Today is a good day to write this for my daughter, who lives in Nashville and attended college  (Belmont University) in Nashville. It may (or may not) enlighten her to an anniversary being hailed by USA Today in their Monday, February 1, 2010 issue, in a front page story entitled “How a Demand for Lunch Fueled a Push for Rights.” The story, written by Larry Copeland, references the 50-year anniversary of a sit-in by black students and their white friends at the businesses along Fifth Street in Nashville, Tennessee.

Although Nashville’s sit-in protesting racial discrimination at the city’s lunch counters like Woolworth’s (then a staple) was upstaged by an impromptu sit-in the day before, [on February 1, 1960], at North Carolina A&T College, by four black students (all freshman African American students at AT&T College)—Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond and Franklin McCain—the Nashville protest movement involved many more students, both local residents and many who were urged, as I was, to get on buses and travel South to be part of the protests. Many of these Freedom Riders, as they were known (or trouble-makers, if you were a local in the Southern community being visited), were organized by SNCC (the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee).

SNCC was organized in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1960 to help coordinate sit-ins and freedom rides and marches. Most were unpaid volunteers, but some were paid $10 a week to help the organization. Initially, the organization was meant to be non-violent. In its later incarnations under Stokely Carmichael, when the Black Power salute came into being, etc., the organization’s leaders said, “I don’t know how much longer we can remain non-violent,” and, indeed, it did not stand fast to Martin Luther King’s original nonviolent protest principles and passed out of existence in the seventies. However, during the hey-day of the sixties, SNCC was instrumental in helping organize protest movements in the United States, both by raising funds and by recruiting sympathetic students from across the northern part of the United States, who traveled South to help win civil rights for the black residents.

One of the most influential, in fact, would be an English major from Chicago, Diane Nash, who emerged as a key spokeswoman and ultimately confronted Nashville’s Mayor, Ben West at the height of the city’s sit-ins of 1960 (.

Nashville, Tennessee in 1960 was still a segregated city in the South, although it prided itself on being “the Athens of the South,” with its model Parthenon in the park and what officials felt was an enlightened attitude. But the black students who could not be served at Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress, McClellan’s, Grant’s, Walgreen’s and Cain-Sloan along Fifth Street didn’t quite see it that way.

Today, with the benefit of looking back from the vantage-point of 50 years in the future, it is apparent that the Nashville protest for civil rights was far better organized than many of those being staged in 112 Southern cities by October of 1960 (as documented in Juan Williams’ book Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil rights Years, 1954-1965).  Of the 112 sit-ins and other demonstrations staged, many were ineffectual. It is a tribute to the preparation and planning of leaders like Chicago’s Diane Nash that Nashville’s sit-ins and protest movement yielded fruit that today’s college students benefit from, even if they cannot remember and, sometimes, cannot believe that this sort of unrest occurred in their fair city.

While Joseph McNeil, one of the original sit-in demonstrators at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, had simply “had enough” and did what he did with little preparation or forethought, simply because, “I didn’t want to see my children have to face the same problems.  We just felt that this certainly was a time to act. If not now, when? If not my generation, what generation?” others spent more time preparing and planning. McNeil is now 67 and a retired Air Force Reserve major general who lives in Hempstead, New York. He adds, “My parents grew up and carried the scars of racial segregation.”

Lest readers think that Nashville, with its reputation as the Athens of the South, was so much better than Greensboro, North Carolina, let me quote 82-year-old John Seigenthaler in the USA Today front page article (Feb. 1, 2010) who was then the weekend city editor of The Tennessean, Nashville’s leading newspaper. Said Seigenthaler, “It (Nashville) was as segregated by race as any city in South Africa during apartheid.” Seigenthaler went on to become the first editorial director of USA Today, after serving as editor and publisher of The Tennessean.

When 124 students who had been coached in non-violent reaction by groups such as SNCC, dressed in their Sunday best, marched quietly, 2 abreast, from a nearby church to Fifth Avenue in Nashville and entered Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress, and McClellan’s, stores that, today, we would describe as “dime stores,” they were told by a waitress, “We don’t serve niggers here.”

The students waited quietly while other shoppers stared.  The protesters sat for a few hours and then left. However, the students returned over and over again during the next 2 weeks and added a fourth store, Grant’s, and a fifth, Walgreen’s.  (None of these stores remain on Nashville’s Fifth Avenue, today, except Walgreen’s, which hasn’t had a lunch counter in decades, as that particular American cultural phenomenon has been supplanted by fast food places like McDonald’s and Burger King.)

Each subsequent sit-in grew larger, attracting more students to the cause, but each subsequent sit-in also attracted supportive, idealistic white youths of the era. Protesters were heckled, beat, and spat upon the protesters and all this has been documented on film. By February 27, 1960, Nashville had decided to crack down on the disruption(s) to the local businesses and 81 students had been arrested.

