What becomes of old family photos? Do we wither away into history?

It was recently that I attended a party when one of my cousins gave her brother what might appear to be an odd gift – a giant frame containing more than a dozen family photographs.

My father (right), uncles and aunt as kids at Riverview

Before one presumes this is a home-made gift with meaning, consider that the people in those photos are someone else’s family.

FOR IT SEEMS this cousin found these framed photos at a second-hand store, and she bought it because my other cousin apparently has an interest in the way people pose for those shots meant to preserve the family for posterity.

Particularly in the older days, but he also enjoys a contemporary shot or two as well.

Now that night, we were going back and forth having fun mocking this off-the-wall holiday gift, for it seems the family in the photographs is Filipino (or maybe Chinese, the captions written on the back of the photos were sort of vague). Such as the idea that when my cousin turns old and begins to suffer from dementia, he’s going to presume THESE people are his family.

Bye Bye to all of us!

BUT IT DOES have me wondering what should we really expect to happen to all of those alleged family mementos – particularly since nothing truly lasts forever. And there’s always the possibility that some knucklehead down the road will decide these “mementos” are little more than trash taking up space.

My maternal grandparents upon birth of twins (my mother's the baby on right)

That seems to be what happened to this particular family’s photographs – which were nicely framed and organized in a way that you literally could follow this woman’s story from being a Filipino immigrant to the graduation of her grandchildren.

Somebody’s life became someone else’s space-taking nuisance. Is that what is destined to happen to all of us?



My paternal grandparents in front of their (then) new home

Perhaps I’m thinking this too deeply because, with the death of my brother not long ago, I wound up becoming the family member in possession of the old family photographs.

WHICH NOT ONLY document my own childhood and that of my brother, but also contain the shots that were taken throughout the lives of my father and mother during their respective childhoods.

In fact, I know one of the things I was able to do to make my father happy in the days following the death of his other son was to give him some five dozen prints of photographs from his own childhood that had somehow passed down to us.

My father and Uncle John (my mother's twin)

I know he’s planning on taking actions meant to preserve those photographs – some of which already have had some significant fading and deterioration (what with being five or six decades old by now).

But what happens after that? What happens if the day comes when this big, clunky photo album that my now-late mother started to put together when I was a baby winds up being stray stuff.

DOES IT WIND up being put up for sale in a second-hand shop as a potential antique? Or worse yet, in one of those landfills near Pontiac where much of Chicago’s trash winds up these days!

It would be all too easy for me to see how such a scenario could happen – even though I’m sure someone is going to retort that by such a time, I would be deceased and it wouldn’t really matter to me any longer.

Me, with my Uncle Art, when I had a whole life ahead of me

So perhaps some of these old photographs ought to be seen now, what with the idea that I could at least try to pass along their significance.

Otherwise, they could all become just dusty images that wind up being someone else’s conversational piece before they move along to more “revelant” topics such as the weather or whether the Chicago Cubs will manage to go two full centuries without winning a World Series title.

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‘Chicago’ gets moment in Hall of Fame

It’s at a time like this that I wish the Chicago Transit Authority hadn’t been so uptight about its public image nearly a half-century ago.

Now immortalized, music-wise

Because just think of how unique it would seem if the announcement had been made Thursday that the CTA was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

THE ROCK ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, to be exact, which decided that the 1970s soft rock band Chicago was one of five musical acts worthy of some lasting recognition for their contributions to our pop culture.

Chicago's biggest band, if not for "Chicago"

Of course, Chicago is the band that has given us countless albums distinguished from each other merely by the numbers used to identify them. Although I’m sure there are some hardcore fans who can tell me off the tops of their heads what the difference is between “Chicago 8” and “Chicago 17.”

 

Now I’m not knocking the band, although I must confess to not having been a big fan of theirs when they were in their 1970s heyday, and think of the fact that they continue to perform and tour as being something along the lines of the fact that The Turtles (a late ‘60s’ band that gave us “Happy Together,” for those of you so clueless) still performs nostalgia concerts.

Not exactly something I want to pay good money for in order to get pricey tickets.

Would anyone really mistake a bus for a band?

BUT THE BAND did always stand out, and not just because of the song “25 or 6 to 4.”

