Wisch List

Today’s newspaper column from The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Wisch Lists are for New Year’s

The WISCH LIST

Dec. 31, 2011

Wish lists are for Christmas.

But Wisch Lists? Well, they’re for New Year’s.

And as we prepare to turn the page on 2011, I wanted to beat Dick Clark – or, I guess, Ryan Seacrest – to the punch and drop the ball on my year-end Wisch List well before they drop the ball in Times Square.

Speaking of which, you might be interested in knowing that a ball has dropped from the flagpole of One Times Square in Manhattan on every New Year’s Eve since Dec. 31, 1907, except for 1942 and 1943 when New York City was under wartime lighting restrictions in case of an enemy attack.

With no restrictions of my own, let’s get this ball rolling …

I Wisch the mild December that we’ve enjoyed means can expect an equally warm winter. But, after weathering Snowmageddon last February, I’m not holding my (visible) breath.

I Wisch the ill-advised 75-year agreement that Mayor Daley struck with a private parking meter company wasn’t the gift that keeps on, well, taking. Yes, street parking in Chicago is about to go up again by 25 or 50 cents. Beginning Monday, it’ll cost you $5.75 per hour to park in the Loop, $3.50 in the rest of downtown and a $1.75 elsewhere in the city.

I Wisch Theo Epstein had signed a player – say, Prince Fielder – who’s worth paying the price of Wrigley Field admission to see next season. I support rebuilding, but Manny Corpas and David DeJesus don’t exactly have me itching to buy tickets.

I Wisch that in lieu of a significant signing, the Cubs had dropped the prices for tickets stadium-wide in 2012. At least bleacher prices are going down, though.

I Wisch Jay Cutler was healthy. Or that Caleb Hanie was good.

I Wisch North Koreans didn’t have to fake grief for creepy propaganda footage.

I Wisch more years saw the likes of Moammar Gadhafi, Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong-il leave the Earth – enough years, at least, that we didn’t have the likes of those men around any longer.

I Wisch that when it comes to celebrating sports figures our society would cool it on creating myths out of mortal men.

I Wisch I’d never heard Jerry Sandusky’s name this year and that the authorities in Pennsylvania heard it a lot more about a decade ago. Or well before then.

I Wisch that since Chief Illiniwek is gone from the University of Illinois, his critics would just leave him alone. Now, however, there’s a campaign to eliminate the school’s 3-in-1 halftime song because it reminds fans of the Chief. Enough already with the thought control in Champaign.

I Wisch I believed that after Rod Blagoejvich, all Illinois politicians would get their acts together. But I doubt that they will.

I Wisch Derrick Rose the best of luck against the Miami Heat this season. It looks like the kid is probably going to need it.

I Wisch the violence and killing would stop in Englewood, where Rose grew up on Chicago’s South Side. This year, murder dropped by 2 percent overall in Chicago, but it still increased by 40 percent in that neighborhood.

I Wisch there was an easy answer to Englewood’s problem.

I Wisch I could blame Lovie Smith, Mike Martz and Jerry Angelo for the Bears’ collapse this season, but I can’t. Hard not to blame the injuries, instead.

I Wisch that Illinois’ freakishly talented 7-foot sophomore Meyers Leonard would stay in Champaign for one more year.

I Wisch that 2012 included 28-hour days. I’d get more done. And more sleep, too. But not tonight. Happy 2012, everyone.

From the Saturday, Dec. 24, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Nine things you might not know about Christmas

The WISCH LIST

Dec. 24, 2011

You know about “The Nutcracker” by the Joffrey Ballet. No doubt, you’re familiar with “A Christmas Carol” at Goodman Theatre. And, this year, “A Christmas Story” – the new musical based off the ubiquitous holiday film featuring Ralphie and his father’s legged lamp – is all the wintertime rage at the Chicago Theater.

Last weekend, however, I took in another seasonal Chicago show that I was far less familiar with and which informed me about a Christmastime tale that I knew almost nothing about.

“The Christmas Schooner,” a longtime Chicago musical currently playing at the Mercury Theatre (3745 N. Southport Ave.), is based on the true story of the “Rouse Simmons,” a Great Lakes schooner that during the late 19th century became known to Chicagoans as “The Christmas Tree Ship.”

That moniker was earned after its German-born captain and crew battled Lake Michigan’s bitter November gales to become the first ship to transport firs from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Chicago so the city’s German immigrants could have Christmas trees.

Before seeing “The Christmas Schooner” it had never occurred to me that men had once risked their lives just to provide Chicagoans with a dose of holiday cheer. So, in honor of that revelation, I thought I’d share with you today eight additional facts about Christmas that you might not already know.

