2010, the Lewis Flyers – who have an aviation school and airport on campus – apparently sensed an opportunity to swoop in.

On June 11, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that, although the Bears likely will remain in Bourbonnais for their 2010 training camp and perhaps beyond, sources say the team is interested in moving camp closer to Chicago.

Now, personally, I think that the whole idea of holding camp should be to get away from home, not to simply set up a tent in your own backyard. But, nevertheless, officials from Lewis and Romeoville traveled to Halas Hall last week to hold talks with the Bears that team spokesman Scott Hagel described to the Daily Journal as “informal.”

Following that meeting in Lake Forest, the Chicago Tribune reported that Romeoville has proposed building a sports complex on Lewis’ campus, but that it isn’t even in the beginning stages of construction.

The complex was originally described as being a 40-acre site with at least eight baseball fields and modeled after New York’s Cooperstown Dreams Park. But Romeoville mayor John Noak has now said it could be outfitted to accommodate an NFL camp, apparently buying into the notion that a Dreams Park works even better as a Field of Dreams.

If you build it, the Bears will come.

But even if that were true, someone still has to pay for the thing.

And, while Lewis is rich in open spaces – its existing buildings take up only 130 acres of the 375-acre campus, leaving plenty of room for 300-pound NFL linemen to roam – the Joliet Herald-News said that constructing the proposed complex could cost between $10-$16 million and take several years.

Noak indicated in February that funding for the complex could include sponsorships, partnerships and usage fees. But $16 million is a big number in any economy. In this one, it’s huge.

Now, I admire Lewis’ moxie. Inscribed on its brick entrance is the Latin phrase “Signum Fidei,” which translates to “sign of the faith.” And there’s no doubt that in its pursuit of the Bears, the school is showing plenty of that.

But, regarding this issue, I actually found another sign on campus to be more fitting. It offered a list of “Common Sense Safety Awareness Tips” to students, with the last item encouraging them to “Go With Your Gut.”

Mine says that Bears Camp likely isn’t going anywhere.

At least not to Lewis any time soon.

Me and Michael Jackson?

We go way back.

To 1983, to be exact, when for my seventh birthday, my parents gave me his “Thriller” album as a gift.

And that night, during my sleepover party, my friends and I turned off all the lights in the living room, climbed inside our sleeping bags and fired up the album’s title track on my dad’s record player.

To a bunch of second-graders, the song’s lyrics coupled with Vincent Price’s haunting voice about darkness falling across the land and whatnot was quite the, ahem, thriller.

Twenty-two years after that birthday — a million miles for Jackson — I interviewed a woman who met Michael when he was about the same age that I was when I became the owner of his iconic album.

On June 7, 2005 — when Jackson was in the midst of his child molestation trial in California, and I was working as a columnist at The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill. — I sat down with local hairdresser Kay Halterman.

Halterman, 85, had recently celebrated 60 years of working as beautician, a milestone that earned her local and statewide accolades, as well as a front-page feature story in the Chicago Tribune.

But, perhaps, even more interestingly was that Halterman had befriended a young Michael Jackson back in the late 1960s when her eldest sister, Thelma Finkeldey, was the future King of Pop’s teacher in Gary, Ind.

“He was eight years old, and in the third grade,” Halterman told me, recalling the day that she took a trip to visit her sister’s classroom. “He was the cutest darling. Very, very shy … He had the cutest pug nose.”

At the time, Michael was performing locally with his brothers as the youngest member of the Jackson Five, and Halterman remembrered that: “There was a picture on the billboard (in the classroom) — something from the newspaper about the Jackson Five — and Thelma said to Michael, ‘Why don’t you get that and tell my sister about it.

“I then said, ‘What can I do for you, Michael?’ And he told me, ‘Your sister never has her picture taken for school photos. I’d like to have a picture of her.’ ”

Halterman said that day she instantly became enamored with Jackson’s softspoken demeanor and gentle personality. Upon returning to Ottawa — and getting clearance from Thelma on a suitable photograph — she said she eventually mailed a picture of her sister to the budding superstar, who had begun to truly bloom.

“At that point, they (the Jackson Five) had already been discovered,” Halterman. “And I got a thank-you note from Michael (for the photograph) that said they were going to appear on the ‘Ed Sullivan Shoe.’

“S-H-O-E. That’s how he spelled it.”

Likely because that’s the way Ed Sullivan himself famously pronounced the word.