Seigenthaler remembers, “For the white community, there was shock, anger, overwhelmingly negative feelings. The business community adopted a very steel-backed approach, rigid and very negative.”

I remember that, in my own case, I only took part in demonstrations that were held on the campuses of the universities I was actually attending. My parents decreed that there would be no bus trips to Southern cities for this college co-ed. But the colleges I was attending during the years outlined in Juan Williams’ book (see above) were the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. (If you think things were “all quiet on the western front at Berkeley,” you have not read many history books about “Berzerkley” in the sixties.)

I remember that all the bookstore windows were broken out during demonstrations, to the point that the bookstores on both campuses replaced their previously glass windows with a bricked-up substitute. I remember the (repeated) occupation of Sproul Hall (the administration building) on campus at Berkeley and many protest rallies and concerts by such luminaries as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and, in one memorable poetry reading, Alan Ginsberg.

Ginsberg, the much-acclaimed author of “Howl” and one of the Beat Poets (like Jack Kerouac of “On the Road”) was so high on something that the janitor had to be summoned to actually physically lift the man, (squatting cross-legged in yoga lotus position onstage with finger cymbals), and remove him from the stage (stage left, as they say). I remember Mario Savio, now deceased, who was constantly rallying the student demonstrators, and just as constantly being hauled off to jail. [Imagine my surprise on a return trip to Berkeley recently to discover a life-sized statue of this leader of the Free Speech movement and civil rights activist right on campus. (“The times, they are a’changin’,” for sure.)]

But back to Nashville, so that my daughter, born in 1987, may read some reminiscences of others more central to integrating the city she now calls home.

Sit-ins had been tried in more than 12 cities, beginning in Wichita, Kansas in 1958, but the one in Greensboro, North Carolina described above ignited the most passion and reignited Dr. Martin Luther King’s movement, which had flagged after the Rosa Parks bus incident in Birmingham, Alabama, faded from memory. Without the students leading the way, Dr. King’s movement might well have faltered, but the unbridled enthusiasm of youth—harnessed again in Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008—rescued a flagging Civil Rights movement back in the sixties.

By February, 1960, sit-ins had taken place in 31 cities. By March, 1960, sit-ins had taken place in 71 cities (USA Today article of Feb. 1, 2010, by Larry Copeland, p.2A). By October, 1960, sit-ins had occurred in 112 Southern cities. The movement was growing and, in Nashville, at least, students from all over the country and all over the world were feeding it.  Said Representative John Lewis, (D, Ga.) who was then 19 and among those in the Civil Rights movement in 1960, “Students would come to Fisk to watch films and plays, or come to the Fisk Chapel to listen to unbelievable music, but they could not eat together downtown in racially mixed groups.”

For 2 years prior to the Nashville movement of 1960, Lewis was among a group of students learning non-violent tactics from James Lawson, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. (Again, at Iowa, the group was SNCC, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). This is where Diane Nash from Chicago, mentioned earlier, studied the movement and where Bernard LaFayette, who later became a college president, would take part. C.T. Vivian, who later became an Atlanta city councilman was there and Marion Barry, later the Mayor of Washington, D.C. whose antics in office earned him a less-than-stellar reputation for drug use and womanizing, decades afterwards.

All these disparate people came together and planned, for 2 years, to hold mock sit-ins and studied how NOT to respond if attacked or arrested. Test sit-ins were held in late 1959 at 2 Nashville department stores, Harvey’s and Cain-Sloan. All this was in preparation for “the real deal,” which rolled out on February 13, 1960.

Says LaFayette, today, “There was an ongoing debate between the students and their parents.  They (the parents) feared for our safety, because we were going up against a system that was not known to be very sympathetic or humane, particularly law enforcement in the South.”

I had grown up in the lily-white town of Independence, Iowa. I did not have…then or now…. one shred of prejudice towards any other ethnic group. It isn’t that I can claim any moral high ground. I just had had no bad experiences of any kind (nor good, for that matter) with the students referenced as “colored.” Basic human decency and logic would dictate that people are people, no matter what color or religion they are, and should be treated equally well. Isn’t it the Bible that says, “Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you?”

It didn’t take me long to decide where I would stand on this issue, but how active I could/would be in the movement was dictated by my conservative Midwestern parents who controlled the purse strings. However, when I was on campus where it was all happening (as at Berkeley and Iowa)…(finish that thought). My parents were completely clear that I was NOT to sign anything, NOT to get arrested, and NOT to get on a bus heading south.

