EXTRA: Just a thought

As seen in suburban Homewood. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Weather extremes; or Dog Days in Chi

Remember the polar vortex?

That period of a few days back in January when the shift in weather traits actually gave in Chicago a taste of what things normally are like around the Arctic Circle!

Rocco (left) and Carmelo back in the winter months. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

IT WAS COLD. Particularly that one day where I got an assignment that actually required me to go outside and walk around the neighborhood in search of some colorful tidbits for a newspaper story.

Which I managed to accomplish in record time. No point in getting frost-bite for the free-lance pay rate I take in these days.

I also remember having to take the dogs outside during those days so they could “do their business,” so to speak. They’re not paper-trained, so their reaction to bathroom-type functions is to want to go outside – no matter what the weather is like.

While Rocco and Carmelo usually manage to linger out in the back yard for a few minutes before doing their “duty,” on those days they managed to run outside, complete their business them come charging back to the house.

LITERALLY CLAWING AWAY at the back door in desperate need of somebody to let them inside. Because it’s cold out here!!!

Anyway, these are the memories popping into my head on Friday as we’re enduring a heat spell that some are saying will be record-setting for the Chicago area.

The National Weather Service issued warnings for northern Illinois and Indiana, along with southern Wisconsin, going from Friday at 10 a.m. and supposed to last until about 7 p.m. Saturday.

It’s going to be hot and humid and people were advised to stay indoors as much as possible during that time period.

Rocco prefers the snow from indoors

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, I took the doggies out for a walk Friday morning and they managed to complete their business. But the walk didn’t last that long – pretty soon the dogs were panting heavily as they were hot.

They couldn’t wait to get back inside, and it was a good move that I refilled their water dishes before the walk. For they immediately went for the water and began gulping it down once we got back to shelter.

Now there have been some reports these days reminiscing back into history and 1919, when the heat of that summer was considered a cause of boosting tensions that ultimately resulted in race riots that left many people dead.

Although I suspect many more people had 1995 come to their minds. Much more recent – although even that is a quarter-of-a-century in the past.

I WAS FORTUNATE enough to not actually be in Chicago that summer – I was living in Springfield, Ill., at the time, although I got to hear the horror stories from my mother and brother of just how ridiculously hot it became and the extremes they had to go through to remain cool.

I recall the reports ultimately said the intense heat was because of a shift that, for a couple of weeks, caused Chicago to become something along the lines of Saudi Arabia.

And while those who actually live in the desert perhaps are capable of coping with such conditions, we managed to get caught off-guard. Causing the hundreds of deaths from that summer due to intense heat.

Carmelo wanted the water!

All I know is that if this is what other parts of the world feel like, it makes me all the more thankful to be a Chicagoan. The rest of the world can keep their weather extremes.

BUT I MUST admit to being uncertain about which extreme is more uanbearable. Polar vortex or Arab desert?

All I know is that I take one look at Rocco and Carmelo in heavy pant and know they were about as miserable as they were back in January when they virtually froze their paws off.

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Commuter trains wonderful; that is, until they don’t work on schedule

I’m a native of what’s  thought of these days as the greater Sout’ Side part of Chicago (having lived both city and suburb), and I’m actually someone who often uses the commuter trains in order to get around.

Commutes through the Hegewisch neighborhood were among those tampered with Tuesday by Mother Nature. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It’s largely because I don’t have an automobile these days; enjoy the notion of not having a monthly car payment to make and also detest the idea of paying for parking – particularly on those occasions when I have to travel downtown.

THE ONE TIME in my life I shelled out some $35 to park a car for about two hours in a downtown garage is a horrid memory – and an experience I never want to repeat again during my lifetime.

So let’s just say that the hardest part of the crummy winter weather we’ve experienced in recent weeks is what it has done to my commute.

I’m actually one of those individuals who was impacted by the commuter trains being totally thrown off schedule – if not shut down outright. Of course, the wintry weather also significantly reduced my desire to make any sort of trip unless absolutely necessary.

Which is why Tuesday was particularly depressing during the morning hours.

Weather tampered w/ overhead cables

THAT WAS THE time when the Metra commuter railroad’s “Electric” line was out of commission, as was the South Shore line that takes people from downtown Chicago into Indiana all the way out to South Bend.