Halterman told me that in Decembrer 1969 when the Jackson Five made their debut on Sullivan’s legendary variety show, she was watching from her home in Ottawa.

And she recalled that, “Just before I met Michael, I had been at a hairdressers’ convention in Hawaii and had a charm bracelet with a little Tiki god on it. And that day I met him, he kept looking at the bracelet. I told Michael that I had another one, and asked if would he like to have this one. He said he would, and I gave it to him.

“Then, when the Jackson Five was on the Ed Sullivan Show, we all got around the TV at home, and — sure enough — when Michael came out, I saw this little Tiki god dangling off his wrist.”

Now, on this YouTube clip of the Jackson Five’s December ‘69 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, you can clearly see (particularly at the end, when Sullivan shakes Michael’s hand) that Jackson is indeed wearing a bracelet. But I don’t see a Tiki god hanging from it.

Perhaps, I just can’t spot the thing. Or, more likely, Halterman — watching the show on a 1960s TV set (not exactly high-def) — mistook the bracelet for her own.

Nevertheless, Halterman said that moment didn’t mark the end of her friendship with Jackson, as a few years later when Michael was 15, she and her sister renewed acquaintances with the Jacksons.

“We got tickets for a Jackson Five show in Chicago, and made arrangements to see them backstage,” she said. “And when we got there, (Michael’s older brother) Marlon (who also was one Thelma’s former students) ran up and said, ‘I remember you! I remember you!’

“And then Michael came up and said quietly, that he remembered us too. He was such an introvert. Except when he got behind the microphone, and then was an extrovert.”

During the backstage reunion, Halterman said she also met the Jacksons’ pint-sized little sister, Janet, who was decked out in a feather boa that day, and headed for eventual superstardom herself. The Halterman sisters visited with Michael’s mother, as well.

“Mrs. Jackson was with them,” Halterman recalled, “and Thelma told her that Michael always used to bring her presents. Mrs. Jackson said, ‘That’s where my costume jewelry went!’

“It was a nice visit.”

Although there was one part of it that Halterman said she regrets.

“I brought along the thank-you note in which Michael spelled show, ‘S-H-O-E,’ ” she said. “And the Jacksons’ tutor asked to keep it in order to show Michael how he used to spell when he was younger.

“I wish I had kept it. But, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I mean, who knew he would go on to become, not just U.S. famous, but world famous?”

Since that time, Jackson — in spite of his acquittal during his 2005 trial — also went on to become world-infamous. Halterman told me it saddened her to see the little boy she once befriended change so much, both physically and otherwise.

“I know that he didn’t have a normal childhood at all,” Halterman said. “And their father was very demanding, always making them perform, always wanting to make money … (The Jacksons) were dysfunctional, but talented.

“And Michael, he had this cute, little puggy nose and this sweetness in his eyes. You just saw it. It just breaks my heart to see what’s happened with him now, especially because I’ve seen the other side of Michael.

“He was just such a sweet, cute little kid.”

Before I head off to Wrigley Field — yep, again — for this afternoon’s Cubs-Indians ballgame, here’s today’s Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

How to make yourself at home at Wrigley

The WISCH LIST

June 20, 2009

I don’t just die with the Chicago Cubs.

I live with them.

Like, literally.

Up in Wrigleyville, my apartment sits just blocks away from the Friendly Confines. Last season, I attended 30 Cubs games. And this March, for the first time, I took a trip with my family out to Arizona to catch a few spring training games – and some sunshine – in Mesa and Tucson.

Then, I really put my game face on.

On April 6, I flew down to Houston for the Cubs’ season opener. Five days later, I was up in Milwaukee for a game at Miller Park. And, after taking in a Cubs-Cardinals tilt at Wrigley on April 18, I road-tripped south one week later to do the same at Busch Stadium.

Yes, if Cubs baseball is an addiction, then I’m Amy Winehouse.

But rather than try to make me go to rehab, many of my friends just joke that I actually keep an apartment at Wrigley Field.

I don’t.

But only because they aren’t renting.

(I kid, I kid.)

Two weeks ago, though, I did find myself getting more comfy on the corner of Clark & Addison than ever before. That’s because one of the better kept secrets in Chicago – and out of it – is that from May to September on most days that the Cubs aren’t playing or are out of town, fans can take behind-the-scenes tours of Wrigley Field.

Tickets, which cost $25 and could make for a great belated Father’s Day gift, are available at cubs.com.