However, as long as I didn’t sign anything (“Do NOT sign anything,” said my stern father.) nor get on a bus for parts unknown, like the hapless college students whose short lives and brutish murders are so compellingly portrayed in the 1988 Alan Parker film “Mississippi Burning” (Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe), I could take part in protests on the campuses I was actually attending without repercussions that would cause trouble with the authorities (and, in that group, I include my conservative parents). I remember particularly vividly giving blood to be thrown on the steps of Old Capitol in protest, but the protest was an anti Vietnam War protest, not a Civil Rights protest.

 This period of time stretched from 1963 to 1968, later than the period (1960) being discussed in the USA Today story. Still, I remember that the beacon burned bright in those years of the sixties, especially as anti-war protests against the Vietnam War, fueled by our nation’s draft system, began to become part of the mix.

As for sit-ins, perhaps 100,000 participated in them, according to historian Clayborne Carson, and 3,000 were arrested in 1960, alone, so demands that you “not get arrested” were reality-based when delivered by a worried parent to an idealistic would-be participant.

The sit-ins in Nashville carried on in to April of 1960, costing local merchants money. Easter was approaching and the large black middle class in Nashville organized a “No New Clothes Easter.” “Jim Crow” laws in at least 11 Southern states prohibited inter-racial mingling between blacks and whites, but, in 1954, the Supreme Court had ordered the schools desegregated. Ordering it didn’t make it happen, however, and there have been books written about the integration of the South’s most revered black institutions (colleges, universities, public schools), including a famous Norman Rockwell painting depicting a small black girl walking into a previously all-white school.

Said a Nashville student who was part of the protest movement of 1960 (Mitchell) of the “No New Clothes Easter:” “People were very serious about this.  They didn’t shop.  Anyone who had new clothes that Easter stood out.” Naturally, this hurt local merchants and Mayor Ben West proposed a compromise whereby a 3-month trial period would allow blacks to be served in a separate area of the local restaurants (Remember “separate but equal?”). This angered the black students and it was rejected. The sit-ins continued.

On April 19^th, the home of the students’ attorney, Z. Alexander Lobby, was bombed. Thousands of people, both black and white, marched in silence to City Hall later that day, where spokeswoman Diane Nash (the Chicago convert) addressed Mayor Ben West, saying, “Mayor, do you recommend that the lunch counters be desegregated?”

The Mayor—who had always been viewed as a moderate and who was a white man presiding over an integrated city council—hesitated briefly and then said, “Yes.” (This version comes from Seigenthaler, who was present.) Says historian Clayborne Carson, “The sit-ins were the real starting point of the protests of the 1960s.”

By May 10, 1960, six Fifth Avenue stores (Kress’, Woolworth’s, McClellan’s, Grant’s, Walgreen’s and Cain-Sloan’s) seated black customers at lunch counters for the first time. When Reverend Martin Luther-King came to Nashville mere days after the confrontation between Chicago’s Diane Nash and Mayor Ben West, he told a capacity crowd in the Fisk auditorium, “The Nashville sit-ins were the best organized and the most disciplined in the Southland.” (Parting the Waters by Pulitzer-prize winner Taylor Branch).

As a sometimes Chicagoan who participated in protests during the troubled decade of the sixties, it is difficult for me to explain to my 22-year-old daughter, who lives in the very city where much of this occurred, how it is conceivable that a white minority would or could attempt to keep down a black majority. One has only to look to apartheid in South Africa with the Dutch colonial settlers (and this year’s “Invictus” film by Clint Eastwood) to realize that the history I lived through and participated in (to a lesser extent than these pioneers, but to the extent that I was able to do so) really did occur.

As Seigenthaler put it, “It’s really tough to understand how a city could be so insensitive, and, in some ways, so dumb, but Nashville’s ability to resolve it within a relatively short period of time and put it behind them is worth considering.” Says Mitchell, “Nashville, today, is a city that’s very respected in race relations. It’s a diverse, international community.  The present generation is often shocked when we refer to the sit-ins. They see a very open and urban community, and they don’t believe that that happened here.”

As you drive down Fifth Avenue in Nashville, today, little remains to remind of the history that took place in these streets. There are no signs or memorials and, although the sign is still up at the old Kress store, it’s been converted into loft apartments.  Walgreen’s, the only store of those mentioned that remains, has no lunch counter, and has had no such amenity in decades.

Nashville residents, like my daughter, can sit together and eat lunch wherever they want with whomever they choose, today. But they owe that freedom to Freedom Riders (as they were known), youths like me, who often boarded buses and traveled South (at considerable risk) to join their oppressed fellowman, in the hope of assuring “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” just as our Constitution has assured our citizens since the 1700s. It was justice and equality for all under the law, regardless of race, color or creed that the children of the sixties stood up for.  I hope today’s youth and tomorrow’s youth-yet-to-be-born remember this history 50 years from now.

Mayor Richard Daley’s 2010 budget hole is something like $520 million, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. What to do, given the fact that Chicago already has the highest taxes in the country (10.25%) and experienced a –17% plummeting of hotel tax revenue?

