By Patrick F. Cannon

After many delays, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will open on June 19^th. The date was chosen because it coincides with “Juneteenth,” which commemorates the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom, the last to hear the news.

The center is in Chicago’s Jackson Park. This was a controversial choice, since parkland was considered sacrosanct by many Chicagoans, including me. The resulting lawsuits delayed the site acquisition, but the courts – dominated by Obama’s Democratic Party – decided it could use park land. The cost? $850 million, raised from donors and grants.

To be fair, the new center provides more than the usual presidential library and museum. It includes a  Chicago public library, community meeting facilities, extensive walks, and gardens and even an indoor regulation basketball court. Aside from the museum itself, access is free. But it isn’t a typical presidential library. Obama chose to send his papers to  the National Archives in Washington, where they will be available in digital form. The National Archives directly operates all the other presidential libraries, but not  this one.

I imagine attendance will be high, at least for the first year. The most popular (in 2024) was Ronald Reagan’s with 258,000 visitors. Next came John F. Kennedy with 147,000. The least visited, with 25,000 visitors, was, predictably, Herbert Hoover’s. Both the Nixon and Clinton libraries were among the lowest, with about 50,000 each. One wonders why. Anyway,  total attendance for all 13 was just over 1,000,000.

The design of the Obama center has received mixed reviews. As you can see, most structures are unobtrusive, with the exception of  the tower, which has received the most criticism.  It reminds me of those great stone monoliths one sees in Utah’s Monument Valley. This great rock is covered with Obama quotes, which many people have found difficult to read. But there it shall stand, occupying 20 acres of a park designed by  the great Frederick Law Olmstead; a park where I played and rambled as a child. Most memorably, it’s former football field was the location of my greatest athletic triumph – playing parish football for St. Phillip Neri, I once intercepted a pass and ran it back 80 yards for a touchdown!

I don’t mean to single former President Abama out. Frankly, I wish none of them existed. They are increasingly ego trips, efforts by the former presidents to write their history in the best possible light. Only the judgment of history should decide which presidents should be memorialized. That 1 million visits to all the existing museums pales in comparison to the 8 million who visit the Lincoln Memorial every year; or in another sphere, the 5.7 million who annually enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  

In both cases, the occupants earned their way into our esteem. Can we say the same for all those presidents?

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

That’s my picture up there. To be honest, it was how I looked about 15 years ago. Taken in front of architect Louis Sullivan’s Krause Music Store on Chicago’s North Lincoln Avenue by my partner Jim Caulfield, it was cleaned up a bit (or maybe a lot) to remove blemishes and scars. If someone asks me for a photo for an article or presentation I’m doing, it’s what I send. Why not put your best mug forward? Anyway, I couldn’t find my high school graduation picture.

            Historically, rulers and politicians have enjoyed seeing their faces as they wander about their domains. Roman emperors couldn’t wait to put their profiles on coins and their entireties in marble and bronze. In latter days, Henry VIII kept both Holbein’s (elder and younger) busy painting his portrait, making sure they emphasized his fancy duds and commanding presence. His daughter Elizabeth I made sure her portraits eliminated her pock-marked face and snaggly black teeth. 

            The visage of the late Elizabeth II appeared on coins, currency and stamps in the UK and its dwindling empire, but they are now being retired in favor of  her long-suffering son, Charles III.  In fairness though, it must be said that communist leaders like Stalin and Chairman Moa never tired of seeing their big heads plastered over every blank spot in their largish countries. Like the first Queen Elizabth, Stalin had a seriously pockmarked face, which disappeared in his photos. Mao, who killed tens (or is it hundreds?) of millions of his own people, looked like a kindly grandfather.

            Our own republic doesn’t permit images of living people to appear on currency, or stamps for that matter. If you check your wallet or purse (if you’re in the money) you’ll mostly find images of Washington ($1), Lincoln (5$), Hamilton ($10), Jackson ($20), Grant (50$), and Franklin ($100) on your paper money. Larger denominations are no longer issued.  This could change, however, as the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has suggested a new $250 bill be issued with President Trump’s image on it.  Bessent no doubt produced this idea on his own, with no prompting from his boss.