The birth of Christmas

In A.D. 320, Pope Julius I, bishop of Rome, proclaimed Dec. 25 the official celebration date for the birthday of Christ. Fifteen hundred years later, in 1836, Alabama became the first U.S. state to officially recognize Christmas. The U.S. itself followed suit on June 26, 1870, when it declared Christmas an official holiday. Oklahoma was the last state to make it a legal holiday, not doing so until 1907.

The birth of the Christmas tree?

Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) was reportedly the first person to decorate a Christmas tree. According to legend, Luther was so moved by the beauty of the stars shining between the branches of a fir tree that he brought home an evergreen and decorated it with candles to recreate the image for his children.

On the 12th Day of Christmas …

The “true love” mentioned in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas” actually doesn’t refer to a romantic couple, but rather to the Catholic Church’s code for God. The person who receives the gifts represents someone who has accepted that code. For example, the “partridge in a pear tree” is meant to represent Christ, while the “two turtledoves” represent the Old and New Testaments.

Imagine placing the star on this …

According to the Guinness world records, the tallest Christmas tree ever cut was a towering 221-foot Douglas fir that was displayed in 1950 at the Northgate Shopping Center in Seattle.

… And stuffing this stocking

Meanwhile, the world’s largest Christmas stocking – made in 2007 by the Children’s Society in London – measured 106 feet and 9 inches long and 49 feet and 1 inch wide. Weighing the equivalent of five adult reindeer, the jumbo sock held nearly 1,000 presents.

Branching out

Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold, with approximately 30 to 35 million real (living) ones bought annually by Americans for their homes.

Santa’s girls

Most of Santa’s reindeer have male-sounding names, such as Blitzer, Comet and Cupid. Male reindeers, however, shed their antlers around Christmastime, meaning the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh are likely not guys. They’re girls.

Tissues, anyone?

Why is Rudolph’s nose red? Well, Norwegian scientists have hypothesized that it’s probably the result of a parasitic infection of his respiratory system.
Achoo! And Merry Christmas, everyone.

From the Saturday, Dec. 17, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

A new look for Navy Pier? This winter, it’s in the works

The WISCH LIST

Dec. 17, 2011

So, who goes to Navy Pier in December?

Well, as it turns out, a whole lot of people apparently.

At least, that was the case this past Tuesday when I strolled out there on a night when the pier’s IMAX theater was premiering the highly anticipated prologue for the 2012 finale of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Besides the bat, the evening’s unseasonably warm weather certainly didn’t hurt the crowd’s size, either.
Five years from now, though, if pier officials have their way, Chicago’s best-known dock will be drawing more people to it than ever before. And they’ll

come to see a Navy Pier that’s far different – and more beautiful – than the one existing today.

Who knows, perhaps, they’ll even show up to see it during the wintertime – no IMAX premiere necessary.

Wading 3,000 feet out into the waters of Lake Michigan, Navy Pier originally was envisioned as part of legendary architect Daniel Burnham’s celebrated 1909 Plan of Chicago. But, today, as the old pier closes in on her 100th birthday in 2016, she’s in need of a makeover – even if her last one came just 16 years ago.

(Hey, cut the pier some slack. After all, the pier is 95.)

Back in 1995, at a cost of $225 million, Chicago’s once-crumbling municipal dock was remade as a mix of shops, exhibition halls, cultural attractions and public spaces that proved appealing enough to re-establish Navy Pier as Illinois’ top tourist attraction, now drawing more than 8 million people a year. It had previously held that same honor during the 1950s, when 3.2 million visited annually.

Recently, however, the pier’s attendance has experienced a slight drop and many Chicagoans – including pier officials and myself – consider it to now be more tacky than attractive.

“The Navy Pier that exists today is the result of a business strategy that emphasized quantity and diversity of uses over architectural enhancements,” said a plan that pier officials unveiled last June. The pier is so carnival-like, according to the analysis, that it is widely regarded as a tourist trap even though fewer than one-third of its visitors come from outside the Chicago area.”

In order to change that perception – which also in many ways is a reality – the honchos at Navy Pier this year launched a high-profile design competition intended to refresh and remake those gaudy public spaces into something more architecturally appealing.

As part of “The Centennial Vision” in recognition of the pier’s upcoming 100th anniversary, the competition is intended to re-energize Navy Pier by putting taking the landmark’s focus away from kitsch and putting it where belongs: On the beauty created by the confluence of Lake Michigan, Chicago’s lakefront parks and the city’s breathtaking skyline.

