The scene was a sidewalk café on Chicago’s northwest side, one summery evening around 2006. I’d been joined for dinner by a couple of friends, Grant and Kate, and between bites of chicken Vesuvio — or was it a chopped salad? — was enjoying the witty, intelligent repartee of my two companions. There was a lull in the conversation, […]
I ran into my old buddy Jake at the local outpost of a well-known, high-priced donut chain. I had just spent the better part of a sawbuck on a powdered donut hole and thimble of java when I noticed Jake seemed to be lacking his usual Christmas spirit. His brow was furrowed, and he looked […]
Have you ever wondered why your next-door neighbor must have a new car in his driveway every model year? And not just a new car, but a new car with all the bells and whistles, like that 18-valve, turbo-charged, dyno-flex, hydroponic 4000 engine, 57-speaker audio system with Sistine Chapel acoustics and the buttery soft leathers […]
For those investing for retirement, target-date funds sound like a great idea. Say you want to retire in 2030. Simply purchase a 2030 target-date fund, the wisdom holds, and the fund will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to your investments. But like that time you tried to pass […]
Talk to anyone 19 to 90, and they’re likely to have very clear memories of their first experience going steady. Mine came at the decidedly ancient age of 17, and I can recall that star-crossed life chapter like it happened last week. My perky, mahogany-haired, 16-year-old inamorata and I didn’t have much in common other […]
A neighbor who lives directly below me in my condominium building wakes up before 6 a.m. each morning, gets dressed, skulks outside and on some days begins looking for parked vehicles of neighbors he doesn’t like. Under the protective cloak of a cover of darkness, he removes a key from his pocket, walks alongside those […]
I can still remember the days when the term “generation gap” was all the rage. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that term was bandied about to describe the yawning philosophical chasm between Baby Boomers and their parents on topics as diverse as the Vietnam War, the length of one’s hair, and different […]
Last year, I signed up for a program called “Connections” through my college alma mater. The program is designed to bring a group of the college’s current juniors and seniors to the big city, for a pow-wow with both recent graduates and ancient grads like myself, who work in the students’ prospective career fields. On […]
These days, there’s a lot of attention being focused on the subject of bullying. This emphasis is well justified. The whole bullying experience tends to be destructive and wreak long-term consequences. As one who was, at times, both bullied and a bully as a kid, I can testify that while I have almost repressed the […]
In this rapidly changing world, it’s comforting to know that some things never change. They are as immutable as the Rock of Gibraltar, as permanent as the sands of the Mojave, and as unalterable as the seven seas and stars above. Want an example? Try new business failure rates. The percentage of new businesses that […]