A SILENT MEMORIAL SO CLEARLY HEARD

It's difficult for just about everybody to talk about death, especially when it means the passing of someone so young and vibrant, with their entire life ahead of them.

When it comes to news reporters, it's something that comes with the territory. You are either emotionally affected every time an assignment to cover a murder, fatal accident, suicide or prominent death hits your desk or you grow immune to covering so much tragedy -- kind of like how police and firefighters are able to show up to work every day.

Although I have been at this craft for nearly 30 years and have covered some pretty grisly murders, accidental and intentional deaths, I have never been immune to every story I've done.

There was that guy whose girlfriend beat him to death with his own baseball bat, the two young kids who died after being stabbed and bound with duct tape by a guy their mom thought was a trusting babysitter, the child who was run over by her own school bus after being dropped off at her corner, the young teen with so much for which to live decided to run into a train's path and, most recently, the mom killed while crossing a busy 47th Street with her baby's stroller.

I've covered them all, and then some. And I always try and find out something, if not lots of things about these people to share with my readers.

Most of us in the media follow an unwritten policy that we don't talk about suicides except when they occur in public. And while I am going to share the latest such case to cross my desk, I am not going to violate that code. I don't need to know or tell who this kid was, but I am sure he had a lot of hopes and dreams and a good life story to tell.

He died at the end of the school year, so the impact on fellow students may not have been as dramatic had his death occurred in the middle of the year. But the impact felt by the extended neighborhood in which he lived is downright touching to say the least.

That neighborhood is directly across the street from La Grange's western border with Western Springs at Gilbert Avenue.

From Gilbert to Wolf Road and from 47th Street to Burlington Avenue, nearly every parkway tree is adorned this week with flowing thick white ribbons honoring the life of a young neighborhood kid whose life, for reasons we will never know, came to an abrupt halt in recent days.

There was no story about it, nor should there be, unless someone chooses to share what he meant to others.

I couldn't help but thinking what it was like for the family and friends of the boy to experience such a loss; but moreover what it felt like to be blessed with so much support and compassion largely from so many people they didn't even know.

I've seen ribbon "campaigns" to raise awareness of child abuse, to pass school building referenda and to mobilize a neighborhood opposed to overdevelopment of a vacant downtown lot where hundreds of condos now stand. I've seen resident groups stand tall for and against any number of causes. But I've never seen anything so simply overwhelming as this.

Sure, the ribbons, over time, will come down -- but the memory of this valiant silent memorial will live on, not just in me, but hopefully in others directly impacted by the loss of their son or brother, their classmate or teammate, their neighbor, their friend.

47TH STREET SAFETY HAZARDS NEED TO BE ADDRESSED -- AND MAY WELL BE

A fatal accident involving a 30-year-old Countryside woman struck by a passing vehicle as she attempted to hoist her child's stroller onto a raised curb at 47th Street and 8th Avenue in La Grange May 19 underscores the need for a comprehensive traffic and pedestrian study NOW in all area communities.

However, kudos are in order for Village Manager Robert Pilipiszyn for calling a special meeting June 2 to talk to the neighborhood about safety concerns aloing 47th Street and for asking the state to not only reduce speed on the roadway throughout town but to also turn over the street to the village so it can reduce the number of lanes, adding lots more parkway, turn lanes and, we can only hope, a safer commute and pedestrian atmosphere to boot.

Not only is the nearby intersection of 47th and East/Eberly Avenue another example of a potential fatality just waiting to happen, but so, too, are many intersections like the one where Cari Cook was killed -- and that is in a residential neighborhood.

The conundrum over 47th and East/Eberly is an issue often bandied about as a "what to do" scenario, but nothing is ever advanced to improve either vehicular or pedestrian traffic through the quasi- industrial/recreational crossing bounded on two corners by La Grange and the other two corners by McCook and Brookfield.

Rather than waiting for state or federal dollars to magically come streaming into local villages, the town leaders must sit down with their own department heads and residents -- as well as with their municipal neighbors -- and put safety first.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that many of the area sidewalks do not match up on either side of an intersection, that is where there are sidewalks.

