My last trip to a hair salon was February 7, 2020. On my Google Calendar, I made a note: “Went half a shade lighter with goal of going lighter each time until age 75, then going gray.”

The plan to go gray by age 75 seemed, at the time, like a reasonable compromise. For years I regretted getting hooked on dying my hair. It was expensive, and I worried that it was harmful to my health. But each time I proposed going gray to my stylist, he warned me I would regret it and that the worst part would be the transition, with my roots waving the white flag of surrender to ageing. To ease that transition, I asked him to apply dye a half shade lighter each time I came in to the salon, giving me years to go from dark brown to something like sandalwood.

Five weeks later, when I would have been due for a cut and color, I was sheltering at home. My hair was the last thing on my mind. But as my bangs began to block my eyes, I had to do something. On April 6, I grabbed a pair of hair scissors and hacked away, twisting tiny bundles of hair and cutting on an angle. The results were acceptable.

But my hair grows fast, and I balked at trimming the hair on the back of my head. Two weeks later, I handed my scissors to the only person I would allow inside my house, my fiancé, Johnny Zoom — the nickname came from his years in advertising. John is a talented artist and a perfectionist, traits that served him well in his professional life but that stretched the haircut to almost two hours. Tiny snip, step back, repeat. Still, there’s no one I’d rather spend time with, and although John had never cut hair before, you could have fooled me. He needed a cut too, so I tried to follow his example. We were both pleased with the results. Selfies taken at a certain angle didn’t reveal the white taking over the back of my head.

We repeated our mutual haircuts a few times until mid-June, when a friend gave me the name of her backyard stylist. Armed with precision scissors and a cape, the stylist came to my backyard and set to work. She knew what she was doing, and I became so occupied with learning about her background — there’s something about talking to a stylist, less judgmental than a therapist or even a bartender, that can’t be beat — that I forgot to show her a photo of what my hair had looked like pre-COVID. The result, which was totally on me, was the shortest hair I’ve had since infancy. Re the gray, it was like going cold turkey: darker strands shot through everywhere with white.

I haven’t needed another haircut since then, while my hair grows back to its pre-pandemic length. But I’ve embraced the gray. In 1956, Shirley Polykoff, the lone female copywriter at Foot, Cone & Belding, dreamt up the provocative “Does she . . . or doesn’t she?” campaign for Clairol. Now, more than 60 years later, I can answer. She doesn’t.

It’s almost impossible to try and relate to people what it’s like for a cop who has to remain calm while processing the scene of a  violent death of a child. I will tell you that an overwhelming feeling of grief sets in, it’s something that never gets erased no matter how many times you’re exposed to it. The dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them, but to those of us who are confronted with the carnage of dealing with the violent death of children, it remains a haunting recurring nightmare. Look at the faces of these boys below. For the rest of their lives, they will be haunted by their friend’s death at 9 years old.

Almost immediately after the initial grief comes raging anger.  Yesterday Dajore Wilson just 8 years old became Chicago’s 43rd juvenile under 13 to be murdered by gang violence. She joins the long list of names that without question will be forgotten in a few weeks. Life on Chicago’s streets indeed is a fragile bargain, rescindable at almost anytime. Only wicked people who lack a complete sense of decency and who are afflicted with “EMPATHY DEFICIT DISORDER” kill children with absolutely no sense of compassion.  The gang mentality so coldly put to me one day some years back by the Notorious Street Gang leader and founder of the  GANGSTER DISCIPLES Larry Hoover,  “YOU WIT A GANGSTER! YOU ARE GANG.”

None of those 43 innocent children will appear on a famous athletes helmet, there will be no outrage or memorial plaques, their names will fade from memory and only their loved ones and friends will remember and shed tears and share nightmares long after they are gone.

As for the other 541 victims of Chicago’s gang violence THIS YEAR, it cannot be said that today’s shooters will be tomorrow’s victims. The killing of innocence continues, all the talk and pompous speeches have not stopped the slaughter. “CHICAGO’S CHILDREN  SOMEHOW HAVE RESURRECTED THE WORDS OF THOMAS HOBBES THE GREAT ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER WHOSE WORDS IN 1651 ARE HAUNTING.  “NO ARTS, NO LETTERS; AND WHICH IS WORST OF ALL, CONTINUAL FEAR OF VIOLENT DEATH; AND THE LIFE OF A CHILD, SOLITARY, POOR, NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT.”