Last month, the architectural firms vying for the $85 million in funding to re-imagine the “pierscape” was whittled down to five finalists. Chicago Tribune architectural critic Blair Kamin said in a column two weeks ago that their visions could include such features as new green spaces to transform the pavement-heavy pier into an extension of lakefront parks, interactive fountains and pools, as well as sculptures and lighting elements that unify the experience.

Not included in the contest, but related to it, will be an upcoming redesign of the pier’s shopping arcade and Family Pavilion as well as the anticipated expansions of the Chicago Children’s Museum and Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Designs for the contest are due Jan. 24 and will be exhibited to the public starting Feb. 2. In mid-February, the winning team will be announced.

My suggestion: Do it on IMAX.

Today’s newspaper column from The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Little joy in Wrigleyville with Ron Santo induction

The WISCH LIST

Dec. 10, 2011

Like he was with so many things, when it came to the topic of Hall of Fame snubs, Mike Royko was right on the nose.

Back on March 12, 1997, in one of the final columns he wrote before his death, the legendary Chicago columnist hit a grand slam when he made like a newspaper Nostradamus and predicted the future of former Cub third baseman Ron Santo.

For the piece, Royko led off with an interesting take on how former White Sox star – and longtime Cooperstown reject – Nellie Fox was finally going in to the Hall of Fame in ’97, but actually out of the limelight since people couldn’t gripe about his omission any longer. Royko then correctly guessed Santo would be the sport’s next high-profile HOF shun.

“… And he will be a fine choice since he is still a relatively young man and should have many good years of being snubbed ahead of him,” Royko wrote of Santo. “What a lucky guy. Once it starts, he can look forward to an annual ego boost from reading about all the home runs he swatted, the many runs he drove in and the fearless way he guarded the hot corner.

“Some of the more insightful baseball scholars might even make note of how many tons of home plate dirt he scooped into his hands and forearms. Or the time he heroically slugged an abusive fan, a hit for which he received the praise of a Chicago judge who hadn’t even been bribed.

“And there will be angry commentary about Santo being deprived of his rightful immortality because of the stupidity of East Coast baseball writers who would surely vote him in the sacred hall if he had been a New York Yankee instead of a lowly Chicago Cub.”

Well, today, I’m here a bit angry. But mainly, I’m just disappointed that Santo, who passed away last December at the age of 70, wasn’t around this week to enjoy the news of his long-awaited – and long-deserved – Hall of Fame induction, which was the definition of bittersweet.

I never understood why Santo – who won five Gold Gloves and belted 342 career home runs to go with a bevy of other impressive statistics – was kept out of the Hall of Fame. After all, only 10 third baseman have previously been inducted, and Santo hit more homers than all but two (Eddie Matthews, Mike Schmidt) and had a higher career batting average than three (including Matthews and Schmidt). Santo also did it all while dealing with diabetes.

Cooperstown, which I’ve visited twice, is a wonderful place for baseball fans, but the route to get there is very confusing – and not because the village is so isolated.

There’s no logical reason, for example, why a player has never been unanimously voted in. Oddly, pitcher Tom Seaver, who garnered 98.84 percent of the vote in 1992, was the closest. Hank Aaron, meanwhile, was named on just 406 of 415 ballots (97.83 percent), whereas Babe Ruth appeared on only 215 of 226 in (95.13 percent).

And, really, who didn’t vote for those guys?

I think there should be first-ballot Hall of Famers (the true elites) and then Hall of Famers, who should then be voted in during their second year of eligibility. As Royko pointed out, Santo ironically became more famous by not being inducted year after year. But irony only goes so far.

And it’s a shame that Ron won’t be alive to see himself enshrined, to give that emotional speech and to hear all those cheers.

Without that, there’s little joy in Wrigleyville. Mighty baseball has struck out.

 

Today’s newspaper column from The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Discover just how the Tribune Tower rocks

The WISCH LIST

Dec. 3, 2011

Throughout its 164-year history chronicling the triumphs and failures of the Windy City and beyond, the Chicago Tribune has had its fair share of famous rocky moments.

“Dewey defeats Truman,” for one. The Sam Zell era, for another.

The newspaper, though, also has its fair share of famous rocks that you might not be so familiar with. Yes, rocks.
And this month if you’re in Chicago visiting the Magnificent Mile to see the holiday sights, I suggest swinging by the Tribune Tower at 435 N. Michigan Ave. to take a rocky ride around the globe via the collection of stones from nearly 150 exotic locales that are embedded in the ground-level exterior of the skyscraper.

It’s quite a trip.