And speaking as a disabled person who lately has been trying to master La Grange, Brookfield and Countryside streets, sidewalks and intersections often on crutches or via wheelchair, the task of getting around is a challenge to put it lightly.

In many areas, people who are disabled, pushing strollers or pulling wagons often find the supposed ADA-quality curb cuts to be anything but even.

And in the case of downtown La Grange, the mere task of visiting a store or restaurant located anywhere but the end of a block requires drivers to park in the middle of the block and pass behind sometimes a dozen other vehicles before being able to use a corner crosswalk to get onto the sidewalk.

As a result, curb cuts should not just be installed in the middle of downtown blocks, where convenient handicapped and "pregnant mom" spaces should also be available (like they are in the middle of the parking lot outside, say, JoAnn Fabrics in Countryside Plaza), but they should be routinely checked for settling and safety more frequently than they are.

The issue with Cari Cook may have something to do with speed or the indubitable rush motorists feel to beat the freight train congestion at 47th and East/Eberly, but then again it could be just a freak accident.

But it is clear it could have been avoided had the young mother not had to LIFT her baby's stroller onto the curb.

MOVE TO LEGALIZE VIDEO POKER? THINK TWICE

Never mind using ex-governor Rod Blagojevich's stance against video poker legalization to justify public support of it -- even if a big Chicago daily chooses to point that out at the end of a story this week (May 11 Chicago Tribune) about a new push by leading Democrats to do so as a way to raise revenue.

Let's face it: video poker, Cherry Masters, whatever you want to call it, is already a big joke in this state AND just about every municipality outside La Grange.

Video poker, like some cigarette and billiards tables, are syndicate owned and operated.

Money made at these games is split between the business owner and the guys who furnish them -- religiously, by the way, days after the ones seized in well-publicized county police raids are trucked away then destroyed and sometimes burned by vice squads -- Guys, by the way, who just might want to break some legs if you cheat on your earnings statements. Guys that keep the local law enforcement and politicians (through regular campaign contributions, mind you) in line. How nice, huh?

Go to any bar or restaurant (or, say, the almost secret back room of Darcy Lynn's diner on Ogden Avenue in Lyons) and you will NOT see ANY video poker games at which full-grown adults are happily pumping twenty after fifty after one hundred dollar bills into, just to play poker, slots, other related games with half-naked cartoon women on the screens -- "FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY" -- according to unofficial handwritten signs slapped on them by sleazy business owners.

AND JUST FOR AMUSEMENT? HA!

If you stick around these places long enough, and are not obvious but observant, you will see illegal activity, illegal payouts to regular players just like it was a Vegas or Illinois riverboat casino or, say, a truck stop outside Baton Rouge. Money doesn't come out of the machine, but usually out of a cash box of some sort kept hidden behind the bar or in the proprietor's office. And the winnings are often sweet -- OH, AND BY THE WAY: tax-free! HOW 'bout that people??
But except for the occasional election year county sheriff's raid on a multitude of taverns
throughout the suburbs, most every municipal, county and state law enforcement agency ignores the problem. Local government could be making gobs of money busting these places for such payouts if they'd just take the time to do their jobs.

However, they can't, usually because the Liquor Commissioner (hmmm ... Who?), otherwise known as the Mayor overlooks, er, excuse me...... controls the disposition of all the licenses of liquor establishments that harbor the machines.

The "Commissioner" rarely, if ever, conducts disciplinary hearings on watering holes and pancake houses and VFW halls caught red-handed by other agencies. Occasionally they do and mete fines or minor suspensions against them. The toughest penalty I ever remember was carried out in the 1990's by then-Lyons Mayor David Visk, who shut down a tavern caught paying out winnings to video poker players and dealing drugs in the establishment. Another mayor in DuPage in the last decade ordered one bar owner closed on every major traditional drinking and partying holiday.