The answer from the Mayor, expected to propose a $6.14 billion budget (up from $5.97 in 2009) is to raise the money from the unpopular parking meter 75-year lease, taking $370 million to shore up the leaking financial situation and (drum roll here, please) to sink the annual Venetian Night Parade that his father established when Mayor in 1959. The annual event only survived this year because it was bailed out, financially, at the last minute by Red Bull. It costs $100,000 for the fireworks and $200,000 for the policement, firemen, porta-potties and other things necessary to control a lakefront crowd of half-a-million people.

Some, like Scott Baumgartner of the Chicago Yachting Association, feel that the Mayor’s proposal is premature. Baumgartner released a statement: “We still feel strongly that we can do this event.  It’s a tradition we would be very reluctant to let go of.” (That’s a Yachting Association guy talking, for you.)

Baumgartner actually had some support for the Alderman of my ward, 2nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti who said (in a “Tribune” article), “We shouldn’t cut off our nose to spite our face. (*Don’t blame me for the cliched expression. Fioretti said it) We need to keep attracting people to Chicago.  Wasn’t that the real purpose of the Olympic bid? …It’s clearly a big draw.”

Yes, Venetian Night has been a big FREE draw, with over 500,000 people taking their kids and their lawn chairs to the lakefront to watch the decorated boats float by. This year, my husband and I set up on the hill across from the Shedd Aquarium early, and if the fates allow, you’ll be able to see some photos of what may well be the very last Venetian Night right here on WeeklyWilson.

The current Mayor Daley’s Special Events Director, Megan McDonald, in discussing how the popular regatta that attracted over half a million people this year was targeted for extinction said, “It’s more than just boats and nice fireworks. It’s being able to accommodate half-a-million people on the lakefront.” It should also be noted that the Jazz Festival is being cut from 3 days to 2, and many events are being moved to the Pritzker Pavilion from Grant Park. Also, some local festivals and arts spending will come under fire.

The 52^nd annual Venetian Night was held on July 27^th this year, and I was there.
R.I.P., Venetian Night.

As I was driving in to Chicago today, about 1 p.m., the WLS team reported that a 6’ 7” inch male in his fifties had been shot and killed by Chicago police in the downtown theater district, near the Chicago Theater at State and Randolph Streets. The WLS team was agog that the shooting took place less than 50 yards from their offices.

Two Channel 7 photographers were outside smoking and, as a result, ended up as witnesses to the entire event. (“Thank God people still smoke!” said one on-air talking head.)

The man who was shot was described as “an over-aggressive panhandler” who was apparently using a large butcher knife to make his point. This caused understandable stress for the streets, which were full at the time, as it was the lunch hour. Because it was the lunch hour and the original Marshall Fields (now Macy’s) flagship store and a Border’s bookstore are nearby, there were a number of people in the street who witnessed the incident.

Pepper spray was initially used on the man, but it did nothing. The man with the knife took an older gentleman hostage and, in preliminary reports, the radio people said that he was pulled from the man and then held the knife to the throat of a woman, who was described as “curled in the fetal position against the curb” before she was taken away by ambulance. I watched the news later in the day, and there was no mention of a female hostage, but the fact that a man with a butcher knife was menacing people in broad daylight in one of the busiest parts of town went unquestioned.
The real kicker to the story is that 5 to 10 shots were fired, and one of them hit an officer who, fortunately, was wearing a bulletproof vest, so that he sustained only minor injuries. (A local police official said the bullet did not penetrate the vest and the worst the injured 11-year veteran officer might have suffered would be bruised ribs and a bruise at the site of the shot.) The two officers firing their weapons had a combined total of 27 years of experience on the force, and the commanding officer conducting the news conference on the 6 p.m. news, when asked why the officers did not use tasers, said the policemen did not have tasers with them and, “We had a man who was trying to murder someone right in front of officers,” which the officer seemed to be saying justified shooting the panhandler up to ten times.

Anthony Porse, a young African-American bystander who was interviewed by the WGN newscasters on the 6 o’clock news said, “I never saw anything like this happen in broad daylight.” (near State and Lake). Bobby Polk, another eyewitness interviewed said that he heard four shots and vouched for the fact that the officers told the man with the knife to put down his weapon and release the hostage three separate times.

I will not be shopping at Macy’s downtown store in the foreseeable future.

A huge flap arose in Chicago, Illinois on July 10th over Burr Oak Cemetery, which had been double-selling burial, plots and, often digging up buried corpses and simply dumping them in a field. The cemetery was owned by absentee owners who live in Texas, (according to Channel 7, ABC affiliate, whose reporter, Paul Meincke, once reported in the Quad Cities for Channel 4, the CBS affiliate…actually the Channel 7 source said Arizona, but it appears that Texas is accurate). The Tribune reported that the owner since 2001 was Melvin Bryant of Richardson, Texas, President of Perpetual Holdings of Illinois, but his part in the sale was downplayed on the news, with blame falling more at the local level.  Two famous people buried in the cemetery were civil rights martyr Emmet Till and singer Dinah Washington.