            The president himself proposed a gold commemorative coin for the country’s 250^th Anniversary that will feature his manly figure on it. Although never done before for a sitting president, it was approved by his Commission on Fine Arts (?). Apparently, it’s OK because it won’t be legal tender. This should be some recompense for having his name removed from the Kennedy Center.

            Even though the $250 Trump bill is  unlikely to be approved, you can order any number of phony bills with his face on them. If you’re so inclined, you can order some with your own face! A fellow I knew many years ago used to pass out $3 bills with his silly grin. I guess that’s where the old saying – “there’s nothing phonier than a three-dollar bill” – came from. Except of course one with President Trump’s face on it.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon       

By Patrick F. Cannon

If current trends continue and our luck holds, it looks like the interest on the national debt will reach and slightly exceed $1 Trillion for the first time in our 250 years of fiscal ups and downs. In case you’re wondering, interest payments are now 15 percent of the Federal budget. Here are the amounts per year starting in 2020 (in billions):              

2020                315

                        2021                352

                        2022                476

                        2023                659

                        2024                852

                        2025                970

                        2026                1.04 Trillion (est.)      

It seems to hardly matter which political party controls Congress or the White House – the number keep going up in a non-partisan high-speed elevator.

            I confess I had some hopes for fiscal restraint when champion father and avenging angel Elon Musk  — and his teeny bopper army – descended on Washington to drive out the money spenders. Alas, it turned out he was robbing Peter (and the rest of the Apostles) to pay Paul. Although it goes up minute by minute, the current national debt is $39.07 trillion, or $113,792 per person, including newborns. This year, the projected deficit will be $2 Trillion. Onward and upward!

            Aside from 1998-2001, when we miraculously had budget surpluses, deficits have been a way of life for most citizens alive today. At the same time, income tax rates rarely have been lower. The mid-1980s had GDP growth rates averaging about four percent a year with a top rate of about 50 percent.  Today’s top rate of 37 percent applies only to the amount of table income that exceeds approximately $640,000 for a single payer. That same prosperous person only pays 10 percent for the first $12,400; 12 percent for income from $12,400 up to $50,000; 22 percent for the amount from that $50,000 up to $105,000 – well, you get the idea.

            Not everyone earns enough to pay any Federal income taxes, but everyone pays the payroll tax of 7.65 percent —  which includes Medicare – on incomes up to $184,500. And our local and state governments grab their share. The average American pays nearly 30 percent of his or her income in taxes (the top ten percent of earners bear 90 percent of the total tax burden). Nevertheless, if governments were businesses most would have to declare bankruptcy.  (Let’s pause to give a shout out to these states, which are tops in fiscal stability: Utah, Delaware, New York, Iowa, and Georgia.)

            The easy answer to the fiscal mess it to either spend less, tax more, or a bit of both. Neither seems attractive to our current set of politicians.  Maybe one of my faithful readers has an idea that will get us out of this mess. If so, please do share it with us and your congressman and senators . It could win you Nobel Prize for economics and the undying love of your fellow Americans. Or be ignored until the bubble bursts, as it inevitably and eventually does.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

Biggest Apple

By Patrick F. Cannon

Chicago would strike most visitors as a big, crowded city. It’s America’s third most populous with a bit over 2.7 million residents. 12,000 or so people occupy each of its 235 square miles. I’ve lived in the city and surrounding suburbs most of my life, and sometimes the traffic and congestion can be annoying.

            Just above it on America’s population ladder is Los Angeles. It’s more spread out at nearly 500 square miles for its population of 3.9 million. Each of those square miles is home for about 8,210 “Angelanos,” as they like to call themselves.

            Top of the heap, of course, is New York City. It’s slightly smaller than Los Angeles at 472 square miles, and encompasses five distinct boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. With a total population of 8.8 million, it has more people than Los Angeles and Chicago combined. 29,303 people live in each of its square miles.

            Although Brooklyn is gaining in popularity among tourists, when most people think of New York, they really mean Manhattan. It has a population of 1.7 million in its 22.83 square miles, each of which is home to 74,782 souls. On an average weekday, add 1.6 million commuters and 750,000 tourists and you have about four million people fighting for their share of the streets and sidewalks. That’s nearly 174,000 per square mile.