But local towns rarely crack down on video poker -- what I have long considered an expansion of illegal gambling that has flagrantly went on around these parts probably since the times illegal stills operated in local barns and garages during Prohibition. It's legalized in some states, but it's often very controversial.

So why should you care?

Well, folks, it seems our illustrious Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are solidly behind the legalization -- get this -- of the ILLEGAL payout portion of the otherwise boring and staid "amusement" device as a possible way to finance school construction projects and local government needs throughout the Land of Lincoln.

The measure -- backed by Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan, according to aides, in a May 11 published report -- was approved that day by a 9-2 vote of the Illinois House Executive Committee as legislators negotiated the go-ahead of a massive public works initiative before their scheduled May 31 adjournment in Springfield.

The idea is estimated to generate as much as $300 million annually through a proposed 25 percent tax on the now illegal payouts. WHICH makes me wonder: how do these trusty, clean-as-whistles lawmakers know how much is being made as a result of these games if the winnings are illegally paid out?

(I think I get it. Before we pass the law, let's all visit our friendly neighborhood watering hole or greasy spoon as the case may be, quaff a beer or coffee or two, then inquire oh so politely just how much they dole out in an average month to the regulars who amuse themselves at their video poker machines. Then times that by 12. I'm sure they won't mind filling us in.)

But wait a minute!

We really need money in this state, this town, this county and God knows we can't cut administrative fat or trips and conventions or pension contributions (forcing government workers to pay toward their own retirement like the rest of modern-day America does with 401K's and IR A's. O. M. G.!) or things like hiring relatives or building mini-golf courses nobody visits, laregly inaccessible parks or, for instance, $15 million village halls.

Might as well make recreational drugs and other narcotics legal as a way to pay for playgrounds and those worthless all-terrain assault boy-toys local SWAT teams have to protect them against the next terrorist attack in Bedford Park or Hodgkins. Guess what? People aren't just smoking, snorting and injecting drugs because they are having a good time. People make lots of money dealing this stuff! Maybe we could tax them, after all we know there are lots of illegal payoffs going on ... but we just largely ignore it.

Heck, those poor guys at just about any bar or diner can't blow smoke in nonsmoker's faces indoors anymore. We gotta give 'em a break; it's damn cold out there, or windy, or balmy, and they gotta stand the whole time. So let's finally recognize they're breaking the law and tax them for it. This is hypocrisy.

On the same note, why not legalize prostitution? We know people pay for it and those guys and gals sure do make some good money doing what they do.

Awww, we know it's illegal, taxpayers, but so is the ghost payrolling we overlook and the campaigning we do while we are supposed to be working on the government payroll and the contracts and jobs and appointments we give out to those fine people whom we twist arms and legs to fill up our campaign coffers.

And you know what? It's not just Blago who's into that kind of thing. It's a lot of other politicians, not just waiting for pensions and campaign fund payouts to kick in, who generally believe they are above the law. And, I guess, who believe the tavern owners and those good 'ol veterans and truckers are as well.

Gov. Pat Quinn, an advocate of a $26 billion construction program, has not said where he stands on the terrible idea.

But Democrat Frank Mautino of Spring Valley likes the idea and is looking for supporters. I can't wait to hear what has convinced them to rally behind it.

It's estimated there are about 65,000 of these machines in Illinois, many of which are licensed for a fee by the local municipality or county. But it's likely there are at least 65,000 more in the backrooms of warehouses and other storefronts and store 'fronts' all over the place. Heck, there's a place in Lyons, a big political contributor over the years, that houses scores of them.

The funny thing about Mautino's plan, IF it's going to be followed, is that wagering would be restricted to a max of 2 bucks a bet, with a max payout of 500 greenbacks. Heck I've often seen grown men with fistfulls of 20's and 50's childishly shoving them in the dollar slot one after another. TWO bucks?

Here's another good one: taverns would only be able to house three poker games, while truck stops, vet's halls and private or nonprofit social clubs could have up to five. (Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, just how many can we then keep running in the back room or the basement?!)

We're not yet sure how our local reps and senators feel about this stellar suggestion, but we'll update you when we know.