The four people who have been arrested and charged and are being held on large bonds ($250,000 and $200,000). They include the woman who ran the cemetery and 3 employees: Keith Nicks, Terrence Nicks and Maurice Daily. Former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, foreman Keith Nicks, 45, and dump-truck operator Terrence Nicks, 39, are all of Chicago, and back-hoe operator Maurice Dailey, 59, is from Robbins. They were each charged with dismembering a human body, a Class X felony and face up to 30 years in prison.(www.chicagobreakingnews.com).  Other news reports indicate that it appears that 2 other employees of the cemetery alerted authorities to the crimes being indicated; they are identified only as Employee “A” and Employee “B”.

The images on the evening news were of distraught relatives of those buried in the cemetery showing up in droves, wandering about trying to find evidence of their deceased loved ones. One African American woman showed a small postcard she had received, which, she said, notified her that a second body had been buried atop her mother’s casket in the same grave plot. (Apparently, this did not ring an alarm bell for the grieving relative.)

A hot line was set up for inquiries from out-of-state. In fact, on television, a request was made that relatives not show up at the cemetery at all, as the situation is so uncertain, with potentially more than 300 bodies missing, that it will take months, (if not longer), to sift through the remains of previously buried people whose remnants are being found in a variety of unmarked mass graves with remains even found alongside the roadside of the remote field. Experts who helped identify skeletal remains in mass graves in the Balkans were being brought in to try to help identify the bodies.

I was in Los Angeles and witnessing the death of Virgin Record Stores, as the “final 2 days” of sales of all merchandise in the Los Angeles store sounded the death knell of a once-thriving industry,
First, it was Denver and Orlando Virgin Mega-Stores that closed. Chicago soon followed suit. Word was that Virgin Entertainment Group North America was getting extremely low rent in very desirable locations and, as a result of that and the general struggling of the music industry, Virgin was bought out by Vornado and related real estate companies in 2007. In New York, for example, the store was only paying $54 a square foot in an area where rent easily runs $500 a square foot.

The demise of Virgin in Los Angeles (pictured here during its final 2 day sale at 80% off) follows on the heels of the closing of Tower Records in 2006. Tower had been established in 1960. In England, a similar closing Zavvl Music occurred, and FYE closed very recently as well.

The high cost of CD’s, the advent of downloads and MP3’s, a glut of product on the market, and the economic crisis can all be blamed for the fall of Virgin in the United States, but, with the closing of the Los Angeles store, a once-thriving business with locations in major cities has joined Tower Records on the scrap heap.

Lionel Richie just completed his set and Kellie Pickler is hanging on to the iron barriers the police spent all afternoon setting up. The temperature, with wind chill, is around 5 degrees. Ryan Seacrest, in his earmuffs, looks better than Luke Russert and Carson Daley in hats.

Some time ago the daughter (and friends) took off for Madison Square Garden to hear “My Morning Jacket” play. I took her to hear them on a bill with Dave Matthews, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Jurassic5, and Neil Young during a MoveOn.org concert for Kerry lo those many years ago (Ames, Iowa). She saw them at Bonaroo. The friends from school traveled here by bus and train to hear them again and decided that freezing outside in the cold was less desirable than going to a concert at Madison Square Garden, so they are gone, having fun, we hope.

Before they left, via subway and bus, she delivered 2009 glasses ($6 a pair) purchased from vendor’s around Times Square.

We are fortunate because 7th Avenue, the street shut down for the festivities, with stages and the ball, itself, at the end near the DoubleTree Guest Quarters, will allow us outside the door to watch the ball drop soon, without our having to become penned cattle for the entire 8 hours of waiting that some have endured.

Here are a few shots of the night.

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain visited Davenport, Iowa and held a rally at the RiverCenter at 136 E.3^rd St on Saturday, October 11, 2008. It was the day after his Vice Presidential running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, was found guilty by a bi-partisan committee in Anchorage (AL) of abusing her power as Governor to have a commissioner fired who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper.

The rally was scheduled for 10 a.m. and the National Anthem was sung by Nick Boyd of Rock Island, a young student from the Illinois Quad Cities, who did a wonderful job. [His voice has not changed yet, however; one wonders whether that pure high tone will stay with him into adulthood.] Nick had previously sung the National Anthem at a Cubs game.

The stage was decked out with a John Deere tractor to the right, amidst some fake foliage, as Moline, Illinois, in the Quad Cities is the international headquarters of Deere & Company.