            Although New York has some complicated real estate laws, unless you live in a rent-controlled apartment, a studio apartment in Manhattan will rent for $3,300 a month; a one bedroom at $4,130; and a two bedroom at $5,500. Rents in the best neighborhoods in Chicago would be $1,750, $2,300, and $3,200, respectively. And from what I’ve read, the Chicago apartments will be larger on average than those in Manhattan.

            There are some single-family homes, generally townhouses, but most people live in apartment buildings, which are getting taller and taller. When I first went to Manhattan in the late 1950s, the Empire State Building dominated the skyline. No longer. Now it seems lost among newer skyscrapers, particularly the so-called “pencil” towers that now dominate.

            Mostly surrounding Central Park, these ridiculously thin apartment buildings take advantage of anomalies in the building codes to reach as high as 1,550 feet (Central Park Tower); and 1,428 for Steinway Tower, the thinnest with an astonishing height to width ratio of 24 to 1. Many of  them are used as a “pied-a-terre” or a home away from the owner’s main residence, usually in another state. Apparently, even the finest hotels aren’t acceptable to very richest among us (or not among us actually). The proliferation of these apartments has encouraged the state and city to propose an added tax on these getaways for out of state billionaires.

            Anyway, it’s getting increasingly expensive to live in Manhattan. Frankly, it has become the very definition of “I love to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” While even a visit can  be frustrating, where else are you going to find such riches? Take museums for example. While Chicago has the Art Institute and Museum of Contemporary Art (and a few smaller university-related museums), New York boasts the country’s largest art museum, the Metropolitan. Not too far away on Fifth Avenue are the Guggenheim, the Frick Collection, and the Neue Gallery. A bit further south are the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

            As to restaurants, New York boasts four Three-Star Michelin restaurants (Chicago has two). But really, you would be hard pressed to find a block in Manhattan that doesn’t have at least one restaurant, and the  sidewalks are full of food carts offering all manner of exotic fare. You could certainly visit Des Moines for less money, but why would you?

            And last, but by  no means least, you can pay your fare on buses and the subway by just tapping your credit or debit card! No special transit cards or cash. Chicago’s CTA, Metra, and Pace should take note!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I visited the Frick Collection during a recent trip to New York City. The museum is in Henry Clay Frick’s former mansion on Fifth Avenue. It re-opened last year after renovation and expansion and I was eager to revisit one of the world’s great private art collections.

            Frick was a partner of Andrew Carnegie in what became US Steel. I was born in the Pittsburgh area, and I can tell you that he was hated by those who labored in its mills. In 1892, he sent barges with strikebreakers and Pinkerton agents to break a strike at the Homestead works (where I briefly worked). It turned into a battle in which 16 people were killed. In the end, the Pennsylvania state militia restored order, but it was the end of the union. Since Carnegie was in Scotland at the time, Frick became the villain to steelworkers ever after.

            While he eventually decamped to New York City, he did leave behind his former mansion – now a museum – and a 644-acre park. Since the steel industry is largely gone from the area, few people associate him with anything else. With his fortune, and advice from famous dealer Joseph Nuveen and expert Bernard Berenson, he  amassed an art collection that includes Rembrandt, Valasquez, Goya, Titian, Vermeer, El Greco – well, I could go on and on. It also includes paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) and Thomas More (1478-1535). They hang in the same gallery, separated by a fireplace.

            We can be sure the paintings are good likenesses, as they were painted in Holbein’s studio (that’s the More portrait above). Both served as Lord Chancellor for King Henry VIII. Both ended up on the king’s wrong side and were beheaded. The reasons for their executions are quite different and have been explored endlessly in history and fiction.

            Robert Bolt’s 1960 play and 1966 film, A Man for All Seasons, focused on Sir Thomas More’s failure to get Henry’s marriage to Queen Catherin annulled so he could marry Ann Boleyn, whom he hoped could bear him a son and heir; and then More’s refusal to sign an oath recognizing Henry as head of the church in England instead of the Pope. Cromwell is the instrument of More’s downfall. The wonderful Paul Scofield played More in both the play and film and won both a Tony and Oscar for  his efforts. In the film, Cromwell was played by the portly Leo McKern, who somewhat resembled Cromwell in Holbein’s portrait.