I’ve almost never made the trip all the way to the home town of Notre Dame. But there are times when I do have to venture into Hoosierland and rely on a combination of the two trains (usually making the transition in the Hyde Park neighborhood) to get there.

Learning that such a trip was impossible put quite a damper on my morning mood.

Fortunately for me, the travel I had to do on Tuesday didn’t come until later in the day by which time the trains were up and running again (with the icy conditions having been overcome, for the time being). And also, I was able to borrow use of a car for the day.

WHICH MADE ME a commuter braving the icy roads and hoping that I neither lost control of someone else’s automobile – or no one else driving around me lost control of their car and came crashing into me!

Many fewer commuters passing through Millennium station these days

Being able to rely on the commuter trains (and the CTA ‘el’ within the city limits proper) is such a convenience. One of the advantages of urban life.

That is, until the weather manages to take the system down in whatever way possible so that the ability to transport oneself from place to place becomes a near impossibility.

Then, one can feel so incredibly isolated even within a massive urban area. Almost as though Mother Nature is feeing the need to remind us all that none of us are above the impact of her quirks and how she, not we, are the ones ultimately in control of our environs.

Anxiously awaiting summer days

I’LL ADMIT IT was worse a couple of weeks ago at the peak of the polar vortex – remember those days of 50-below wind chill temperatures and railroad people literally were igniting the train tracks aflame so as to keep them from freezing over and it was all the commuter train lines throughout the Chicago area that were impacted?

This is a lesser scale inconvenience, but it has me hoping for springtime weather. With the fact that springtime-like weather conditions in Arizona made it possible for both the White Sox and Cubs to begin spring training camps was little concession.

I will admit I was pleased to learn that Metra is considering this weekend free train rides (as to the usual $10 fare for a weekend pass) come Saturday and Sunday. It has me pondering a trip downtown so as to take advantage of the discount perk.

It would, however, be just my luck that the free fare comes at a time when the train (which has a commuter stop just a couple of blocks from my current humble abode) isn’t any guarantee to be operating, or running anywhere near to on schedule.

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Fulfilling the public’s “right to know” caused me to freeze my fingers numb

Just about everybody who could find an excuse to justify it made a point Wednesday

Bogart's 'editor' never warned … 

of staying inside, not going anywhere and basically behaving themselves like a lazy slug.

I, however, was running around in the sub-zero freezing temperatures that, when combined with wind chill, felt something more like 50-below – all because of my work going about the business of trying to inform the general public.

… of winter weather reporting hazards

I AM A reporter-type person, willing to go out and seek the truth on a wide variety of issues; all with the thought and belief that I am somehow performing a sacred duty – letting the general public know what is happening in the world around them.

Wednesday’s temperatures, of course, dove down to such historically low levels that – for once – the weather was a legitimate news story.

In fact, I woke up Wednesday to learn that I was amongst the many thousands of people who had lost access to electricity during the overnight hours. Which is when I got a call from an editor-type person – ordering me to check out a tip about power outages.

Artsy images such as this … 

In this particular case, I was able to tell him from first-hand experience that there were places where there was no power.

ME, AND MANY of my neighbors, actually.

Which led me to getting into the car and driving around my neighborhood for a few blocks – looking for evidence that I wasn’t alone in being without power and no one could legitimately write me off as a financial deadbeat who fell behind on the electric bill.

I eventually found a good-samaritan type of person who was outside walking over to check on an elderly neighbor, while his own wife and child were resorting to using the fireplace to keep warm.

It made for a nice anecdote that eventually was contributed to a larger story about wintry weather conditions throughout Chicago on Wednesday.

… and scientific graphs don't adequately convey how cold Wednesday was

BUT I HAVE to confess, I was only out of the car and exposed to the elements for less than five minutes. I wore nice leather gloves that usually keep my hands warm.

When I was through, my fingertips were numbed. It actually took me about a half-hour for my digits to warm up to the point where I was physically capable of typing anything up that resembled news copy.

As I write this, I’m fine physically. There’s no lasting damage – although I wonder how much longer it would have taken before I had suffered some sort of lasting physical damage to my being. And if I could have mentally justified it.