Dr. Martin Luther King,  Jr. once said,  “In the end, it’s not the words of our enemy we will remember but the silence of our friends.” It seems that far too many political leaders in Chicago have blanched in the face of the ongoing slaughter in their City. Day after day, hour after hour the mayhem continues and now it has reached the age of innocence, silencing children forever. City leaders breathing their own exhaust not knowing that delusion is contagious. The Gangs in Chicago are emboldened and they are more of a power than they have ever been. It’s wise to believe that power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.  The question is WHO AND WHEN WILL THAT DEMAND BECOME A REALITY?

The silence by the leadership in Chicago is exactly what Dr. King meant.  The constant shootings and killings by the gangs tell us who the enemy is, and the SILENCE by political Leaders speaks volumes. Too much power permits the powerful to skate responsibility. There are no morals in politics, there is only expediency. By being silent and passive only a blind person cannot see the problem is rapidly expanding.  A politician’s tears dry quickly when it’s shed for others. Hunter Thompson once said, “TOMORROW WE HAVE TO GET SERIOUS.”  HOW MANY MORE OF CHICAGO’S CHILDREN HAVE TO DIE BEFORE THE SOUND OF SILENCE GOES BACK TO BEING A SONG?

Hot Dogs on the Grill

While Labor Day grills cool down around the nation on this Labor Day, and the last wrinkled and overcooked dogs are sliced up and mixed in with the dog chow, there is a surprising statistic to chew on. Sales of packaged hot dogs are up 17 percent this year over last year, and the demand is expected to continue.

What has normally been a quick, unimpressive meal – a kind of throwaway for a midweek meal at home – has renewed popularity: and perhaps renewed respect.

When something is taken from us, we want it all the more.

So for everyone who has ever gone to a favored hot dog stand as a matter of routine and gotten their dog served up just right with all of the “Sacred Seven” ingredients, or chomped down on a 7-11 Big Bite without giving it much thought, let’s pause for a moment of reflection.

Some of our favorite hot dog places are closed. And while many have found a way to sell dogs curbside, others have succumbed to the times. And why is that? Because people don’t even look for stands as much, feeling in their hearts that hot dogs are supposed to be joyous and plentiful and tasty and personal, and have nothing to do with these grim times of wearing masks and dumping hand cleaner over ourselves every five minutes.

Baseball games have cardboard cutouts in the stands. No raucous yahoos spilling frothy beers and taking huge bites out of napkin-wrapped hot dogs in what can only be described as a true fan’s bliss. When you have the sun shining down on that emerald-green grass, and the lads are out there exhibiting practically impossible skills, while you are free to drink beers and cheer or boo to your heart’s content while eating a garlicky, smoky dog on a steamed bun, it’s hard to imagine much better.

I recall all too well this time of year in Chicago at Wrigley Field years ago, before the greed took hold. You could get as many tickets as you wanted on game day, and the stands would have mere scatterings of fans. The hot dog and beer guys were more than eager to stick around for your next order, like Vegas cocktail waitresses and their nasally pitch, “Dreeeeenks!”

But the at-home hot dog has taken on new popularity and strength. I have to admit to a little “sticker shock” when I last looked at a standard package of all-beef dogs. What is this – almost a buck per dog? But then you get them home, and put together your condiments and your poppy seed buns with care, using those little Martha Stewart mini-ramekins, keeping the celery salt nearby, and you place a few of those beef beauties on the grill grate at an angle that delivers 45-degree char marks, and you crack open a Budweiser or a Miller Genuine Draft, well, then, the increase in sales begins to make sense.

You turn off the news, and let your mind wander to days past, when you’d watch your nephew man the grill, swinging on a hammock, in those days when nobody brought up the president, ever, and the perfect, pre-autumn air would put an edge on your appetite, and you’d be ready to soak up all the family love that came your way.

Maybe that’s what we need most right now.

At least 17 percent more of us.

Fall is in the air. That crisp, cool breeze awakened every piece of exposed skin as I crossed Ashland, and headed east, towards Clark, on Cullom.

Fall, I love this season. I love breaking out my fall clothes, long-sleeved shirts, khakis, and windbreakers. I love donning that new outfit I’ve been saving for that first cool weekend. Even just a brisk walk in the ice-cold air feels regenerative.

As I was running this morning I could not get that indelible, classic Neil Diamond song out of my head. You know the one, “September Morn.”

We lived in McCullom Lake, and my dad owned a grocery store and a gas station that sat adjacent to our Wausau home. It was aptly called Jim Franklin’s Grocery. He put his life savings into this house and store, so my mom would run it during the day while he still worked his sales job at Frito Lay.

During the day, Linda and Laurie Lancaster would babysit me at their house a few gates down. Their mother, Dawn, was a gigantic fan of Elvis and Neil, and that’s where I was introduced to both. I still remember their living room, and the records, and “September Morn.”

“September morn/Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes/From some romantic play
September morning/Still can make me feel that way”

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