We are, however, happy to report that those two NO votes in committee came from a Mundelein Republican, Rep. Ed Sullivan -- who says if he was to vote for it, it'd have to pay for road repair before school upgrades -- and our friend Rep. Bob Biggins of nearby Elmhurst, who says there's enough gambling in Illinois already. Yay, Bob!

The whole thing makes me laugh and oh so suspicious of just who's giving whom how much, when and how. After all, while I am no supporter of Rod and all of his antics, it's funny that some of those criticizing him are willing to help mobsters and their minions (and probably more than a few mayors and cops ... OH, and our wonderful state, sorry) make money off of presently unenforced ILLEGAL criminal activity.

And they expect us all to sit back and accept this nonsense. We don't think so.

Speak up, Illinoisans. Don't let anyone shove this down your throats.

(please tell us what you think) Thanks.

ACCESS INABILITY

Lyons Township High School District 204 is a fine institution with amazingly large -- and might I add: very clean and seemingly safe -- facilities, but the School Board and administration could go a long way toward doing a better job of welcoming visitors to nighttime events.

Face it, each campus is huge because of the need to accommodate so many students, classrooms and programs and the parking lots are just as huge, and, by the way, very well-maintained.

But we attended an event at South campus in Western Springs the other night (the Monday, March 30th candidate forum presented by the La Grange Area League of Women Voters) and found it rather confusing and frustrating just where to park and which entrance to go in. They are a least a block or two apart.

I admit that although I am temporarily wheelchair-bound (and did not call ahead to check on accommodations) and did not find any indoor or outdoor ramps or curb cuts unsafe, the parking spaces for the disabled are quite a distance from each entrance. I shudder to imagine being on crutches or a walker or being older and less able-bodied and having to walk that distance just to get inside or back to my vehicle.

But I, and the wife of a high school board candidate, arriving early (thank God), found it difficult at best where to enter. There were no signs anywhere to be found, nobody directing visitors in person and even night custodians had no clue the forum was being held let alone where it was.

Granted, I didn't do my homework. I just knew it was being held at South campus. But I also learned part of the problem was the lack of attention the local print media affords the La Grange Area League of Women Voters (who hosted the event and probably should have posted their own directional signs and maybe a few volunteer building guides inside and outside to help out).

The gymnasium doors were illuminated and open and it appeared volleyball practice was going on in there, there were night adult courses in progress in some classrooms and there was the forum. Not knowing which way to go, we chose one of the two obvious options (the wrong one, of course) and had to walk (and roll) the length of a few football fields to get to our destination and back. Glad it was a warmer than usual night (and yes, I could sure use the exercise).

That is something we at OnLaGrange.com plan to change. The League and its varied audiences can be assured we will carry detailed information about all of their forums and seminars from now on,most likely in The News or The Community blogs.

Even signs or knowledgeable staff would have helped (then again so could an electric scooter), but we learn from our mistakes, I guess.

I did, and I hope LT and the League will as well.

TWITTER LA DI, TWITTER LA DA

I am not a Twitterer. In fact, I'm just starting to master this 'posting of meandering thoughts and other important stories on the website' thing.

But this, I guess, is my twitter -- yet I won't be boring you with entries like 'Jim is about to go to sleep now. He's had a long day going into a matinee at the La Grange Theatre and sneaking into as many other movies as possible in one day.' (although I do admit that's fun)

But I will try to amuse you with the kinds of things a newsman such as myself wonders about, things I just can't seem to pull together a whole darn column about. So here goes:

1. This is my biggest pet peeve about La Grange and I just realized in a chat with Mayor Liz Asperger over coffee last week that even she was unaware of this faux pas: take a drive over the Ogden Avenue bridge from Brookfield into La Grange and keep to the right lane heading west, preferably in the daytime. As you approach the left turn onto Burlington Avenue, keep an eye out for the yellow (road is approaching on your left) caution sign at the top of the bridge. Look closely or you might miss it. Just like I tell my favorite restaurant owners (yes, Steve, we still need to meet) about the glaring mistakes, grammar and spelling and punctuation errors on their menus, I feel obliged to repeat my rant about signs. Since this is an educated community, the local hot dog shop does not sell Hot Dog's or Taco's. and there is NOT a Jewel's in La Grange Park or a Kmart's over in Bridgeview. And, sign-makers, there is no such road as BurliGton Avenue.