I happen to know that when my father found out what I had done, he let it be known he thought his son was stupid (and didn’t get paid enough) for enduring such a brief moment.

BUT IT IS something I justify doing on the grounds that I’m trying to get the details, no matter how minute, about this historic day in Chicago history. Literally one in which our minus-50 degree figure will be regarded as the coldest ever in city history.

Also one where I lost count of the number of wiseacres who felt compelled to post blurbs on Facebook saying that Chicago was colder than both the North AND South poles. Even though news reports indicate we'll be back up to about 40 degrees by Monday.

Carmelo (left) and Rocco had enough sense Wednesday to 'do their business' within a minute, before racing back inside for the warmth of home

That may be factually true. But it doesn’t change much about the reality that I felt compelled to be outdoors (even though for just several five-minute bursts of time throughout the day) on this day when people who think they’re more sensible than myself made a day of doing as little as possible – and enjoying the likelihood that their employers told them to take the day off.

One final thought; will we remember this day come the summertime when we have one of those 100 degree-plus days and we’re complaining about how much we’re roasting – while thinking that a quickie blast of air from the polar vortex would somehow be a shot of relief.

  -30-

EXTRA: Some things never change

Just in case you're delusional enough to think Monday, or anything anticipated for this week, is at all unusual or historic, just remember!

This is Chicago in wintertime. Mother Nature is making us appreciate just how wonderful this city is during the rest of the year.

AND IN CASE you think this is some ancient phenomenon, realize that many of us were alive and thriving back in 1967 (although I was a mere 2-year-old back then) or 1979 when these storms hit the Windy City and made their argument that the long-time city moniker was not purely motivated by the wind-bags amongst our political people.

So here's a thought that may, or may not, help you keep warm and dry during the next few days -- they may produce some intriguing video that could turn up on the Internet someday. Some 50 years from now, your offspring's offspring could get the cheap thrill of recognizing you in some snippet documenting just how ridiculously absurd the weather will get during the upcoming week.

Enjoy!

  -30-

EXTRA: Snow falls on Chicago – Sox play anyway, while Cubs snooze

So much for the dual day games by both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox played Monday.

The ONLY first pitch Monday afternoon, as I viewed it on television. No, I wasn't up to braving the 35-degree temperatures or the snowfall. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

It seems the Monday morning snow caused the Cubs to reschedule Monday’s game for Tuesday. Monday was supposed to be the Cubs’ home opener for 2018. But the Cubs tried to make things a little cutesy , with photographs of ballplayers throwing snowballs and taking "selfies" of themselves on the slushy Wrigley Field turf

AS FOR THE White Sox, they were the team that rescheduled their night game Monday to a day game, figuring it would be a little less cold for the fans.

But as groundskeeper Roger Bossard said prior to the ballgame, he figured out a way to use lawnmowers as makeshift snowblowers. Between that and turning on the hoses to spray the Guaranteed Rate Field turf with 50-degree water, the White Sox were able to melt and clear away the snow.

Making it likely that the White Sox get in their ballgame with just a little delay (about 1:30 p.m., rather than the reskedded 1:10 p.m.). Which the White Sox thought was a better option than playing two games Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

All I know is that in my home neighborhood, I took the dogs for a walk in the morning and they enjoyed the light snowfall that, oddly enough, didn’t accumulate at all on sidewalks or the streets, but only fell on the grass.

BUT THEN QUICKLY melted away everywhere.

Considering that we’re supposed to get temperatures up to about 60 degrees by Wednesday, we can only hope this is the end of winter snowfall – only about three weeks after winter officially ended.

  -30-

Double-header in the snow? Or is it just early-season baseball, the Chicago way

I usually get worked up whenever people complain about professional baseball beginning its season in the part of spring that’s really the tail-end of winter.

Helping Sox fans cope with cold

These are the ninnies who will complain that the season should start with the first games actually played in western or southern cities – or in places like Milwaukee where the local officials erected a stadium with a retractable roof.

AS THOUGH THE Chicago ball clubs, or teams from places like New York, Boston or other eastern or Midwestern municipalities ought to have to start out their seasons with a streak of road games.

Personally, I’d argue those are the franchises with the lengthy histories and cultural existence and where the locals know how to handle a little cold weather.