How these stones came to Chicago is a story that begins in the early part of the 20th century, prior to the 1923 construction of the Tribune Tower.

On June 10, 1922, the newspaper hosted an international design competition for its new headquarters and offered $100,000 in prize money with a $50,000 1st prize for “the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world.” More than 260 entries were received with the winner was a neo-Gothic design by a pair of New York architects.

Around this same time, the Tribune’s colorful publisher Col. Robert R. McCormick ordered his army of correspondents to haul back rocks and bricks from a vast array of historically significant sites from around the world so they could be embedded in the base of the Trib’s new digs.

When I worked at the Tribune from 2005 to 2007, the story was that some of these rocks were taken from their farflung homes without, ahem, proper permission. Regardless of how they were acquired, though, McCormick ended up with a literal mother lode of fascinating stones.

I’ve glanced at groupings of the rocks on many occasions, but on Monday night I returned to the Tribune Tower to take them all in at once. The experience was like opening up both a history book and a map of the world simultaneously.
Among the most recognizable foreign stones in the wall are those from sites such as the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon and the House of Parliament, as well as Germany’s Berlin Wall and China’s Great one.

There’s a rock from Hamlet’s Castle in Denmark and another from Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris donated a stone, as did St. Peter’s in Rome. You’ll also find Peking’s Forbidden City represented, along with the Great Pyramid of Giza and Moscow’s Kremlin.

Domestically, you’ll discover rocks from the Alamo, the original tomb of Abraham Lincoln and Princeton, Harvard and Yale. You can also spy a piece of South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, New York’s Fort Ticonderoga and Maryland’s Fort McHenry.
On one wall, Gen. Custer’s battlefield in Montana and the Battle of New Orleans left parts of their legacies, while on another a pair of Revolutionary War battlefields from New Jersey left theirs.

There are scores of other more obscure, but no less fascinating, rocks to discover, as well one item that’s not a rock at all: a piece of twisted metal from New York’s World Trade Center.

The stone you won’t see, however, is the only otherworldly one. In September, the Tribune returned its lone moon rook to NASA, who had provided it on loan for years.

NASA agreed to send another one, and it’s expected to arrive in the spring. In the meantime, though, you’ll just have to make do with an alternate.

And stare at a piece from the Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, instead.

This week, in a measure of extending my own personal Thanksgiving a little longer, I’m sharing my series of columns that I wrote in 2003 for The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., about the remarkable tale of Mark Wiebe. Mark’s story, which I also published in my 2004 book “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory,” remains the most meaningful that I’ve ever been blessed with the opportunity to tell during my career. 

What a way to lose your marbles

The WISCH LIST

July 15, 2003

Through his website, shplooky.com, Mark Wiebe was always worldwide.

But now, thanks to a group of Ottawa Township High School students, he’s gone international.

Because, right now – today – Mark is in Ireland. He’s also in Wales. And even Buckingham Palace.

How that all came to be for Mark – the 16-year-old OTHS senior-to-be and friend of mine and many others who passed away on June 9 after a lifelong battle with Type I Spinal Muscular Atrophy – is one whale of a tale. And you’re invited to embark upon it as we retrace the journey of an idea that crossed five minds, six time zones and an ocean before touching down in the British Isles as one of the coolest tributes that you’ll hear about any time.

Any place.

“He was always talking about his marbles,” recent OTHS grad Travis Hagenbuch said last week about Mark Wiebe, who in the past couple of years had become such a passionate collector of marbles that he would joke he was starting to lose his.

“He had this marble machine in his room,” Hagenbuch continued. “It was like a gumball machine, except it had marbles in it. And whenever we came over to visit him, he’d ask us if we had any change.

“So, we all got a lot of marbles that way.”

“We” would be OTHS students Hagenbuch, Todd Conroy, Mike Duback, Jessica Lehmkuhl and Kathleen McTaggart. All pals of Mark’s, the quintet received a request form their ailing friend two weeks prior to his passing.

“We could tell he started getting a little worse, and Mark asked us if we could come over more often,” Hagenbuch recalled. “A few of us came over almost every day. We’d listen to him talk about computers, or watch movies – sometimes hanging out for hours.”

During those hours, Mark would mention how neat he thought it was that Hagenbuch, Duback, Lehmkuhl, McTaggart and another friend, John Stack, would be going on an 11-day trip through Ireland, Wales and England in June.

“Mark loved ‘Braveheart’ and thought it was pretty cool that we were going to England and Ireland and seeing old buildings and castles,” Hagenbuch said. “Not to mention, he thought it was cool that we could travel so far like that when it would be so hard for him.”