2. I've been keeping a close eye on what retail is NOT coming in to the new La Grange Pointe senior housing complex at La Grange Road and Cossitt Avenue and stopped in my tracks the other day thinking something had changed. But it was the clever marketing genius of the folks over there who finally decided to fill those vacant windows with a more colorful artist rendition of the La Grange streetscape -- undoubtedly to attract more retail and residential tenants. Let's hope it works.

3. Glad to see Francesca's is finally open for business in the old Via Bella space to the immediate north of the new Pointe building. Still waiting on a permanent sign, the owners have plastered a red-on-black banner on the facade advertising they are 'Now Open' for business. Anyone wondering what happened to Via Bella? They are now selling pizza out of a small shop at Plainfield Road and 55th Street in neighboring Countryside.

4. If that new Chicago Sports t-shirt and baseball memorabilia shop tucked into a space just south of Starbucks has familiar-looking stock, that should be the case if you are a Cubs fan. They operate their business right next to the 7-Eleven on Addison Street in Wrigleyville every season. That's less than three weeks away!

5. I get angry when I do the drive-thru at any fast-food restaurant and I am asked to please 'wait over there.' Call me crazy, but I used to go on a rant about how the concept started eons ago with Jack-in-the-Box (which no kid at the window has ever even heard of) and how the whole idea was to order, drive thru and pick up your food. I always used to carry on about how their sign out front doesn't say 'Joe's Burgers Drive Thru And Wait Over There' DOES it??
'No sir,' they used to tell me, but 'you still need to park over there.' One girl even threatened to call the cops on me one day.
So I threw in the towel this year and as one of many goofy resolutions (like no more pretzels with peanut butter or read the instructions before using products I buy or receive from now on, especially cars and Blackberries) I make, promised myself, 'self, it's OK to park over there.' So I did.
Then comes last week, when the burger joint at La Grange and Ogden wants to charge me a quarter for a BBQ sauce. Because I asked for it with my fries and it only comes with Chicken Nuggets. Ask for ketchup and you'd think you just cashed in your lucrative stocks for that tomato farm you invested in a few years back. I mean a heaping handful.
So I had to ask: what's up with this? The manager informs me the nugget sauces cost the store 12 cents apiece, whereas the ketchup packets are only a penny or two. Why McDonald's doesn't carry Heinz is another story well worth Googling.
So, again, I adapted.
Then comes Free Coffee Mocha Mondays.
A couple weeks back, round about 9 p.m., I had a thirst for one. NOT available, I was told.
They ran out of lids. Harumph!

6. If there is ever another Spaghetti Dinner at First Baptist of La Grange Church, it is a must-attend event -- even though they delivered it to my car door in the parking lot when I couldn't get out my car. The best outside of any good pasta restaurant and better than some others!

7. I miss Beautiful Day.

8. The most popular places for the homeless used to be in the old library or in the vestibules of such popular hangouts as Fannie May Candies, Starbucks and benches outside 7-Eleven. But lately, it seems the downtrodden have found refuge in the new parking deck, where the lobby area is heated day and night. Police seem to be doing their best lately to keep the place free of such squatters. Next they'll be showering up in the fountain. Yikes.

9. When are the officials of La Grange, Brookfield and McCook finally going to get together and seriously discuss what to do to improve traffic and pedestrian safety at 47th and East/Eberly? The four-way stop, at any time of day or night, is a clear indication that NObody listens to the teacher in traffic school.

10. And will the guy with the Christmas lights STILL on his top-floor balcony overlooking the Police Department parking lot and Chase drive-thru facility finally realize the holiday season is over with? I know this sounds sooo suburban of me, but I think we need an ordinance setting fines or community service for decoration violators ... even for the stores that start displaying Easter stuff in February.