After all, how many bands take on the identity of our home city as their very own? If not for Chicago, we’d have to get all worked up over that ‘60’s band” The Buckinghams, who chose to take on the identity of the Grant Park fountain that the Germans allegedly identify with Al Bundy and “Married, with Children.”

A Chicago band called “Chicago.”

Kind of intriguing, particularly since the band originally created itself as the Chicago Transit Authority – taking on the name of our very own elevated train and bus system.

We stop there today for a hot dog, if they were still open

WHICH, AFTER LEARNING that a real-live rock group released an album called “Chicago Transit Authority,” actually filed lawsuits to force a name change. Which is when they simply became “Chicago.”

Too bad, because let’s be honest. If there’s anyone whose image would have been ruined by the association, it would be that of the band. Who’d want to hear music performed by a group that named itself for the entity that often can’t get people to their destination on time and whose cars and buses have been known to reek of graffiti and body odor?

So we don’t have the CTA making it into a Hall of Fame. Nor will we have officials in Brooklyn (which likes to think it has the ultimate mass transit) having to honor Chicago transit during ceremonies to be held in the spring of '16.

Instead, we’ll be hearing our home city’s name being praised – regardless of what you think of all those horns being incorporated into a musical form that some people think should never advance beyond three guitar chords and a simple bass line.

THAT IS WHY one of my favorite moments from the 1999 film “Three Kings” was the quarrel between soldiers played by Spike Jonze and Ice Cube over what was good music – with Jonze’s character favoring heavy metal and Cube preferring something softer and we hear the intro to “If You Could Leave Me Now.”

Besides, you have to admit that a band (even with its most significant members long gone) that can last for decades and still draw some crowds (no matter how old or nostalgic) has to be worthy of some attention.

Particularly if they bring to mind the finest city on Planet Earth every time somebody mentions their name!

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Who matters more? Does it really matter? It's baseball in Chicago

I’m sure some baseball fans are making half-wit jokes these days about how the only place the Chicago White Sox matter is in Havana – where the Major League Baseball delegation that is touring Cuba this week bears a strong Sout’ Side flavor.

The pride of Havana in Chicago? Or...

Four major league ballplayers with Cuban ethnic origins will be in and around Havana through Friday, including star Sox slugger Jose Abreu and former shortstop Alexi Ramirez – who may well wind up begging for his roster spot back by the time spring training comes around.

IT WON’T BE the White Sox going to Cuba to play some spring-training games (the Tampa Bay Rays were chosen from a bowl a few weeks ago). But the Cubano fanaticos de beisbol will get to see the elite of the White Sox portrayed as part of the game’s elite.

And for what it’s worth, Abreu got to see his son for the first time in more than two years – it was one of the drawbacks of fleeing his country that he had to abandon his family.

Although from news accounts, it seems the two occasionally have talked on the phone. And when Abreu’s son was brought to the hotel where Jose was staying, the cap he had perched on his head bore the Old English-style Sox logo that would make the boy welcome in just about any South Side establishment.

Of course, much of the public attention to baseball in the past couple of weeks involved trades made by the Chicago Cubs that supposedly reinforce their championship dreams.

INCLUDING THE FACT that some St. Louis Cardinals ballplayers chose to leave that team so they could play for the Cubs. Which led me to stumble across a parody story recently that said Cardinals manager Mike Matheny left St. Louis to become a third-base coach for the Cubs.

... the pride of Chicago in Havana?

Those Cubs fans who think the whole world revolves around their preferred ball club are sky-high.

Although all I can remember is the winter following the 1977 season when New York Yankees pitcher Mike Torrez left the team for a big-money contract with the rival Boston Red Sox.

Everybody was convinced this was the gesture that ensured the Yankees’ downfall. The Red Sox ascension to their rightful place as champions. All would be right with the world.

Only in fantasy is Matheny becoming a Cub

IN REALITY, WHAT happened in 1978 was that memorable tie between the two and that one-game tie-breaking playoff. In which Torrez wound up being the losing pitcher who gave up that immortal home run to one-time White Sox shortstop Bucky Dent.

A scenario I could see befalling the Cubs as much more likely than a championship.

Is this the Cubs fate?