The overseas voyage was something that Hagenbuch and the others had been looking forward to for quite some time. But the morning before their plane was scheduled to leave, they awoke to bad news.

Mark had passed away.

“I got a call at 7 a.m. Monday morning (on June 9), and my mom woke me up in bed,” Hagenbuch said. “I was kind of shocked. I was just at Mark’s house on Sunday and we said we’d be back tomorrow. Then there didn’t end up being a tomorrow.

“I didn’t expect it to come that soon.”

Since Hagenbuch and the four others were departing for Europe in 24 hours, it meant they would be unable to attend either Mark’s wake or his funeral.

“We thought about that before, especially as we saw him get worse,” Hagenbuch said. “Actually, that weekend, we had told our parents that if anything happened (with Mark) while we were gone to not let us know until we got back. Because, there wouldn’t be anything we could do about it.”

That was, until they realized that they could.

Just hours after learning the news about the death of his friend, Hagenbuch came up with the idea of bringing a bag of the marbles that Mark had given him along on the trip.

“He always talked about how cool it was that we were going over there,” Hagenbuch said. “And I thought it would be cool to kind of bring part of him with us …

“At first, I just brought the marbles with me to have them there. But then John Stack came up with the idea to leave them places.”

The next thing you knew, Hagenbuch, Duback, Lehmkuhl, McTaggart and Stack were rolling one of Mark’s marbles through the gates of Buckingham Palace. They dropped another into the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher. A third was tucked into a dark corner of Beaumaris Castle in Wales, while yet another found a new home in Dublin’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“That one,” Hagenbuch said of the St. Pat’s marble, “we dropped in a heating grate. So it should be there for a while.”

Meaning that Mark Wiebe – a young man who had an affinity for the history of the British Isles – now has his own permanent place there.

EPILOGUE: Turns out that Travis Hagenbuch, Mike Duback, Jessica Lehmkuhl, Kathleen McTaggart and John Stack weren’t the only world travelers from Ottawa to take – and leave – a little piece of Mark Wiebe overseas during the summer of 2003.

Ottawa Township High School student Carleigh Damron – the daughter of Mark’s longtime teacher’s aide and close friend, Debbie – also ended up launching Mark’s marbles on a global journey. Only she did it, not from Europe, but South America as Carleigh spent the 2003-04 school year in Brazil as an exchange student.

Before Carleigh left for her yearlong sojourn in July of ’03, Debbie took a number of Mark’s marbles, put them in plastic sleeves and then printed on the outside the words: “I found my marbles in Ottawa, Ill.”

Carleigh packed the marbles with her luggage, and while living in the city of Pindamonhangaba in the state of Sao Paulo she handed them out to fellow exchange students from throughout the world.

So, not only did Mark make it all the way to the British Isles via his beloved marbles – he made it to just about everywhere else, too.

And he’d just love that.

This week, in a measure of extending my own personal Thanksgiving a little longer, I’m sharing my series of columns that I wrote in 2003 for The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., about the remarkable tale of Mark Wiebe. Mark’s story, which I also published in my 2004 book “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory,” remains the most meaningful that I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to tell during my career. 

Leaving his Mark

The WISCH LIST

June 17, 2003

Eight days ago, this “Friendly City” of ours became a little less so. Not because of anything Ottawa did, mind you. But, rather, because of what it lost:

My pal, Mark Wiebe.

This past March, I had the honor of introducing the effervescent Mark – then a junior at Ottawa Township High School – to the people of La Salle County. Today, I’m back. But, unfortunately, Mark’s not with me.

On the morning of Monday, June 9 – just 16 days after his 17th birthday – he passed away at his home on the East Side.

Since birth, Mark had been suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy known as Type I Spinal Muscular Atrophy. The disease, which paralyzes and deteriorates nearly all of the body’s voluntary muscles, is terminal and in most cases leads to death by age 2.

Mark, however, wasn’t most cases.

For nearly 17 years, he bucked the odds like a bronco. And did it in so many ways. Despite being wheelchair-bound, weighing only 40 pounds and being able to move little more than his fingers, Mark was intimately involved in poetry, marble collecting, the National Honor Society, the OTHS Student Council, the Chess Club, the choir and the hearts of everyone who knew him.

A group, which I’m proud to say, included me.

In the months after I met Mark, he and I became buddies. We’d email. We’d instant message. I’d even go over to his house to have a chat with him every now and then – when I could pull him away from his computer, that is.

Smart as a whip, Mark ran his own website and knew more about computers than Bill Gates.

Seriously.