Just like on Thursday when the Chicago White Sox started out the 2018 season with their first home game a loss to the Detroit Tigers, and there were times one could see the heavy snowfall coming down during the ball game.

An early season freebie giveaway promotion the White Sox offered up? A stocking cap with the Old English “Sox” logo and in the black and grey of Sox colors. Truly an appropriate giveaway, and one that I’m sure many a fan who actually attends Saturday's game will bother to wear.

Will TV-viewing fans get to see ...

OF COURSE, THERE were those who felt compelled to mock – with the observation being that many of the people who theoretically gave the White Sox a capacity crowd by buying tickets somehow managed to disappear by about the fifth inning.

Resulting in many empty seats, particularly in the Sox stadium’s upper deck.

I’m going to be watching the crowds that show up at Wrigley Field come Monday, where the Chicago Cubs will have their Opening Day. Monday’s weather forecasts are for equally-dismal weather conditions.

Temperatures might get as high as 40 degrees, but it will be a cloudy, overcast day with light rainfall (and maybe even snow) expected to hit Chicago. Not ideal conditions for sitting outside in the stands to watch a ball game.

... split-screen, simultaneous home runs?

I DON’T DOUBT that the Cubs have sold the just over 40,000 tickets for Monday’s game against Pittsburgh (another ‘tough’ city that wouldn’t let some inclement weather put a stop to a ballgame) so they’ll be able to claim a capacity crowd. It will be “sold out,” even though I don’t doubt that watching the game on television will reveal many vacant seats.

It also will be interesting to see the White Sox game that same day. Because their game at Guaranteed Rate Field against the Tampa Bay Rays has been rescheduled from 7:10 p.m. to 1:10 p.m.

White Sox officials said they think making it a day game will be more comfortable for fans than having them sit in the stands during the evening hours.

But it also means we’re literally going to have both Chicago ball clubs playing simultaneously Monday afternoon. (The Cubs game is scheduled to start about 10 minutes after the White Sox take the field).

WE IN CHICAGO occasionally get the days when a Cubs game is scheduled for the afternoon, with a White Sox game in the evening. People can literally take the Red Line elevated train from one ballpark to the other to see both games in the same day. Which has its drawback -- a fan gets intoxicated during the day at Wrigley and is so wasted by nightfall at Guaranteed Rate that he acts stupid AND EVERYBODY wants to think it's the Sox' fault!

Monday not likely to look this idyllic

That won’t be possible on Monday – they’ll be simultaneous events and Chicagoans most definitely will have to pick one ball club or the other to watch. Unless they’re a wishy-washy sort who stays home and watches both games on television.

A split screen feature put to work on that new-fangled huge screen television. Maybe we’ll get the dual sight of Jose Abreu and Kris Bryant hitting home runs simultaneously on both sides of town.

Although knowing our city’s sporting mentality and likely crummy luck, we’re more likely to get two collections of fans suffering frostbite and two more digits in the “loss” column – just what Chicago needs on a dreary day when it seems like not even baseball can make winter go away!

  -30-

Brrrrrr! It’s cold outside. Or, only 90 more days till baseball Opening Day

As I write this, it’s 10 degrees outside, with the potential to rise to 14 degrees. Wind chill will create conditions that supposedly will make it feel more like 1 or 2 degrees temperature.

Rocco, Carmelo cope w/ winter weather

In short, this lull of a week between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays is friggin’ freezing. This week during which many people will look for any excuse they can find to get out of work is provided with a perfect excuse by Mother Nature.

IT’S COLD OUTSIDE!!!

There’s no reason why human beings should be outdoors if they can possibly avoid it. The perfect time to do as little as is humanly possible.

For some people, it’s the perfect excuse to contemplate finding some other region of the globe to live in – some place where the idea of the temperatures ever dropping below 32 degrees (the official standard point at which water freezes into ice) is just a bad nightmare.

I’m not necessarily talking about some place with sunshine and perpetual 70 degree temperatures. Just some place where taking the dogs out for a walk doesn’t put one at risk for hypothermia.

Even he's shivering

I BRING UP that example because I often do wind up taking my father’s pair of dogs (a Standard Poodle and a mixed-breed Golden Retriever/Poodle) out for their daily walk.