I’d say the tour is worth every penny. Because, after all, it’s not every day you get a chance to roam all about the ballpark where White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen claims to see rats and this week, prior to the Crosstown Series, added that:

“I puke every time I go there. That’s just being honest. And if Cub fans don’t like the way I talk about Wrigley Field, it’s just Wrigley Field. I don’t say anything about the fans. But Wrigley Field, they got to respect my opinion.”

Not really, Ozzie.

But, anyways, much like the ballpark itself, the Wrigley Field tour is a gem.

Beginning with a video narrated by Chicago TV news legend Bill Kurtis, you’ll learn that – in addition to serving as longtime home to the Cubs, and formerly the Bears – Wrigley Field has also hosted a variety of events ranging from wrestling to soccer to a ski jump competition.

The 90-minute tour then takes you through 95 years of history (Wrigley Field opened April 23, 1914, as Weeghman Park) as you weave your way from the right field bleachers through the visitors clubhouse, up to the press box, back down through the home clubhouse and finally onto the hallowed field.

Along the way, I discovered (yes, Ozzie) just how tiny the visitors clubhouse in fact is. To imagine a Major League squad getting dressed in there is difficult. To think of an NFL team doing so is inconceivable.

In the clubhouse, you’re allowed free reign to explore everywhere, except for the bathrooms. Perhaps, it’s because they wouldn’t want anyone to walk off with traces of any Major Leaguer’s DNA.

Right, Sammy?

Next stop on the tour is the press box, where you can see the pipe organ, the WGN-TV and Radio booths and the big red “COUGH BUTTON” that Ron Santo pushes (or, sometimes, doesn’t) during broadcasts.

I was interested to learn that the Cubs actually were ready to equip Wrigley Field with lights way back in 1941. But then, that December, a little thing happened in Pearl Harbor and the organization donated the lights to the War Department, instead.

Also amusing to discover is that only men are allowed to work inside the Wrigley Field scoreboard. Why? Well, because the only bathroom facilities up there consist of a PVC pipe and a copper funnel.

The Ladies Room is downstairs.

You next trek down to the Cubs clubhouse, where the players’ jerseys hang in the lockers awaiting their return. Some things, however, never leave the clubhouse. Most notably, the many dents on doors surely delivered by a player’s spikes – or bat – following a particularly frustrating outing.

Finally, it’s up onto the ivy-laden field to take in the most beautiful vista in all of sports.

Although, of course, Ozzie may disagree.

Speaking of which, I did notice on their Web site that the White Sox offer similar tours of U.S. Cellular Field. It doesn’t appear, however, that Guillen ever moonlights as a tour guide.

Rats.

And I really had my hopes up.

This week’s Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Chicago aldermen kick the Bucket (Boys)

The WISCH LIST

June 13, 2009

I swung down to Michigan Avenue last Saturday afternoon in the hopes of chatting up a Bucket Boy.

But I couldn’t find any.

Chicago’s summertime staples – known as “Bucket Boys” because of the white plastic utility buckets they use as drums to pound out intense, rhythmic beats – were tougher to locate downtown than a functioning parking meter.

And that’s tough.

Now, maybe the Bucket Boys weren’t at their usual stomping (thumping?) grounds on this day because of the drizzling rain.

Or, maybe, it was because of the aldermen.

Last week, the Chicago City Council approved a noise ordinance targeting Bucket Boys and other street musicians (but, really, Bucket Boys) that allows the city to revoke a street performer’s license – yes, even Bucket Boys are supposed to have licenses – if they get two violations for excessive volume in the span of a year.

Currently, the license can be revoked after three violations, although in extreme cases a performer’s permit could be pulled at the first violation.

The ordinance was introduced by Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward includes the Magnificent Mile. Reilly said that he’s received complaints from people working in the office buildings along Michigan Avenue who claim they often can’t concentrate on their jobs during the summer months because of the noise on the street below.

He didn’t say how many of them can’t concentrate during the summer when the sun is shining outside.

(But I’m guessing the numbers would be pretty even.)

Now, the controversy over the Bucket Boys and their performances downtown – as well as around Wrigley Field on Cubs game days – is nothing new in the Windy City.

In fact, it seems to blow through most every summer.

But last week word of this new ordinance sparked the debate anew as commenters on city news sites and Chicago-related blogs began beating their drums on both sides of the issue.