Just a few weeks ago, Mark was trying to explain to me how to post something on his site. I was more clueless than Inspector Clouseau, but Mark in his typical manner was patient and thorough as I muddled through the lesson.

With his endlessly optimistic attitude, it was lessons in life that Mark provided to so many others. Even if he didn’t realize it or try to. In the days after my column about Mark ran, I received several emails from people throughout the area who were moved by his story.

“Thank you for the article about Mark Wiebe,” wrote one woman from Earlville. “Our whole family, including our teenagers, read it and each of us was inspired. We especially appreciate that you made it plain that Mark gives God the glory for his life, abilities and thoughtfulness of others.”

“(Mark) has been a good friend of mine for a couple years now,” wrote a teenager named Todd from Ottawa. “It really seemed to make his day that he was in the paper. Thank you for bringing joy into his life. He always seems to find it, but he needs as much as he can get. So again, thank you for doing that for him.”

Actually, Todd, I’d like to thank Mark what he did for me.

Today, I can just imagine what he’s up to. My guess is that Mark already has Heaven wired, and is currently working on getting God’s home page up and running.

Pretty soon, all the angels will have their own screen names. Then they’ll be the ones getting instant messages from the latest guy to get his wings.

Those lucky devils.

Coming Wednesday, Part III of Mark’s story …

This week, in a measure of extending my own personal Thanksgiving a little longer, I’m sharing my series of columns that I wrote in 2003 for The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill., about the remarkable tale of Mark Wiebe. Mark’s story, which I also published in my 2004 book “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory,” remains the most meaningful that I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to tell during my career. 

SMA: See Mark Amaze

The WISCH LIST

March 11, 2003

When some kids dream, it’s visions of sugarplums they see dancing in their heads. When Mark Wiebe dreams, it’s something entirely different that he sees dancing in his.

Himself.

“When I dream, I’m never in a wheelchair,” said Mark, a 16-year-old junior at Ottawa Township High School. “I’m walking, or floating or flying …”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream where I’m in a wheelchair.”

That’s in spite of the fact that he’s hardly spent a day outside of one. Just months after his birth, Mark – the son of mom, Terry, and stepdad, Brian Scanlon, of Ottawa, and father, Jeff Wiebe, of Florida – was diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy now known as Type I Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), or Werdning-Hoffman Disease.

An incurable affliction of the spinal cord, SMA affects the body’s voluntary muscles used for simple activities such as crawling, walking, head and neck control and swallowing. In Type I – the most severe case – those affected are, for the most part, paralyzed.

“The cells don’t build up in your muscles, they just die off, and no one knows why,” Mark explained about SMA, a fairly common but largely unknown terminal disease that affects one in every 6,000 live births, and in most cases leads to death by age 2. “You need those cells to grow, so you get weaker as you get older.”

Such a dickens of a disease is SMA that it has left Mark’s body weighing only 40 pounds and with just enough motor skills to double click a computer mouse. It also has forced him to spend each day wearing braces on his torso and feet, and each night wearing ones on his hands and arms. After 16 years of that drill, Mark is a bigger expert on braces than any orthodontist you’ll find.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said. “I told my mom one night, the next thing you know, I’ll need braces for my eyes … Actually the only things (SMA) doesn’t affect are your eyesight and brain.”

Or, apparently, your sense of humor. Or your optimism. Or your friendliness.

Or maybe that’s just Mark, whose engaging personality has allowed a young man who can’t even move his arms to reach out and touch more people than AT&T.

“He’s an inspiration,” OTHS English teacher Jim Gayan said. “With having been dealt a terrible deck, Mark still always comes up a winner. He gets joy out of life under the most extreme physical restrictions. If and when I ever grow up, I hope to be like Mark.”

Join the club – if you can get in.

“Mark’s spirit is an amazing thing,” said Sue Williamson, a theater and speech teacher at OTHS. “Most teachers at the high school who have come into contact with him feel that he’s the teacher and we’ve been the students.”

For many of the instructors at OTHS, Mark – exceedingly bright and ever bubbly – was a true treasure among Ottawa’s Pirates. And that’s why it was such a downer for everyone on New Year’s Eve in 2001 when Mark was rushed to the hospital with bowel blockage and learned the next morning that his days at his beloved OTHS were over.

“They said I couldn’t go to school any more and that I wouldn’t be able to drive my electric wheelchair any longer,” recalled Mark, who had become too frail for those exertions. “It was a big, big change.”

In typical fashion, however, Mark simply took what appears to be a bummer of a situation and turned it into a boon.

“A lot of good has come from me not going to school,” he said. “I think God had it happen for a reason.”