While I have noticed they still get excited at the thought of being able to go outside, all it takes is one blast of the Arctic-like air for them to immediately change their minds.

I’m amused at how quickly the dogs (Rocco and Carmelo) are now capable of doing their “business” before they suddenly give every indication that they want to go back inside. Back home. No more of this aimless wandering that they usually do because “it’s outside.”

It makes me wonder if dogs can have more sense than people, or at least some individuals, based on their public behavior.

With holidays over, we do countdown to spring

YES, I FEEL the cold temperatures, just as much as anybody else. Even my neighbor with the elaborately-decorated front yard came up with something appropriate -- an inflatable snowman that shivers because it's so cold!

Yet I have to confess something – maybe it’s evidence that I’m losing it. But I don’t feel the urge to want to flee Chicago, or the Midwestern U.S., just because it’s cold outside!

I still remember one December I spent in Florida just over three decades ago – the idea of a swimming pool at that time of year just seemed strange. And listening to the locals complain about the cold because for a couple of days the temperatures dipped into the mid-30s?

It elicited the same reaction I get whenever I hear reports of snowfall in the Southern U.S. bringing daily life to a standstill – What a bunch of wimps!!!

IT’S COLD OUTSIDE; I’ll be the first to admit it. But it truly is part of the natural cycle of life on this planet to have the seasons. Finding a place where it never freezes is the extreme of life – just as a place like Antarctica is the opposite end (a land of perpetual winter).

We’re in the cycle of life – about to end the current calendar year. And for what it’s worth, we’ve passed the point where the days are getting shorter and the sun sets about 4:30 p.m. Minute by minute, we’re getting extra daylight and moving toward the time period in which we’ll have the mild temperatures that make life truly sweet and pleasant.

Besides, if we’re to be totally honest, we’ve managed to avoid the most annoying part of winter weather – the slop of snowfall. That downpour we got on Sunday (a.k.a., Christmas Eve) was over by day’s end and wasn’t that hard to clean up.

It won't be long before springtime returns, even to Chicago

It added to the winter ambiance that we’ll be able to remember fondly come May. Besides, it’s only 90 more days ‘til Opening Day for Major League Baseball – a thought to keep in mind if the wintry weather conditions become too unbearable.

  -30-

‘No ballgame today’ – we’ll have to wait ‘til spring for baseball to return

It looks so simple on paper – 5-3 – marked under a column of the scorecard for the 10^th inning.

There's no lonelier place than an off-season ballfield

I’m sure those who are Chicago Cubs fans will forevermore regard as a happy moment that bit indicating the groundball hit to third baseman Kris Bryant, then thrown to Anthony Rizzo at first base for the final out that ensured the first World Series title ever for a team that plays its home games at Wrigley Field.

YET I HAVE to confess to feeling a twinge of sadness at that sight.

Not because I cared about the Cubs or had a strong rooting interest in either team that was playing. But because I enjoy baseball.

And the final out of the final game of the World Series each year always brings out a feeling in me that the game is gone; for the time being.

Perhaps it’s because professional baseball teams play nearly every day during the season that they become truly wrapped up in the routines of our lives; in a way that the Chicago Bears with their once-a-week loss (or so it seems) just can’t.

THERE IS A beauty to the form of the ballgame as the pitcher vs. hitter challenge takes place; trying to see if one can out-think the other to their success. With other ballplayers hopping into action in those spare moments when contact is made with the ball.

Producing those moments that inspire newspaper photographers into action – freezing forever those bits of action for us to study. The diving catch. The bobbled ball. That moment of agony on an outfielder’s face as he realizes the fly ball is headed over the fence – and there’s not a thing he can do to stop it!

Even non-North Side felt something for Cubs

These moments that can make watching a ballgame a real treasure. Totally lost on those kinds of people who think anything other than a 15-9 ballgame is boring – although I actually think those high-scoring slugfests are dull because it usually means the pitching stinks, errors are being made in the field and everything is out-of-whack.

And now, it’s over. Another season is in the record books. Something that can be studied by those inclined to do so, while many of us will remember the individual moments of the games we actually saw. We’ll likely exaggerate their significance.

Line shot will never depart my mind

JUST AS I will forever recall a line drive double that Reggie Jackson hit off the right field wall at Comiskey Park in a 1979 ballgame – it struck me as being the hardest-hit ball I ever saw.