“I find it sad that they may have to crack down on ALL street performers, when as far as I’m concerned it’s only the Bucket Boys that are annoying,” one person wrote on the popular blog chicagoist.com. “It’s not just that they’re loud, they’re also not particularly talented or interesting. How about getting some real drums?

“Get a real percussion ensemble going and learn some new rhythms, maybe something that people could actually dance to, instead of that one constant, rapid-pounding which appears to be the only thing one can do with a plastic bucket.”

Another commenter, however, came back with the retort, “Do you know how many movies that have … featured them [the Bucket Boys] as background? I would suggest that perhaps they should be considered part of Chicago’s unique (or what passes for unique) culture. These kids are not begging or gang banging on a street corner but are playing music (on recycled buckets).”

Yet another argued, “I still think [the Bucket Boys are] a net-positive … they bring a bit of  ‘native wonderland’ to the suburban shoppers, making their trip to the big city all the more exciting.”

Perhaps when you visit the Mag Mile, those are your thoughts, as well.

Or, perhaps, not.

But, either way, here’s my take on this topic: You don’t move to Chicago – or work there – for the peace and quiet. You’re there for the energy. And complaining about noise on Michigan Avenue – where I once did work – whether it’s from Bucket Boys, saxophone players, ambulances, honking taxis, construction equipment or something else just seems pretty silly to me.

It’s like moving to Wrigleyville and then griping about the crowds.

Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.

Last week on the “Clout Street” blog at chicagotribune.com, one reader wrote about the Bucket Boys debate: “This city has become so sanitized and boring. I don’t know if it’s because of an intrusive government or whether it’s because … yuppies have moved to the city from the ‘burbs and [are] trying to make Chicago like one … I don’t know.

“But part of the beauty of living in a city of 3 million people is the diversity and ability to express individuality. Of course, the price to pay is that you’re going to run into things you don’t like or nuisances. But guess what … somebody here thinks you’re a nuisance too. It’s part of the deal.”

It is.

And, I’d argue that rather than trying to make the Bucket Boys kick the bucket, Chicago’s City Council should have bigger fish to fry. Let the Bucket Boys play. They are, after all, part of what makes Chicago, Chicago.

Even if not everyone approves.

“I work in a high rise across from where the Bucket Boys play,” another reader wrote at chicagotribune.com. “I can’t hear car horns but I can hear the Bucket Boys loud and clear and it is very difficult and distracting.

“There are several horn-playing musicians on Michigan Avenue but you only hear them as you walk by. I hear the Bucket Boys 17 floors up. I would be happy to get peace and quiet in the summer.”

If that’s really the truth, then, hey, I feel for the guy. But instead of pining for The Day That Street Music Died, here’s my advice:

Buy headphones.

For seven years both during and after college, I was a sports writer.

So I figured now that I’m back in the newspaper game, I might as prove my sportswriting chops early — and defend my the coach that U of I is lucky to have (even some people may never see it).

And with that, it’s on to the second installment of my Wisch List column from the Saturday, June 6 edition of the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Weber a bright spot in dark week for U of I

The WISCH LIST

June 6, 2009

When it comes to tarnished Land of Lincoln icons, I swear (you know, kind of like her) that even Patti Blagojevich had a better week than my alma mater.

And she swallowed a dead tarantula on TV.

Over the past several days, the University of Illinois has had it pretty rough, absorbing blow after well-deserved blow from the Chicago Tribune’s investigative series that exposed a secret and preferential admissions process for high school students lucky enough to have political connections.

Because of this self-made mess, you can’t say right now that U of I exactly stands for University of Integrity.

But, thankfully, the school’s basketball coach still stands for something.

Largely lost this week in the shroud of scandal that blanketed the state’s flagship university was that Illini hoops coach Bruce Weber quietly had one of his brightest weeks ever.

All because the spotlight from yet another education-related controversy – this one involving Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose – wasn’t also shining on Champaign.

In case you somehow missed it, Rose – recently named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year – has been accused by the NCAA of knowingly allowing an impostor to take the SAT for him so he could qualify for admission to the University of Memphis where, as a freshman in 2008, he led the Tigers to within a whisker of a national championship before jumping to the NBA.

Additional published reports also claim that during high school at Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy a grade was changed from a D to a C for Rose’s collegiate transcript and that his older brother, Reggie, received more than $2,200 in illegal benefits from the University of Memphis.

On Tuesday, Memphis responded to the allegations with the claim that it had found “insufficient evidence” to reach the same conclusion as the NCAA that Rose did not take the SAT himself.