And it isn’t as if Mark doesn’t still reason on a daily basis. He continues to study at OTHS, same as ever, only now classes are held in the cozy confines of his bedroom. Each morning and afternoon during the school year, OTHS teacher’s aide Debbie Damron delivers Mark’s classwork, writes out his answers and tries to address any questions he might have.

Ask Damron, though, and she’ll tell you that she’s the one doing most of the learning.

“Mark has taught me more about living and life than I could ever teach him,” she said. “For a young man of 16, he has such a grasp on what life is all about … He’s a young man who never once asked me to do anything without saying please and thank you …

“And when I’m down about something, Mark will say, ‘Debbie, let’s pray for you,’ and he’ll say a prayer. Then I’m sobbing because I know he cares about me, and that I’m not just a teaching assistant.”

That’s the kind of effect Mark has on people. His optimism is infectious and his pull downright gravitational, which is why he counts the likes of well-known muralists Byron Peck and Colin Williams, world-renowned marble collector Gino Biffany, and Christian rock superstar Michael W. Smith among his friends and acquaintances.

In spite of his limitations, Mark is living a life that’s richer than Donald Trump and more diversified than his stock portfolio. He’s a poet, a former chorus singer, a devout Christian, a marble collector and a self-taught webpage designer who has his own site (shplooky.com) and one day hopes to run his own computer business.

“Sometimes,” Jim Gayan said about Mark, “he makes me feel like I’m slow and lazy.”

Mark is also a giver. While on Ottawa’s student council, he served as the head of the school’s Hospitality Team, providing care packages for new students. Among his many other good deeds, Mark once spent a day downtown collecting business cards for a dying boy who was trying to get his name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Mark is not just wanting people to help Mark,” Damron explained. “That’s not Mark’s purpose in this world. He reaches out to others. And that’s where the inspiration comes from.”

“I can’t say I’m perfect and that I help everyone,” Mark said. “But I try and help when I can. It makes me feel good, I guess. Sometimes, if I’m having a bad day it makes me feel good to a point where I can say, ‘This is a pretty good day.’ ”

Seems like there are a lot of those with Mark Wiebe around.

“I can’t say that I never get down, because I do,” he said. “One thing I know, though, is that God is always there for me. And I have great friends and family to remind me to look at the good stuff and see what I really have.”

And now Ottawa knows what it really has, as well.

Coming Tuesday, Part II of Mark’s life story …

Today’s newspaper column from The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Carving up Illinois’ post-Thanksgiving sports scene

The WISCH LIST

Nov. 26, 2011

Thanksgiving is gone.

And your leftovers might be, too.

But, fear not, my friends. With a full menu of football and hockey on tap this weekend, followed by college basketball on Tuesday and Major League Baseball’s Hot Stove League warming up soon after, there’s still plenty of sports for you to feast on in the coming days.

That said, there’s been a lot of famine plaguing the Land of Lincoln’s sports teams lately, too. And I’m not just referring to the AWOL status of the Chicago Bulls.

Remember them?

So, as you sit back and enjoy the remainder of your holiday weekend, allow me to slice into the meat of the local sports scene and examine what’s inside …

BEARS

Feast: Last season, the Bears were only 4-3 after seven games (like this year), enjoyed an unexpected five-game win streak midyear (ditto) and went on to finish 11-5 and reach the NFC Championship Game. With the 2011 Bears’ remaining opponents – not counting undefeated Green Bay – boasting a combined record of just 21-29, why can’t they do it again?

Famine: Well, with Jay Cutler out with a Bennett’s fracture of his thumb – named after Edward Hallaran Bennett, Professor of Surgery at the University of Dublin from 1873-1906, in case you were wondering – we’re stuck with Caleb Hanie for the next several weeks. And no one really knows how good Hanie is … or isn’t.

CUBS

Feast: With a new four-star (and two-ring) chef assuming control of the Cubs’ kitchen, fans are expecting Theo Epstein to swing a slew of sweet deals in the coming seasons.

Famine: Epstein hasn’t swung any sweet ones yet. And at last glance, for 2012, the Cubs have no first baseman, no third baseman, no right fielder and at least two-and-a-half question marks (if you count Carlos Zambrano as half a pitcher) in their starting rotation. With the Winter Meetings scheduled for Dec. 5-8, Theo has a full plate.

WHITE SOX

Feast: Earlier this week, a 51-year-old homeless man broke into White Sox general manager Ken Williams’ Chicago townhouse and made himself right at home, guzzling Williams’ beer, eating his frozen pizzas and even defrosting a lobster. Quite the feast – and quite the tale. But, what the story had me wondering most is what kind of frozen pizza does Williams prefer? DiGiorno’s … or Home Run Inn?