On the scorecard, it looks like a simple “2B-9” hit off pitcher Ken Kravec. But I remember it as a sizzling shot that never went more than 15 or so feet in the air – and would have been a home run if it had cleared the fence a foot higher instead of smashing into the wall.

Of course, the likely story would have been White Sox fan killed by Yankee home run. Because I doubt any fan in the outfield stands could have reacted quickly enough to avoid being hit in the face by the drive.

It’s these little moments that stick in my mind about baseball. The sight of ballplayers congregated on the pitcher’s mound deep in discussion about the game (and wondering if they’re really checking out the blonde who got herself a box seat right behind the dugout).

THE MANAGER CHARGING out of the dugout to argue with an umpire’s call – and knowing that the choice words he’d like to use to describe the ump’s mother will get him ejected!

Watching the coaches relay all those signals to the batter – and wondering how screwed up things will get if the coach inadvertently scratches his earlobe at the wrong moment?

I’d be willing to bet that similar thoughts are running through the minds of baseball fans everywhere – although for those who are Cubs-obsessed, they were able to delay them a bit, what with the parade that stretched from Wrigley Field through downtown on Friday.

Particularly if you’re inclined to believe Gov. Bruce Rauner, who in issuing the proclamation declaring Friday in Illinois to be World Champion Chicago Cubs Day said, “the Cubs winning the World Series is bigger than baseball.”

Baseball will be back come April

WHETHER YOU AGREE with that statement or not, the season is now over.

Unless you’re inclined to check out the stats in the assorted Latin American winter leagues (where, by the way, the late White Sox star Minnie Miñoso’s old Jalisco Charros team – he both played for, and managed, them – beat the Hermosillo Orange Growers 11-8 Thursday night), you’ll have to endure some five months of inactivity before we again see meaningful games being played.

For some of us, an empty ballpark is an even sadder sight than one when our favorite ball club loses.

  -30-

Resolving problems by creating even more; what's wrong w/ a snow day?

There are times when I think the technologically-advanced amongst our society ought to be told to “stifle” themselves, what with the way they think a computer device is the solution to everything they could possibly think of.

Is she really learning a thing?

Maybe it’s just the “Archie Bunker” within me, or the realization that the copy I generate now isn’t any more literate than the copy I produced three decades ago when I was banging it out on assorted varieties of battered typewriters

BUT SOMEHOW I am repulsed by the idea of a bill now pending before Gov. Bruce Rauner – one that purports to offer the “solution” to the problem of students missing so much school during the winter months due to inclement weather.

The dreaded snow days that cause school to be closed, and more days having to be tacked on to the end of the academic year at a time when the summer weather can make a hot-and-humid school building a very unpleasant place to have to be.

The bill in question calls for a pilot program to be operated in up to three school districts during the 2017-18 academic year in which teachers would provide class assignments via computer for those days in which the snow is so heavy or the temperatures so cold that kids can’t come to class.

In short, there won’t be any need for school to not be in session. Perhaps a “virtual” classroom is the wave of the future.

THE IDEA BEING that this pilot program would be a one-year experiment that could – if it works out – someday be expanded to the nearly 1,000 school districts located across Illinois.

Personally, I hate the idea, because it pushes us in the direction of thinking that kids are somehow better off parked in front of a computer screen in their own homes rather than having to get off their duffs and interact with real human beings.

Which as far as I’m concerned is the whole purpose of education – it’s not like much of the facts and figures we were taught remain all that relevant. So much of it is now obsolete.

RAUNER: Give that man a veto pen!!!

What we really learned was how to learn, and keep learning and updating our collection of information so that we can get through our lives.

THAT EVEN EXTENDS to the idea of use of computers within the modern-day classroom. We’re teaching kids about technology that won’t matter anymore by the time they’re adults. It’s not the computer they should be learning – it’s the things they do with a computer that matter.

I’m also realistic enough to know that trying to teach class by computer is not the least bit realistic – in part because there are parts of Illinois where Internet access is weak even if one has the money to spare.

In other situations, there are people for whom paying for a decent Internet connection at home means adding to the utility bills that already are too high. And I can already hear the conservative ideologue types complain about the idea of having to provide an Internet connection to those people who can’t afford it.