Besides, I couldn’t help but notice the Crain’s Chicago Business report that found a Nielsen Scarborough study finding the most popular Chicago sports teams to be the Bears and the Blackhawks – with the two baseball clubs bringing up the rear.

That’s what a Stanley Cup will do for a team’s popularity, compared to promises to flirt with championship status that ultimately fell short for both the Cubs and White Sox.

AND BEFORE ANYONE of the Cubbiedom status goes on much, I couldn’t help but notice both baseball teams experienced slight upticks in their popularity. Even the White Sox, who were one of baseball’s biggest disappointments in 2015.

Even with Jose Abreu, whose performance in ’15 may have been the best on the team but didn’t match up with the 2014 statistics that made him the American League’s Rookie of the Year.

Perhaps an Abreu 2016 resurgence (along with performances closer to what was expected this year by several White Sox players and the acquisition this week to play third base of Todd Frazier from the Cincinnati Reds) could be what brings South Side baseball back up to anticipated levels.

What will happen come the next Chicago city World Series?

And who knows, if paired up with another Cubs team that doesn’t embarrass itself, perhaps we could get that dream season of an all-Chicago World Series – one that would let us put the South Side/North Side debate to rest for all-time with a White Sox victory.

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EXTRA: Nonsense talk often prevails

It’s a known fact that the more ridiculous, irrelevant or ludicrous a campaign accusation is, the better chance it has of sticking in the mindset of potential voters.

MUNGER: The appointed incumbent

So is it possible that the serious campaigning for Illinois comptroller has begun?

THAT’S THE POST currently held by Leslie Munger, who was picked to fill the vacancy created when Judy Baar Topinka died a year ago before being able to serve in the post to which she had literally just been elected a couple of weeks earlier.

Munger gets to hold the office to which Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed her, until this year’s elections in November, when the voters will get to say who finishes the final two years of the term that runs through January 2019.

Munger is the GOP opponent, while Chicago city Clerk Susana Mendoza has already declared herself the Democratic challenger.

Which led Mendoza, who once was a state representative from Chicago, to join in with the organized labor types who are trashing Munger, who is a native of suburban Lincolnshire – the municipality that felt compelled to declare itself a right-to-work community. Furthermore, Munger’s campaign manager is also the village president of Lincolnshire.

IS MUNGER REALLY nothing more than a Rauner puppet? Willing to have her people do his bidding?

It’s a predictable line of attack. Not the most original. But to be expected.

So perhaps it should have been anticipated that Munger would retaliate with claims that Mendoza was equally negligent in not being on top of the controversy that befalls her hometown. As in all that video talk related to the death of Laquan McDonald.

Which is stupid to expect a city clerk to have any serious say over. But it is the kind of thing that will inspire less-informed potential voters to get all worked up over.

MENDOZA: Dem challenger

PLUS, BECAUSE THE stink related to McDonald and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s potential involvement in trying to downplay the death is much more internationally known than our state’s financial problems and the degree to which they’re just an attack on organized labor, it means Munger probably scores the bigger “hit” with her crazed accusation!

This has the potential to turn a usually low-key downballot race (usually, anything related to state government gets less attention than the Chicago stuff that matters to many overly-local voters) into a real stinker.

Particularly since Mendoza’s campaign retorted to Munger’s accusation by saying it came straight from the Rauner strategy team. “We hope to see this properly reported as an in-kind contribution on (the Munger campaign’s) quarterly report,”

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Is union membership so oppressive?

Learning that suburban Lincolnshire has declared itself to be a “right to work” zone makes me wonder what some people have against the concept of labor.

Are they really so trusting of management to always know better what needs to be done? Perhaps that would explain the fact that a sizable (if not truly a majority) of people think Donald Trump’s business experiences make him fit to lead the nation!

PERSONALLY, IT GALLS me to think that some people want to take on this issue that could easily be left alone. Why prod the rabid dog into attacking you if you don’t have to?

But that’s what happened in Lincolnshire, which became the first municipality to feel the need to take up this issue – which was something that Gov. Bruce Rauner for awhile had dreams that municipalities all over the state would adopt as a gesture of support for his fight with the Chicago-leaning political establishment of the state.