            In the television adaptation of Hillary Mantel’s Booker Prize winning novel, Wolf Hall, which appeared here on PBS, Cromwell was played by another great English actor, Mark Rylance. Both Bolt’s play and Mantel’s novel shade the truth a bit. Wolf Hall suggests that Cromwell’s father was a loutish and violent blacksmith. He may have been violent, but he was a reasonably successful local businessman. More’s father was of a higher social class, being a successful lawyer who was knighted. His son was an Oxford-educated lawyer who rose to be Henry’s Lord Chancellor.

            While Cromwell is treated more sympathetically in the novel and television series, there is no question that he is willing to compromise his principles to get ahead. He makes it possible for Henry to marry Ann Boleyn by getting Parliament to declare Henry head of the Church in England. This not only makes the marriage possible but lets the king seize the property and thus the wealth of the Roman church. By this time, More had left public life, but refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy that acknowledged Henry as head of the church.

            There is a scene in Wolf Hall where Cromwell tries to convince More to sign the Oath. Set in a cell in the Tower of London, More, wonderfully acted by Anton Lessor, explains to Cromwell that God has made the Pope head of the church and no one, not even a king, can change that. The irony is that while More is beheaded for keeping the faith, Cromwell later meets the same fate when he rises too high and his jealous associates convince the king he has committed treason. Henry later regrets killing his old friend, but too late for Cromwell’s head to be reattached.

            In 100 years or so, the English would behead King Charles I, setting a precedent later kings wisely remembered. If there is a lesson in the story of the two Thomases, now sharing a wall at the Frick, it’s that it’s better to die with dignity than pander to the king’s fancies and die anyway.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

To me, it takes a lot to beat a perfectly roasted chicken, or a prime steak done to medium rare. But there have been many times when they’ve been plated at a restaurant with under- or over-cooked vegetables. Vegetables are said to be good for you, but why are so many of them unpalatable?

            I once saw a cooking show where numerous tactics were used to make eggplant edible. As I recall, it was first micro-waved to dry it out, then deep fried to infuse it with God knows what, then mixed with tomatoes and other stuff in a salad from hell. If it has no flavor to begin with, why bother? I feel exactly the same way about zucchini, which I believe is a relative.

            They are not the only vegetables that require a bit of doctoring to become even remotely edible. Although I don’t make it a habit of grazing on lawns, most green beans taste like grass to me. The best way to cook them is to first blanche them, then burn flavor into them in a skillet with olive oil and a lot of garlic. Brussel sprouts need a similar treatment. If you just boil them, you have to douse them in copious amounts and salt and pepper to take the cabbagey taste away.

            Carrots are OK, so long as you don’t cook them into mush. Ditto, fresh and even frozen peas. And I confess that canned baby peas are a guilty pleasure. And then there’s the noble asparagus. The best is locally grown, available for a short period in the Spring at your local farmer’s market. Steam them briefly. They are often served with hollandaise sauce, far too tricky for me to make. I prefer a light vinaigrette, but butter and a bit of salt and pepper would work too.

            In any serious discussion of vegetables, broccoli must be addressed. As it happens, I don’t mind it. Again, it should not be overcooked; indeed, some people even eat it raw. It’s often served on a plate with carrot and celery sticks and its relative, cauliflower. The idea is you dip it into ranch dressing for a healthy snack. If something better is on offer, say shrimp, I take a pass. But not everyone loves broccoli, as nutritious as it is.

            Former US president George H.W. Bush – who I met twice and found very likeable – was a famous hater. “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid,” he was quoted as saying. “My mother made me eat it. Now I’m president of the United States. And I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!”  

            I often eat salad. I like many lettuce greens, and I’m a big tomato fan. But I simply don’t understand kale and arugula. They’re often touted as super foods, high in nutrition and other good stuff. But they don’t taste good! They have a bitter taste. Cod liver oil is good for you too, but do you gulp down a spoonful every day?