Although the university also couldn’t prove that Rose did take the exam. And it acknowledged that a forensic document examiner hired by the NCAA did determine that the student in question (identified in media reports as Rose) “probably did not write the questioned hand printing or cursive writing on the exam form.”

Maybe he just drank too much caffeine that morning.

Now, I’m not here today to debate whether we should care about the high school academics of an athlete who’s now making millions of dollars (although we should), or if Derrick deserves to be labeled as the shadiest Rose since Pete (he at least has a better haircut).

Rather, I’m just glad none of this nonsense is the University of Illinois’ problem.

And for that I thank Bruce Weber.

Two years ago, Weber was slammed in many circles of Illini Nation for failing to hang on to prized recruit Eric Gordon (who at the last minute was lured to Indiana by coach Kelvin Sampson) and his inability to reel in Rose (who opted to instead play for John Calipari at Memphis).

Bruce Weber can’t recruit, they said.

(Perhaps you said.)

To which I’ll say, thank goodness.

Because, if being able to “recruit” meant that Weber needed to do what it took to haul in the likes of Gordon and Rose, then I don’t want that guy as my basketball coach.

Yes, the Hoosiers got Gordon – and along with him a boatload of sanctions after IU fired Sampson following a slew of recruiting tactics either illegal (impermissible phone calls) or unethical (giving associates of the Gordon family jobs on the IU basketball staff). Today, the Hoosiers program is in shambles as new coach Tom Crean continues to pick up the pieces.

Now, first-year Memphis coach Josh Pastner, who took over when Calipari bolted for the head job at Kentucky in April, may find himself dealing with a similarly sorry situation.

We’ll see what happens. But we already know what didn’t happen on Weber’s watch.

“We understood what was going on (with Rose) all along,” University of Illinois athletics director Ron Guenther told the Champaign News-Gazette last weekend. “The sport of men’s basketball has issues that the NCAA has been trying to address. There are many tentacles to the problem, so there is no magic bullet to solve it. It has been a focal point for discussions in this conference for more than 10 years. We’ve had task forces looking into the AAU, the shoe money, the agent.

“One of the reasons I feel so strong about Bruce Weber and his staff is that I know they’re going to do it the right way. Nothing that has happened in the Rose case has been a surprise to me.”

Me neither.

Although I’ve always been surprised – and disappointed – by Illinois fans that have simply failed to see what they have in a coach with Bruce Weber.

Sure, without Gordon or Rose, Illinois suffered through a brutal 16-19 season two years ago. But thanks to Weber’s coaching, the program bounced back strong this past season and with back-to-back blockbuster recruiting classes the future of Illini hoops couldn’t be brighter.

So, while Illinois basketball may have given up some wins because it failed to reel in Gordon and Rose, it didn’t give up its integrity.

And, in my book, that counts for a lot.

You might even say that Bruce Weber passed a big test.

And did it all on his own.

Imagine that.

Today marks my return as a newspaper columnist — after a lengthy hiatus following stints with the Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., and the Chicago Tribune — with my debut column for the newspaper I grew up reading as a kid, the Daily Journal in Kankakee.

I’d like to again thank everyone who’s been in touch this week since I broke the news that I was returning to the writing game. It’s much appreciated, and I look forward to you following along with me as we see wherever it is that the Wisch List takes us this time.

And, so, without any further ado, it’s on with the Wisch List, version 3.0 …

Happy Homecoming: Wisch List returns to print

The WISCH LIST

May 30, 2009

When I was 3 years old, there were few things – save, maybe, Santa Claus, Superman and sugar – that got my motor running more than the news that company was coming over to visit.

Because, immediately upon getting word from my parents that friends or relatives were headed our way, I’d hustle off to grab my box of Crayolas and pad of construction paper so I could get down to business.

Half an hour or so later, I’d proudly emerge from the salt mines with a mess of meticulously scribbled chicken scratch. And upon our visitors’ arrival, I’d hop up on the family room couch and proceed to regale them with the elaborate story that I’d just written.

Even though I didn’t yet know how to write.

Three decades later, I like to think that big imagination is still alive, but that I’ve also picked up a few new skills along the way.

Including, you know, literacy.

Since graduating from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1994 and the University of Illinois four years later, I’ve used those lessons learned to launch my own newspaper column, win a slew of writing awards, earn a reporting gig with the Chicago Tribune and even publish a book.