This is an idea concocted by someone who thinks it’s the computer itself that matters most in life. An idea I find absolutely abhorrent – even though I own a laptop computer and am fortunate enough to have an Internet connection at home and several other places nearby for those occasions when my own connection dies out due to technological glitches.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE there are those who disagree. I have been in classrooms as a reporter-type person where I see too many kids think of their smart-boards (kind of like a chalk-board, only hooked up to the computer so the teacher can post things from the Internet on it) as being some sort of super-cool video game.

I doubt they learned a thing.  Somehow, I’m skeptical they would learn anything lasting on a cold-and-snowy day in January when they weren’t able to go to school. Somehow, I suspect the television set would get paid more attention than the laptop.

Maybe the solution is to bring back a 21^st Century take of Miss Frances, the 1950’s television host who gave us “Ding Ding School” – “the nursery school of the air.”

What would a 21st Century Miss Frances be like?

Then again, maybe that’s where this latest screwy idea came from. Let’s only hope that Rauner winds up showing some sense and vetoing this particular bill.

  -30-

Spring came Monday in form of beisbol, no matter what groundhog said

The nation’s groundhog saw its shadow Monday in Punxsutawney, Pa., while I saw all the snow and slush piled up outside my front door. It’s obvious that winter isn’t quite over with.

Yet I couldn’t help but feel a bit of springtime joy on Groundhog Day, even though the activity I saw took place in Puerto Rico.

FOR THAT IS where the first games were held Monday for the Caribbean Series – the annual championship tourney of Latin American baseball. For the record, the Culiacan Tomateros of Mexico beat the Pinar de Rio Vegueros of Cuba 2-1 to kick off the baseball tournament.

While many of you were recovering from Super Bowl Party hang-over (I didn’t even bother to watch the game Sunday night), I am bracing for a week of baseball fun. The idea that somewhere on Monday it was 80 degrees and sunny, with a touch of humidity in the air and baseball was being played was enough to brighten my day.

Particularly when I saw that first game (which started at 11 a.m., Chicago time) in which the Tomatogrowers came from behind to win their game, with pitcher Terance Marin getting credit for the win against the team named for a locally-produced brand of cigars.

For those not obsessed with the most intense of minor league minutia, Marin is a California native who has pitched the past several seasons for assorted Chicago White Sox minor league affiliates, and who chose to play ball this past winter in Mexico and wound up playing for the team that won the Pacific League championship.

IT WOULD BE nice to think that if he is able to make the big club in Chicago this year, this bit of championship tourney experience might make him fit to boost the White Sox chances of making it to the playoffs this year and succeeding.

That is part of what makes me get a kick out of the Caribbean Series each year – the ballplayers are amongst the best out of Latin American nations and also some U.S. kids who try to boost their own experience and chances at playing in the U.S. major leagues with a stint in winter ball.

Just like Eric Farris, who made an outfield misplay Monday that cost his Mexico ball club a run, but then helped to set up the run that tied up the game a couple of innings later. Farris, for those who don’t know, once played for the Milwaukee Brewers, but has spent the past few seasons playing for Minnesota Twins minor league affiliates.

It is a chance to get a preview of what could come in future U.S. major league seasons, while also getting a chance to see competitive baseball being played at a time when we otherwise would think we’re in the dreariness of winter.

THE SIGHT OF pitchers trying to overpower and outsmart hitters helped me manage to forget just how ugly a day we experienced on Sunday, and how the residue of that day is piled up nearly two feet deep right outside my front window!

And I also got a kick out of the one Mexico baseball fan sitting behind the dugout who chose to dye his beard in the red, white and green tri-colors of the Mexican flag.

Not as hideous as those White Sox fans who paint their face in blackface (with white “Sox” script logos on their cheeks), but it does show a certain equal sense of sincere support for their favorite team.

So if you want to know what I plan to be doing this week, it will be trying to find spare time to catch as much of the Caribbean Series as I can (two games a day on ESPN Deportes -- channel 609 on my set, I don't know about yours -- with a championship game on Sunday). It will be intriguing to see how teams from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico (this year’s tournament host) do against the Mexico and Cuba squads.