            My regular readers will know of my distaste for avocado, or “green slime” as I’m fond of calling it. Like eggplant and zucchini, it has very little actual flavor,  so it’s often mixed with other stuff to make it bearable, guacamole being the most common result. I’ve actually dipped a corn chip into it occasionally, but not if onion or artichoke dip is also on offer. And please don’t get me started on tofu!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

The other night I watched a documentary on the life and work of the American painter Andrew Wyeth. I happen to be an admirer, but I was not in the least surprised to learn that his growing popularity in the 1960s was greeted with scorn by art critics. Wyeth was a “representational” or “realist” painter, which was counter to the then ascendent and fashionable abstract expressionism.

            As it happens, Wyeth himself was an admirer of artists like de Kooning, Rothko, and Pollock, but chose to go his own way. He was the son of famed illustrator N.C. Wyeth and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. He spent his whole life there, and in a Summer home in coastal Maine. He mostly painted those landscapes and his neighbors. One of them is illustrated here.

            I don’t envy art critics, particularly during an era when technical skill is thought to be less important. (By the way, I don’t agree that artists like de Kooning and Rothko lacked skill. They were highly skilled, just in service to a different aesthetic.)  My objection to many critics – fine arts and otherwise – is what I call  the “either/or” approach. If abstract expressionism is  right, then representational art must be wrong, or at least irrelevant. Influential critics have the power to “make” an artist.

            How else can you explain Jeff Koons, whose giant metal balloon animals and flower-bedecked puppy dogs are taken seriously to the point that someone paid $91 million for a stainless-steel bunny rabbit. Fashion also had a hand in someone paying $87 million at auction for a Rothko; and for a de Kooning selling for no less than $300 million. The auction record for Wyeth is currently $24 million.

            I write about architecture, so I have some knowledge about the ups and downs of fashion in building design. For example, I began volunteering at Frank Lloyd Wright’s original home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois in 1975. Many of my fellow volunteers held him in almost cult-like veneration. At the same time, however, architectural educators and critics had relegated Wright and his design philosophy to history. The International Style of Meis van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and La Corbusier had replaced it in academia and on the drawing boards of major firms, along with its offshoot, Brutalism.

Then came the reaction against spare functionalism called “Post Modernism.” And so it goes. Wright is back on top again, and the landmarks of the International Style are revered. Alas, they don’t  seem to be able to demolish brutalist buildings quickly enough, but we may yet regret doing this, just as we should regret  losing many of the great buildings of Louis Sullivan, and great landmarks like New York’s Penn Station.

In architecture, as in painting and sculpture, there should be no either/or. There is just the great, the good, and the bad.  As for me, I subscribe to the “100 Year Rule.” I won’t be around, but I wonder which of today’s heroes will still demand space on gallery walls or will be relegated to basement storage. In architecture, is it possible to revere both Wright’s Fallingwater and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House? Of course it is. In their own way, both are great works of art.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

Hail Alma Mater(s)

Travel back with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear when a young lad or lassie would work their tails off playing high school sports so they might be noticed by a recruiter for a major (or really any) college or university and given a free ride to a coveted degree, just for representing old “State” on the fields or courts of  intercollegiate sports.

            I once had those hopes myself, but I didn’t measure up. But I did have cousins who got football scholarships to respectable universities, which led in their cases not to the NFL, but to distinguished careers in teaching and high school administration. Without scholarships, they would have struggled to pay for their college education.

            My guess is that most athletes at major institutions are now more interested in professional careers in the NFL or NBA than in getting a degree. Only 50 percent of NFL players have degrees; in the NBA, it’s only 25 percent. We are now living in the era of “one and done” in college basketball.

We also have the transfer portal, which permits an athlete to move from a lesser to a more notable school, thus enhancing his or her value in the draft. I have even read recently that talent scouts now take a dim view of prospects who have spent their entire careers at the same school, which must mean that better schools weren’t interested in them. Playing the portal effectively led to the unlikely rise of Indiana University to the pinnacle of college football.