Somewhat ironically, though, in a lengthy writing career that even predates, well, writing, I’ve never before written for my hometown newspaper.

Until today.

For those of you who don’t know me, hey, I’m Dave. And for those of you who do, well, it’s great to be among friends. But what I’m really here for today is to introduce you to something else.

The Wisch List.

(It’s pleased to meet you, too.)

This marks the debut of my column in the pages of the Daily Journal, and I couldn’t be happier for it to have found a home here.

Seven summers ago when I was writing sports and features for the Daily Times – a sister paper of the Daily Journal located in Ottawa, Ill., that’s now called The Times – I launched the Wisch List as a self-dubbed column about “Life – and the people who live it.”

Since then, both the Wisch List and myself have been on quite a wild ride.

In November 2004, I published 75 of my columns in a book that I entitled, “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory.” Less than year later, in July 2005, I took a news reporting job with the Chicago Tribune, and took the “Wisch List” with me.

There, I adapted the column into only the third-ever blog to appear at chicagotribune.com. And after two busy years of covering the city and the suburbs both online and in print, I left the Trib in July 2007, but not Chicago.

These days, I write full-time for a suburban advertising agency, live just blocks away from Wrigley Field and revel in all the wonderful things that the Windy City has to offer (as well as occasionally grumble about what it does not).

And it’s Chicago that the Wisch List is now all about.

Through this weekly column, I hope to bring Chicago closer to home for all of you, sharing stories about the interesting people I meet, the sights you should be seeing, the sports teams you care about, and the issues up here in the City of Big Shoulders, Taxes and Potholes that are relevant to you.

Beyond that, who knows what else we’ll get ourselves into through this column, but I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.

As for you, all I ask is to feel free to get in touch with me anytime, whether it’s by e-mailing me at wischlist@daily-journal.com, finding me on Facebook, following me on Twitter (twitter.com/wischlist) or checking in with me through my blog at wischlist.com.

You can just say hello, or, even better, pass along a column idea or a Chicago-related topic that you’d like to see explored.

It was 4½  years ago that I opened my book with the following passage:

If nothing else, I am an Illinois boy.
Born (in tiny Clifton) and raised (in bigger Bourbonnais). Bred (on Chicago Cubs baseball) and fed (a steady diet of disappointment. Naturally).
Through thick (winter coats) and thin (wallets, as a college student). In sickness (again, Cubs fan) and in health (the Michael Jordan Era).
For richer or poorer. For better or worse. And so on, and so on …
‘Til death do us part.
(Which, hopefully, won’t be for quite some time.)

And those words still ring true today.

Although, I should add that in between my birth in Clifton and my youth in Bourbonnais, I spent the first 3½ years of my life living on Nelson Avenue in Kankakee. So, for me, this column truly is a return to my roots.

You could even say it’s like going home again, home again …

Jiggity jog.

I think my 3-year-old self would have liked that one.

On Monday, I posted an update on my Facebook page stating that I had some big news to share — but not quite yet, prompting a number of my friends to offer their amusing speculations.

(And, yes, call me a tease.)

Well, I’m ready to share. And, no, I’m not running for political office in Illinois (although I hear the perks are fantastic). I’m not pregnant (thanks, Kelly. Smart aleck). And I’m not Batman (dangit).

But starting this weekend, I am a newspaper columnist again.

Yes, thanks to the fine folks at The Daily Journal in Kankakee, who have recruited me to write a weekly column for my hometown area newspaper, the Wisch List is coming back to life — and not only in pixels, but also (gasp!) actual ink and wood pulp, a medium I still treasure.

For my friends around Kankakee, the column will launch in the newspaper on Saturday and run each weekend. For my friends in other areas, the Daily Journal recently made its Web site subscription-only — feel free to subscribe! — but I’ll make sure you can keep up with my columns through this blog.

And, of course, I’ll post reminders via Facebook and Twitter, as well.

It’s been almost four years since July 5, 2005, when I last wrote my the Wisch List as a print column for The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., where between 2001 and 2005 I won 18 national, regional and state editorial awards, including six first places. And it’s been almost two years since I last wrote the newspaper blog version of the Wisch List for chicagotribune.com.

But I’m excited to say that my self-dubbed column about “Life — and the people who live it” is back. And this incarnation is Chicago-centric, as I’ll be sharing stories about the city’s people, places, things and issues as I intend to bring Chicago closer to home for my readers.

Even if you already live in the city.