In this case, being a “right to work” place means companies based in that village do not have to withhold union dues from their employees’ salaries. If the workers really want their unions to have the money that badly, they have to write out a separate check to send to them.

Which is a hassle for the unions and their membership. Its purpose, as it is in all “right to work” states, is to undermine the ability of unions to organize the workers and discourage those workers from thinking they ought to be union members.

WHICH MAKES ALL the right-wing talk of personal freedom and how this isn’t anti-union a whole lot of hooey. It’s meant to single out anyone who wants to take the initiative to be in a labor union.

I’d respect management all the more if they’d only admit that!

It is a whole mess of an issue, creating a lot of tension that ought not to exist. And now, Lincolnshire has felt compelled to drag itself into this mess that truly is so far above its head.

You have to wonder what those officials are thinking? Or if they’re thinking at all. It’s quite possible they’re not, and that this is a blind-faith, knee-jerk reaction by GOP-leaning local officials who don’t truly comprehend what they’re doing.

CONSIDER THAT WHEN Lincolnshire’s village board approved the measure Monday, none of their village trustees had anything to say. They just voted “aye,” probably like their village president told them to – for all I know.

Not that this attitude surprises me. I have encountered people during life who, because of their upbringing, just don’t want to accept the fact that organized labor does serve a purpose.

I still recall when I first started working for United Press International and was handed the card to fill out to join the Newspaper Guild local that represented wire service workers then.

Because I had once interned at a central Illinois-based newspaper where the reporters were not unionized, but the competing newspaper’s staff were and were paid much better, I had no hesitation.

ONLY TO HEAR a plea from one of my co-workers who apparently couldn’t believe anyone wasn’t bothered by the very thought of “union” membership connected to their names.

The point is even though she didn’t join, she was still covered by the benefits of that union contract. Yet if the ideologues were at all accurate, she wouldn’t have been. Union membership truly isn’t oppressive, unless you create it out to be in your mindset.

And yes, I should confess that the UPI job I referred to eventually laid me off, but with ample warning and a competent severance package; as called for in that union contract.

All of the layoffs I have had since then at non-union jobs gave me nothing more than a week’s pay and that 15-minute timespan to clean out my desk before leaving the premises. Is that really what this fight truly is about?

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The sight that Rahm may really fear threatens to go on attack in near future

As if Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t have enough people upset with him these days, he now gets the most outspoken of his critics back again.

As in Karen Lewis and her people with the Chicago Teachers Union. For the union let it be known Monday that Chicago school teachers are so overwhelmingly disgusted with current conditions that they’re prepared to walk the picket lines.

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!

If only it were merely another Chicago Cubs batter going down for the count because he can’t hit big-league pitching. Instead, it means the union has given its leadership the authorization to call for a work stoppage at any point now if negotiations toward a new contract don’t get serious.

Which as far as the teachers are concerned, they haven’t been serious at all up to this point – particularly the talk about continued layoffs and measures they regard as pay cuts; even though Emanuel and city officials have ways of describing them to make it seem that nobody’s losing anything.

For the record, three days of voting by the teachers came to an end with an announcement Monday that 96.5 percent voting “yes” for the idea of a strike in the future.

IT ALSO SEEMS that 92 percent of those who could cast ballots bothered to do so. Making this seem to be an election that people cared about.

If only we could get that kind of turnout on Elections Days for municipal, county, state and federal governments. Just think of the kind of change that could be made if people cared enough to show interest.

A thought that would scare the pants off so many politicos – who instead prefer the tactics that make most people disgusted enough to not bother to want to vote at all.



EMANUEL: Does he wish he was still just a Rep?

It’s so much easier for the politico’s life if he (or she) doesn’t have to worry about those pesky voters with their own opinions that just can’t seem to realize how much a political person’s self-interest is important enough to dominate their voting record.

YES, I’M BEING sarcastic and smarmy.

Because a year ago, the only people who were really prepared to trash Rahm Emanuel were Karen Lewis and the teachers union people. Lewis may be recovering from health issues to the point where her subordinates are now doing the dirty work.

But they were the ones who put up a fight and tried to give people a serious choice for mayor between Rahm and somebody else. Particularly that mayoral bid of Jesus Garcia that for awhile made the one-time alderman, legislator and county commissioner a household name.