CONSIDERING THAT FUTURE Cuba participation in this tourney will be impacted by the chance of U.S./Cuba relations restoration, this isn’t just fluff and games. There could be some cultural overtones to all of this.

And at the very least, it will help me cope better from the fact that my feet (as I write this commentary) are still damp from the walk I had to take Monday afternoon out in the slop of winter snowfall!

Just another two months before we can have Opening Day in Chicago proper.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This year's tourney is being played at the Estadio Hiram Bithorn, the largest baseball stadium in Puerto Rico. It was named for the ball player who was the first Puerto Rican ever to play in the U.S. major leagues -- Bithorn pitched in 1942, 1943 and 1946 for the Chicago Cubs (interrupted by a 1944-45 stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II). In 1943, he pitched seven shut-out games, which remains a record of sorts for Puerto Rican pitchers.

If this is Linus, how harsh would Lucy be on a 'Super Bowl Sunday?'

I felt fortunate to have a dead Sunday, as in a day in which I had nothing that absolutely had to be done that day.

I was able to get away with staying at home all day without having to cope with Winter Storm Linus – the heavy snowfall that swept through the Midwestern United States this weekend and whacked Chicago with potentially a foot of snow within a day-long period.

LIKE MANY OTHERS, I could not help but remember the old Peanuts cartoon where Linus was one of Charlie Brown’s most loyal friends, unlike older sister Lucy who was amongst Charlie’s biggest antagonists.

If this were Winter Storm Lucy, I’d probably have had some business dealing that absolutely had to get done, and I’d wind up stuck in the snow somewhere!

As it was, my brother tried to make a short drive, and wound up stuck in the snow for a short time – although he eventually was able to get his car out of the snow and parked back in his usual spot where he leaves it.

As a result, he wound up spending the bulk of the day catching up on rest – while also enjoying caldo de pollo (a rather elaborate Mexican-style chicken soup) he had made just the day before.

SUNDAY WOUND UP being the perfect day for leftovers – even though the weather wound up costing him a chance to go to a Super Bowl party.

Which may be the biggest local casualty of this particular storm; how many people had plans to go to one of these parties to see the Seattle Seahawks/New England Patriots football championship matchup only to be unable to make it because of the snowfall? Then again, how many people were unable to see the game because their electricity died (mine was out for about three hours during the afternoon)?

Or worse, how many people had pizza delivery jobs and wound up having to cope with the mess while trying to deliver a pie or two to someone’s Super Bowl celebration aspirations – which usually are more about eating junk food with friends and getting worked up over over-produced and over-rated commercials than it is about watching anything noteworthy from an athletic perspective! Perhaps Lou Malnati's had the right idea in deciding to close early Sunday -- even though it should have been one of their busiest days of the year!

Personally, I became aware of just how bad the snow was when I woke up Sunday and did my early-morning e-mail check to see that aides to Gov. Bruce Rauner had sent me a message informing me that his public appearance at St. Pius V parish in the Pilsen neighborhood was cancelled.

THE NEW GOVERNOR was supposed to go to Sunday morning mass with Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti – my guess is that he wanted to attend a Latino-oriented church with his Cuban-American running mate to show some sort of Latino solidarity.

For a politician to give up that kind of photo op means it must have been ugly weather. Although Rauner did include the Illinois Department of Transportation advisory that people avoid driving their cars on Sunday, “unless it’s necessary.”

Officially, the National Weather Service reported there were 8.5 inches of snow at O’Hare International Airport by Noon, with snow continuing to fall. Although it seems the farther south one goes, the heavier the pileup becomes.

Looking out my own front window while I write this commentary, I see a nearby “For Rent” sign totally covered in a pile of snow! Although we’re still at a stage where the snowfall looks clean and pretty.

AS PEOPLE TRY to drive through it, the snow will take on that dingy, dirty shade that we all eventually will have to try to shovel away. Although various weather forecasts claim we’re in for sunny skies in future days.

Here’s hoping that this truly melts away rather quickly and that “Linus” becomes just a faint memory a week from now.

Although perhaps having a Super Bowl Sunday with a storm named “Lucy” might have been most appropriate. Because we all remember Charlie Brown’s repeated attempts at a field goal.

Did she ever let Charlie Brown actually kick that ball?

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