I sat on the Press risers next to two sixth grade students from Rivermont Collegiate Prep School whose teacher, Leigh Ann Schroeder (a fifth grade teacher) had engineered press passes for her charges. Madeline Bowman, daughter of Carrie and Jerry Bowman, and Lollie Telleen, daughter of Amy and John Telleen, are two of just 12 students in the prestigious but pricey private school located in Bettendorf, Iowa. They seemed excited to be there and even helped by snapping a photo of me.

My old boss, Bill Wundram of the Quad City Times wandered by quite late in the game, and, later, said that “they all start to seem the same” of his over 50 years in the news game.

The Blue Devil (Davenport Central) Dance Team did a good job of keeping the crowd amused and occupied while we waited for McCain’s entrance, which was to good effect as the Straight Talk Express drove right into the auditorium, which held about 3,000 faithful fans.

I was very interested to see if there were going to be ugly scenes in this basically polite part of the nation. There was one protester who, at 11:22 a.m., was hoisted onto her male friend’s shoulders and unfurled a banner that read War Is Over. They were promptly escorted out and McCain’s retort was, “There are some people who just don’t get it/.” He went on to say that Americans don’t want to hear us yelling at one another.

Before the rally got started, the Master of Ceremonies had noted that, in 2000, Iowa was lost to the Democrats by 2 votes per precinct. In 2004, it was won by the Republicans by 3 votes per precinct. The message was clear, but the margin, this year, may be quite different.

The backdrop on the stage read, in large white on blue letters: REFORM, PROSPERITY and PEACE. I thought about those three banner words. Palin was brought into the race as an agent of “reform,” and it now looks as though she, herself needs to reform. PROSPERITY? We all wish for prosperity, in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. PEACE? Another sigh and another prayer for deliverance.

The music that ushered McCain into the hall was not the usual Country and Western nor the rock-and-roll anthems that some (Jackson Browne, John Cougar Mellencamp, et. al.) have asked the Republicans not to use. It was a rather somber orchestral score, and it led into the remarks that McCain made, such as, “At this time of crisis, we must go to the heart of the problem and, right now, that problem is the housing crisis.”

The Men with the Big Cameras (national media) swept in around 11:10 a.m., but there were fewer of them than at the Cedar Rapids rally and the tripod count was more like 13 than the huge numbers that usually accompany traveling Presidential candidates.

McCain announced, “I’m so happy to be here in the state of Iowa where there are good family values.” Fifteen seconds into his speech, he used his favorite phrase, “My friends.”

McCain: “One thing I hear from America is that they’re angry.” ( I began to question whether this was a wise segue, in light of recent outbursts at other rallies.) “We’ll turn Washington upside down,” said McCain, adding, “I know how to do that” in reference to getting the economy back on track. The GOP candidate went on to say that he would order the Secretary of the Treasury to carry out a home ownership program, to replace high interest mortgages with affordable ones. “There’s so much on the line. The moment requires a government act,” said McCain.

Just before the female protester unfurled her anti-war banner and was unceremoniously hauled out of the hall, McCain said, “Which candidate’s experience in life make him a better leader? In short, who’s ready to lead?” I thought about this and wondered if this statement worked for or against McCain, who does have many years in the Senate—some of them quite contentious— but does not have the global ties that bind Obama, such as ties to Africa and years spent living abroad in the Philippines. Obama is more an “outsider” than Palin, with his birthplace of Hawaii, but he has Midwest roots, courtesy of his white Kansas grandparents.

McCain made reference to earmarks in a criticism of the “$3 million study of the DNA of bears in Montana.” He failed to mention the two weird and expensive earmark studies that Alaskans asked for and got, to study mating habits of crabs, as I remember one of them.

McCain got a big round of applause when he suggested, “Stop sending $700 billion in aid to foreign countries that don’t like us very much.” He also referenced Obama’s “We need a scalpel, not a hatchet” debate rejoinder in Nashville by saying, “Right now, we need a hatchet and a scalpel.”

McCain, again, expressed his capability of “confronting the $10 trillion debt” with his mantra, “I can do that.” He promised to “balance the federal budget before the end of my term,” which seemed very optimistic for any candidate of either party, at this point in time. He offered no specifics.

There were attacks on Obama: “We’ve all heard what he’s said, but it’s less clear what he’s done or what he will do.” He as good as called Obama a liar saying, “I wouldn’t seek advice (in truthfulness) from a Chicago politician.” [Gee, and just when I thought the Republican candidate was going to take the high road for a while, as when he told the misinformed woman in another state at another rally that, no, Obama was not an Arab and expressed admiration for his life story.

At 11:30 a.m. there were shouts of protest from the crowd as McCain spoke of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and accused Obama of remaining silent in reining in their excesses before the crisis and of taking money from these agencies for his campaign. McCain repeated the line accusing Obama of fining employers who don't put employees in a federal health program he supports, and repeated a line from the Belmont debate, "He won't specify the amount of the fine for not insuring employers." Someone shouted out "accountability" at that point. It was unclear whether it was someone who was for McCain or against him.