PAYING IT FORWARD: BACK AT 'CHA!

Welcome back! To you, that is, but mostly from me, after a brief hiatus due to a number of complications both medical (surgical that is) and mechanical (OK, my car and computer blew up, again) and letting the holiday madness take control -- proving that yes, even us dyed-in-the-wool 24/7 newshounds need to take a break sometimes.
Anyway, it's me, the big tall bearded guy, trying not to limp around, always ferreting out the latest "goooood staw-wee" (as the Sun Times' late great Harry Golden used to say every time he scooped his cigar-chomping City Hall pressroom peers). And this year is no different.

But with Barack taking office next week? Isn't He, as it were, the story of the week?

Maybe, if you're sick of hearing about Blago or are a fan of La Grange's own -- the locally famous -- Lawn Rangers, who prepped for their inaugural parade appearance Monday night at Palmer Place and deserve second-billing, top-of-the-fold coverage if I had a front page.

(Then I'd cover those endorsements we missed, the continued, disputed sale of a piece of Gordon Park and the continued undisputed existence of the still-standing empty Y, why we no longer see the lady in black or that Bible-thumpin' loud man at La Grange & Ogden, Cafe 36's national appearance on FOX-TV's "Kitchen Nightmares" tonight, even that great movie with Paul Rudd and the guy who played Stiffler still playing for $3.50 at the La Grange Theatre or why the clock that should have been given to Jerry Burjan rarely, if ever, sports the correct time.)

But THE HOTTEST La Grange political story this side of Harlem, Cicero or Austin, heck Fifth Avenue (La Grange Road for you young tykes and grandmas who don't remember), depending, of course, on where you hang your hat and where your Chicago border is (since that is where our beleaguered governor prefers to live and work and attend baseball games) involves a reform-minded politician being accused of requiring that some citizens to pay if they want to play.

I wish I was referring to that latest somebody who actually had the chutzpah to file petitions next week challenging the "recommended" caucus slate, especially after all that hoopla over purpose and bylaws and future, conflicts of interest, a whole 20-something delegates voting at times and why oh why the former Park Board prez was not endorsed. Oooh La La?

No thank you ma'am. Like a reader once wrote to me about the alarming news concerning prohibited first-floor retail swing dancing in downtown La Grange ('What next? Bendable straws?' Ha!) ... Oh my my, La Grange. Oh my my.

(SEE 'THE NEWS' BLOG TODAY AND WATCH THE TONGUES START WAGGIN' IN THAT OTHER BIG GUY'S COFFEE SHOP. THIS IS BIG NEWS!)

In my estimation, that means stick around, wander back to the main page, click on 'The Talk' blog and Read On, loyal readers. Then register on our site (if you aren't signed up already) and let us know what YOU think. Boy I love this competition thing.

LIGHT UP LA GRANGE!

I witnessed a beautiful thing early this morning, on my way through downtown La Grange on the way home from a late-night shopping trip at the Jewel in Countryside. Don't ask me why, I'm just a night owl and I love cruising the aisles when nobody's there.

My brief visit downtown confirmed to me the holidays are just around the corner. As I passed La Grange Road on Cossitt Avenue, I slowed down and paused just for a few moments as Public Works crews took advantage of the dead of night to start lighting up the town like it had never been before.

These were the quaint white lights the La Grange Business Association had talked about late this summer: the canopy of decorative lights strung across the road to brighten up the sidewalks and buildings -- just in time for this Saturday's annual Halloween Walk.

Just before stepping out last night, I remembered receiving a quick indescript note from Public Works -- which I admit I didn't have time to post earlier -- announcing the closure of La Grange Road between Cossitt and Burlington avenues from 11:30 p.m. to 4:45 a.m. simply "for maintenance purposes." At first, I figured, just another quickie road project.

I thought nothing of it until I passed by the business district and recalled hearing something last week about how the light shipments from overseas were indefinitely delayed. But come this morning, I guess they finally arrived.

Voila!