Famine: With a startlingly inexperienced manager in Robin Ventura, a roster that still features the twin albatrosses of Adam Dunn’s and Alex Rios and a pitching staff that looks like it will lose ace Mark Buehrle, Williams could be in jeopardy of finding himself on the soup line next winter.

FIGHTING ILLINI

Feast: Seven-foot sophomore Meyers Leonard is looking like a future NBA lottery pick, Illinois is playing with some grit and fifth-year senior transfer Sam Maniscalco is filling a major leadership void. As a result, heading into a road test at mediocre Maryland on Tuesday night, the Illini basketball team is off to 5-0 start …

Famine: … But so was the Illini football team. So, with this inexperienced hoops squad, it’s wise to keep your expectations at a simmer right now, Illini fans.

BLACKHAWKS

Feast: With the Blackhawks currently perched atop the Central division standings, former star Jeremy Roenick unleashed this whopper on Wednesday: “I actually think their team now is stronger then the team that won the Cup two years ago.” Bold words.

Famine: Just two years removed from a title, Hawks fans are hardly starved for success. But with the Bulls season on hold, the United Center is certainly starved for crowds. Perhaps by Christmas, the stadium will get a gift – an unwrapped NBA season.

From the Saturday, Nov. 19, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Embarking upon Chicago’s ‘Tiniest Bar Crawl’

The WISCH LIST

Nov. 19, 2011

It’s nicknamed “The City of Big Shoulders,” but Chicago has a lot of tiny joints nestled throughout its sprawling streetscapes, too.

And this past weekend, on the suggestion of my girlfriend – who happens to be pretty tiny herself – we decided to explore a few of them in the nooks and crannies on the city’s North and West Sides.

You can call our adventure the “Tiniest Bar Crawl in Chicago,” partly because it took us to only three places, but mostly because it featured some of the city’s smallest bars, including the smallest of them all.

By a pretty large margin.

Tiny Lounge

Early on Sunday afternoon, our little journey began with brunch at Tiny Lounge, located about at 4352 N. Leavitt St. in the city’s North Center neighborhood.

Once upon a time – 1999 to 2006, to be exact – Tiny Lounge existed at a different location about one mile south of its current one until the Chicago Transit Authority leveled the place to build a new Addison Brown Line station.

Fans of that nightspot, known for its dimly lit and heavily padded booths, as well as its robust drink list, were heartbroken. But, in 2009, their wounds were salved when Tiny Lounge reopened in its new location, which features the same booths, same lighting and same impressive drink menu – surrounded by a sleek new decor.

On Sunday, I passed on the Tiny Stacks and the Tiny Burgers in favor the Tiny Omelet, which wasn’t small, but was quite delicious. And after paying the tab, we hopped a cab and headed three miles southwest to Logan Square, home of our second small destination.

Small Bar

Located at 2956 N. Albany Ave. on a block so residential that it even left our cabbie confused – “You said there’s a bar down here?” – Small Bar is actually part of a family of watering holes all under the same name.

The other incarnations exist on West Division and West Fullerton, but North Albany’s Small Bar, nestled in the hipster haven that is Logan Square, offers the “smallest” feel, if you will.

From the outside, it looks like a brick neighborhood joint you’d find in Anytown, USA. But inside, behind a bar boasting fantastically intricate woodwork and a warm, cozy atmosphere, there’s a drink list that offers up the exotic likes of New Belgium Lips of Faith Clutch and a powerful cinnamon beer called Stone Vertical Epic 11.11.11.

After watching the first half of the Bears game at Small Bar and wondering why the littlest places always seem to have the best beer lists, we were off to our final tiny stop.

The Matchbox

By billing itself as “Chicago’s Most Intimate Bar,” the Matchbox isn’t trying to be romantic. It’s just telling you that it’s small.

Really small.

Located at 770 N. Milwaukee Ave. in River West, the Matchbox features a long bar with a single row of stools. In front, t its widest in the front, it’s about 10 feet. In the back, at its narrowest, a mere three feet, which can make the trip from the front door to the restroom quite the challenge.

The triangular building is actually the shape of a book of matches on its side. But when its original Israeli owner opened it during the 1940s, current owner David Gevercer explained, “I think … his English was not very good and that’s why he called it the Matchbox, not knowing the difference between a matchbox and a book of matches.”

No matter its name, the bar might be a claustrophobic nightmare for some people. But, for anyone who loves Chicago’s quirks and curiosities, it’s a huge treat.