McCain, again on the attack, went on to accuse Obama of wanting to raise debt by $860 billion dollars." I swear that the first time he mentioned the figure, he said $850 billion; the next time, it had been raised by $10 billion. (What's $10 billion or so when we're dug into debt this deep?)

In his attack against earmarks (federal pork attached to bills), McCain was particularly incensed by Obama's support for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois to receive funding for a new lens. I live across the street from the Adler Planetarium. I am glad they got the new funding, as it is a major tourist attraction in Chicago. After all, Obama is the junior Senator from Illinois, and it makes more sense than either of the earmark programs mentioned previously.

A memorable quote, but one which made me uneasy: "You don't have to wonder if there will be change if I am elected. You know there'll be change if I'm elected."

At 25 minutes to 12 noon, McCain thanked every veteran in the house and added of the many conflicts we are now engaged in (thanks to 8 years of Republican leadership, poor intelligence, etc., which includes Iraq, Afghanistan, et. al.) "I will bring them (our troops) home with victory and honor and not in defeat." [I immediately thought to myself in alarm, "Unless they're killed or seriously wounded before the 100 years is up that you have previously said we should stay and fight."]

McCain vowed to “fight for you and put the government back on the side of the people.” He added, “I know I can inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.” Again, I wondered whether the next generation will be more inspired by the almost 73-year-old McCain and his Alaskan running mate, or by the 47-year-old Obama and Joe Biden from Delaware.

At 20 minutes of noon, just before the rally ended, McCain made a reference to the United States Naval Academy and there was a huge round of applause and big cheers from behind him. Showing the good humor showcased to good effect on many “Saturday Night Live” appearances, McCain turned and said, “Naval Academy graduates, I guess,” with a shrug.

And then the rally was over and we all exited into the bright, sunny 80-degree weather to find out whether the University of Iowa Hawkeyes would beat Indiana’s football team in their Big Ten contest (they did).

And, soon, we’ll see if the Old Warrior can beat the odds, fend off his Republican ties to the least popular President of all time, and pull out what is now an upset win against the junior Senator from Illinois, AKA “that one,” which state is just across the I74 bridge I took home.

An update to the storm I suffered through in a basement in Bridgeport, a southwest suburb of Chicago (home of the White Sox and Mayor Daley’s birthplace) on Monday, August 4^th (article posted on www.associatedcontent.com).

It was some storm! I was impressed with the lightning. I learned that, over four hours, about a half-year’s worth of lightning bolts bombarded Chicago. It was truly a historic thunderstorm, with 90,000 thunderbolts hitting northern Illinois (according to the Lightning Detection Network).

At the storm’s peak, it was detonating 800 bolts per minute. In six months’ worth of time, we usually don’t have that much lightning.

WGN meteorologist Tom Skilling (brother of the OTHER Skilling of Enron fame) said on Tuesday, August 5th, “There was no precedent for this. In every way imaginable, that storm last night was in its own league.”

The amazing thing: nobody was struck by lightning and no fatalities were reported due to the massive and truly awesome display of electrical tension, which began when positively charged ice crystals at the top and negatively charged water droplets at the bottom created a volatile mix. As the warm, moist air floated to the clouds, the powder keg exploded. Most lightning is negatively charged, but there are indications that ,during parts of the Monday storm, there was more than two and one-half times the usual percentage of positively charged lightning bolts which are more powerful.

Skilling said, “Not only were the total numbers just off the charts, but there was a disproportionate number of strokes that were positively charged. That was an especially dangerous lightning display.”

Nearly 10,000 lightning strikes were recorded in the 10 miles around Chicago’s loop, one of the highest totals ever seen for an area of that size. While there were at least 7 fires caused by the lightning hitting homes that burned down (Woodridge, Lisle, Aurora, Schaumburg, Frankfort, Barrington and Lemont) the wind did more damage. Some good quotes were obtained from employees of the Signature Room on the 96^th floor of the Hancock Building. Apparently, the patrons thought it was all great good fun and filmed the bar glasses as they moved back and forth.

Manager James Kuehner said, “You could tell when the building was getting hit, because everything was bright light and thunder at the same time.”

Yikes! We almost walked over to Chinatown, but the tornado sirens did not enhance the experience, for me, so, instead, we sat on the floor of an interior hallway, away from the windows, cranking the weather radio I had just bought at the Natural Disasters exhibit at the Field Museum. (We learned that cranking it did not work that well, but putting batteries in it did.)

I walked down to the Bennigan’s opposite the Art Institute in Chicago on Tuesday, July 29^th,  planning on having a nice lunch inside this always-busy restaurant, which, I have learned, was, in fact, the busiest restaurant in the entire chain.