Now, they’re going to go back to bashing Emanuel for the way in which he and his political people oversee the Chicago Public Schools. These are the people who really are devoted to the cause of “Anybody But Rahm,” as in they wanted him gone years ago and (it seems from their level of strike support) haven’t lightened up one bit.

PROBABLY BECAUSE EMANUEL hasn’t lightened up in his view of them as the problem that must be eradicated. A view that is going to have to wither away if we’re to avoid the now-likely possibility of a mid-year school strike.

Just think how upset parents are going to be if they suddenly have to come up with new day-time plans for their kids to be watched when those parents had gotten used to the idea of the kids being “out of sight, out of mind” because they’re in school.

I know some of those activist-types (who come across as political opportunists who could never achieve an Election Day victory proper) want to believe they can depose Rahm Emanuel as mayor because of Laquan McDonald’s death at the hands of a Chicago cop are gunning for the mayor.

But why do I think that the sight of p’o-ed school teachers with their picket signs might be the sight that Emanuel would fear (and respect) even more!

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No matter how unpopular, can anyone put up a serious challenge to Alvarez for state’s attorney this year?

I don’t doubt that some people are outraged at Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, and not just because it seems her office took way too long to decide to prosecute the shooting death of a black teenager by a white Chicago cop that some want to view as an open-and-shut case.

But I still wonder if Alvarez’ chances of political survival are based on the idea that all the people who can’t stand her won’t be able to unite behind a single challenger.

BECAUSE AS OF now, there are two people saying they’ll run against her in the March election for the Democratic nomination for state’s attorney.

We have Kim Foxx, whom it seems is the preference of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Donna More, herself a career prosecutor and part of the legal community.

I found it amusing to learn of a Public Policy Polling poll this week that actually had Alvarez with 33 percent voter support in the lead.

It placed Foxx in second place with 24 percent, and More with 11 percent at this point in time.

ACTUALLY, I SHOULD write that Foxx is in third place, because “undecided” was actually in second place 32 percent. Which is understandable – it’s early. How many rational people have given any thought to the March primary elections?

Only the political geeks (such as myself) who can’t comprehend that real people have lives and won’t give much thought to down-ballot races for another couple of months.

It’s always possible that a Foxx/More brawl could wind up splitting people so much that the people who always are inclined to back an incumbent could be just enough to win this election.

Particularly if it is true what I hear that More has the potential to tap into wealthy contributors and have the campaign fund that could allow her to be competitive. We probably shouldn’t presume that it would be “Foxx” finishing in second place in this election cycle.

ALTHOUGH IT’S ALSO possible that some of those contributors could come back to bite More in the behind. She’s already drawing criticism for the fact that she was one of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s financial supporters in the 2014 gubernatorial election cycle.

Making some say her claims of being a Democratic partisan are nothing but a crock if she was one of the people who “sold out” Pat Quinn to give us the current governor and the budget stalemate that makes Illinois government the peak of our political foolishness these days.

But I’m not ruling her out, because I don’t doubt some of those people who were itching for a political statement would view More as providing a shakeup similar to what Rauner thinks he’s doing at the state government level.

Then again, maybe Foxx will be the second place finisher and More will wind up being the person who deprives her of enough Alvarez opposition votes to actually be capable of winning the election.

OF COURSE, IT’S still early. It’s 90 or so days to March 15 and the primary that probably will be dominated by thoughts of presidential hopefuls. There still is time for both Foxx and More to fall into the political trap of saying something stupid that gets exaggerated into a major scandal that allegedly shows up unfit either woman is for public office.

Not that I expect Alvarez’ perception to change. I suspect the people who always were opposed to her will remain so, and there’s nothing she can do to improve. She just has to avoid sinking herself lower than she already is.

Because she’s not that far from “36 percent.” That’s the level of support that Harold Washington got in the 1983 primary for mayor. A majority of Chicagoans that time around desperately wanted – for whatever reason – either Jane Byrne or Richard M. Daley.

While I’m not comparing Anita to Harold, let’s be honest. This primary could become a brawl between Foxx and More that winds up maintaining the status quo.

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