The column for the Daily Journal is a weekly side endeavor, not a full-time gig. I already have a great job (writing for the advertising and innovation agency Maddock Douglas in Elmhurst), but now I have a great side job, too.

And it only took the patience of Job to find them both.

So, anyways, make sure to check back in this Saturday to read my debut column with the Journal. Until then, have a great rest of the week. And, if you ever have any column ideas for me, always feel free to pass them way. I’d love to hear them.

It’s Memorial Day (have a happy one, by the way), so I figured there’s no better time than now to share my newspaper column from five years ago when I was at The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., and visited the one place in north central Illinois …

Where it’s Memorial Day all summer long

The WISCH LIST

 June 1, 2004

There were burgers. There were hot dogs. There were lawn chairs, blankets and a whole mess of giggling kids running over and around them.

And just before the festivities really got underway this past weekend in Earlville, they turned on a recording of the national anthem and staged a red-white-and-blue tribute to our nation’s military.

Memorial Day picnic, right?

Nah, double-feature.

But don’t say people weren’t remembering during this Memorial Day Weekend at the Route 34 Drive-In Theater.

Heck, that’s all they do there.

“My dad was a union projectionist,” Ron Magnoni, Jr., Route 34 Drive-In’s owner since 1994, said last Friday evening while tearing tickets and handing them through minivan windows outside his theater’s entrance. “I’ve been doing this kind of stuff since I was a kid.”

Lucky stiff.

In the era of DVDs, flat-screen TVs and multiplex theaters not a whole lot of people catch their movies in the great outdoors anymore. But for the past five decades in the grassy field banked by a railroad track and a rural highway just west of Earlville, they’ve been doing exactly that.

“This is the 50th year here,” Magnoni, a native of Oglesby, said about the dandy dinosaur that is Route 34 Drive-In, which is selling commemorative pins and magnets this summer in honor of its milestone anniversary. “The theater opened on June 11, 1954.”

According to the original newspaper ad hanging on wall inside the concession stand — where they still sell Green River fountain drinks and have a working jukebox — the double-feature on that long-ago evening included “Pride of the Bluegrass” (starring Lloyd Bridges) and “Paris Playboys,” plus a bonus short of Walt Disney’s “Three Little Pigs.”

This past Friday, it was “Scooby Doo 2″ and “Starsky & Hutch” flickering on the big screen. But, no matter the movie, the drive-in’s appeal has remained the same.

“I’ve been coming here probably 23, 24 years,” Ottawan Becky Johnson said while she and her husband, Stanley, sat on the open tailgate of their pick-up truck, waiting for the sun to go down. “The kids have grown up and ditched us … But when it’s a nice night, we just throw the bed in the back of the truck, kick back and enjoy the fresh air.”

Not to mention the price.

“Six bucks, two movies …” Becky said. “Can’t beat it.”

In the late 1950s, during the height of the Drive-In boom, Illinois had more than 120 outdoor theaters scattered throughout the state. Today in the 21st century, that number has plummeted by 90 percent, and only 12 drive-ins remain.

But one of them still stands just 20 miles northwest of Ottawa.

Or 50 miles east of Princeton — if you’re coming from that way.

“We heard about the theater through word of mouth,” said Jennifer Williams of Princeton, who made the Friday night drive over with her husband, their 5-year-old son, Jacob, and his buddy Matthew. “We came just a few weeks ago, and it’s a blast.

“Jacob even turned down ‘Shrek 2′ to come see Scooby Doo outside.”

“Yep,” said Jacob, who was missing his two front teeth but not the chance to see a show on a 50-foot screen. “I like the part where we sit in the back of the truck.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“All your problems go away for a couple hours when you’re here,” a drive-in buff named Joe said last Friday. “And there’s nothing like seeing the picture on the great big screen.

“It’s better than sitting in a shoebox theater.”

(This column — along with many more, by the way — appears in my book, “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory,” which you can read more about here.)

The following was sent to me today by a co-worker, so I don’t vouch for the numbers or examples (at all).

But, nevertheless, considering that we have enough sobering thoughts with this economy, I figured it’s not a bad idea to share a less-than-sober one, as well.

So, bottom’s up, and have a great weekend and have yourself a laugh …

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would have $49 left.

With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000.

With WorldCom, you would have less than $5 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the
aluminum recycling refund, you would have $214 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It’s called the 401-Keg.

Hmm … is Natty Lite publicly traded?