Promo picture from the author’s collection.
Tomorrow seemed so far away in the summer of 1982.
That’s when I hopped into my rusty 1974 Dodge Swinger and drove to East Point, GA., from Wicker Park to see the Chicago soul singer Major Lance.
No one assigned me a story. I had no travel budget. There were no publicists. I made the trip for the promise of music and America’s power of redemption.
I made it home.
I knew Lance had a hit with 1963’s “Monkey Time” and “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” in 1964, but it was the writings and encouragement of Chicago soul-ologist Robert Pruter that [...]
My friend Corny Ramirez.
If you believe, as I do, that sense of place is a powerful narrative, then Cornelio “Corny” Ramirez, Jr. lived a real Chicago life. His working-class voice was heard from the top of the 95th Street Bridge to the ripples of the Calumet River. Corny was a good union man, a militant punk musician, and a loving husband and father.
Corny died peacefully on Nov. 2 in his home five blocks from the Indiana border on the Southeast Side. He was 61 years old.
His inspiration may be his greatest story.
I met Corny in the summer of 1995 when he was the 5’3” lead singer of Dead Steelmill, [...]
Marlene and friends at home 10/18/26 (D. Hoekstra photo)
VERONA, WI.–When Marlene Buechel grew up on her family farm in tiny New Glarus, WI, in the 1950s, she had no clue about the larger community she would later encounter.
And what it would mean to her.
Marlene is one of the most effervescent baseball fans I know. She has been a Milwaukee baseball fan since 1953. She is a Brewers season ticket holder and drives 180 miles round trip between her home in Verona and Milwaukee. Marlene attends roughly 25 games a year. She turns 89 years old next month.
Last weekend I wanted to visit [...]
Michael pre- Chicago White Sox playoff game Oct. 5, 2026 (D. Hoekstra photo.)
Last week, my friend Michael Hollman sat in his wheelchair at a nursing residence in Naperville. He is the husband of my high school journalism teacher, Dr. Marilyn Hollman. We have kept in touch over the 50 years since I graduated from Naperville Central High School.
Michael was in hospice care.
He was dying, but his eyes were full of wonder. His bed was scattered with sections of the Wall Street Journal. The nursing home delivered daily newsletters, similar to the briefings you get on cruise ships. A book of Mary Oliver poems sat [...]