Imagine my surprise when, taped to the window (see picture) was a sign that told me it was closed. I haven’t been that surprised since…well, since I drove to Cheddar’s in Davenport, Iowa—another very busy and popular restaurant—and had exactly the same experience.

Bennigan’s filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Tuesday (apparently) and closed all 150 of its corporate-owned stores, including the Jewel in its Crown, the Bennigan’s in Chicago at 225 N, Michigan Avenue. The stark sign said it all: “Closed for business as of Tuesday, July 29.”  Apparently even the employees were surprised, because one of them, Caleb Kosek, age 24, had just shown up for his first day of work, only to learn that the Metromedia Restaurant Group, which owned 150 of the cafes (another 140 are franchisee-owned) was now defunct.

Metromedia is owned by a billionaire named John Kluge, but he wasn’t responding to requests for comments on Tuesday. There were lots of Bennigan’s in the Chicago area, but only one (in Elgin) and three in northwest Indiana are owned by franchisees. It is also true that the area around the Art Institute is not exactly lousy with restaurants, so this location was primo.

Other restaurant chains in the “medium” price range are suffering as well, most notably Cheddar’s, mentioned above, Steak & Ale and Village Inn. In the chilly economic climate we are experiencing, people are either eating at fast food chains like McDonald’s or they are eating at home. Ruby Tuesday and Applebee’s stock (I own one share) were trading at their lowest ever, as a result of the glut of restaurants like these and T.G.I.F. abroad in the land at a time when jobs are in short supply, the minimum wage has been raised and food prices are soaring faster than the ice cap is melting.

But watching Bennigan’s on Michigan Avenue and a chain in business since 1976 go belly-up is still painful for those of us with a yen for a MonteCristo sandwich.

So, I DID drive home when I left at the break (Quad Cities of IA/IL) and, of course, we were hit by a ‘mini-tornado” at 6 a.m. on Monday that knocked out power to 100,000 homes, including ours. It blew trees down in our back yard and through people’s cars and bedrooms and houses, (in 3 cases, homes of people I personally know.) Neighbor across the street: tree down. Neighbor next door: tree down. Mother-in-law: tree down.  One young couple had to fly home from Vegas when the news reached them that their house had had a HUGE tree fall on it and there is only one crane in town large enough to hoist it off their house (and, of course, THAT crane was already occupied. Isn’t that always the way?)

 I had to use a Coleman lantern to pack to leave for Chicago on Monday, and we had no A/C until 11 p.m. last night. The winds reached 94 mph. Moline declared a State of Emergency. (In East Moline, nobody thought to turn on the sirens,. Typical.) Across the river in Davenport, Iowa? Fine, just fine. No problems at all. Weird.

The fast food joints were JAMMED with people lined up 20 cars deep at 2:30 P.M. when I left to drive back here on Monday. Why so many people lined up at Hardee’s and McDonald’s? My husband theorizes that it was because nobody could cook. Our freezer full of meat: gone bad. He had to sleep in the basement and said he went outside on the deck and listened to the Cubs game on a transistor radio until it got dark and he couldn’t read any more. No TV. No computer. No fun. They closed the MALL, for crying out loud! The MALL. OH THE HORROR! Hospitals had to operate on generators, as did the supermarket (where I picked up a refill for my prescription of sleeping medication.)   100,000 people without power and they say it might take “3 to 4 days” to get it back on.  My sister had an electrical wire on fire outside her house and, when she called it in, it took 2 days to get electricians to come fix it because of the vast numbers of others without power. It was a larger power outage than the huge one we had during an ice storm last winter.

I finally got a “wrap” at a Subway in Colona, Illinois, where the two Indian (or Pakistani?) boys minding the store were doing so in about 100 degree heat (no A/C). They said, immediately, “We don’t have any bread,” Why no bread? Apparently, they bake it, and the ovens wouldn’t work. Only one microwave worked, and they had 2 cookies left (which I bought.) The younger of the two said, “I think we could just lay the bread dough out here on the counter and it would cook.” (True statement). We were all like pioneers, and the Indian boys described how they had been CAMPING with 15 family members near Lake Kenyada when the winds hit and BLEW THEIR TENT INTO THE LAKE. I’m not kidding. They ran for their cars and sat it out. (I always hated camping. My idea of roughing it is black-and-white TV. Or NO TV. Or sleeping on the floor of a college-aged group for 5 days in Denver.)

Me?  I went to bed at 2:30 a.m. on Monday morning after extensive posting on several blogs and slept through the entire thing. I did notice it when I was trying to pack in a dark interior room the next day, however. Had to dry my hair outside in the sun and a Coleman lantern really does not give off enough light to pack your suitcase by.