Throw into this bubbling brew the rewards of “Name, Image, Likeness (NIL)” The quarterback from that same Indiiana team, Fernando Mendoza, is estimated to have made $2.6 million in endorsement deals, while still (theoretically) an amateur. . By the way, he had previously played for the University of California “Golden Bears.”  He graduated from California, but still had football eligibility left, so he transferred to Indiana to get a graduate business degree. Maybe he should teach it instead!

NIL is inherently unfair. In my experience, an offensive guard works just as hard as a quarterback to get and keep in top physical condition, but makes little or no NIL income, nor is the higher paid athlete required to share his or her income with the grunts that make their lofty reputations possible. I have no objection to athletes being compensated in this way, but I do think a more equitable way of sharing the income is justified.

Although the amounts were not as lofty, boosters and others in the past found ways to lure the best prospects to their schools with a variety of “under the table” incentives. It might have been secretly making a down payment on a house for dear old mom and dad, or “loaning” a flashy convertible to that star quarterback. At least the NCAA doesn’t have to spend all its time policing the old rules, so can now concentrate on finding athletes being paid by gamblers to shave points.

Illinois had tax income of nearly $2 billion in 2024 on various forms of  gambling. All those people holding their phones at sporting events aren’t checking their messages. They’re keeping the state solvent while going broke themselves.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

When my children were about 10 and 11, we ventured south to Disney World in Orlando. As I recall, it was July and a bit on the warm side. We bought a package tour, which included air and a stay at a nearby Holiday Inn, rather than the much more expensive Disney properties. Epcot had just opened, so we spent a day there and another at the original Magic Kingdom. We also spent time at their water park, a welcome interlude in the heat.

            As I recall, we had a fun time, but the trip had some challenges. We had a delay at O’Hare when one of the plane’s engines caught fire. Eventually they fixed the problem, or so we were told, and we managed to get to the Orlando airport, which in those days was in its initial stages of development. Baggage claim, or example, was outside. The package included a rental car, which broke down before we were even off the property. That was fortunate because they were forced to give us a bigger car to replace it.

            As I recall, we stayed four or five days. The Holiday Inn had a nice pool, and the children took full advantage of it. But the most memorable non-Disney excursion was to an attraction called the Gatorland Zoo and Jumperoo. A kind of wildlife park, the highlight was watching the gators leap out of the water to snatch raw chickens from  their “keepers.” You entered through a gaping gator’s mouth. The gift shop was full of everything gator. A few years after our visit, the building burned down, but it was rebuilt and the zoo thrives to this day (www.gatorland.com).

            I can’t recall what it all cost, but we could afford it. Now, a four day “experience” for a family of four can cost up to $7,000 if you stay at one of the Disney hotels. I recently read that only about 20 percent of American families can afford Disney, much less a full week at some $10,000.

Coincidentally, CBS’s “Sunday Morning”  had a feature recently about the “American Girl” phenomenon. For those of you who don’t have a daughter or granddaughter, spending the day at one of their stores is something of a rite of passage for pre-teen girls. The dolls themselves cost about $175, but there are many add ons. While companion books are only about $10, how about a bedroom for dolly at $250? Or a bathroom for $220? Of course, you must have lunch at $30 a head; or maybe you prefer tea at $50?

At a minimum. mom and daughter are going to spend nearly $300. You can add that amount to the Disney experience – there’s an American Girl store in Orlando too.

As you can imagine – and maybe it has affected your family – through peer and other pressures, kids now feel they must have what their friends all seem to  have. When I was six or seven years old, a trip to the local amusement park, Kennywood in Pittsburgh, or a resort on Lake Erie for a week, was enough to delight me. I didn’t have access to the myriad influences and “influencers” that assault our kids today, so I was perfectly satisfied with simpler pleasures.

When we moved to Chicago, we lived within walking distance of what is now the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. Admission was free. As it was and still is at Lincoln Park Zoo. The only extra at the museum was the coal mine, which cost 10 cents. Now, of course, they charge admission. Even so, a day for a family of four would cost about $250 these days if you opted for all the extras, vastly different from Disney. And you can drive to Six Flags Great America and spend a similar amount. But will that satisfy today’s children? Like so many things these days – a day at Wrigley Field for a Cub’s game could cost the family $400 – what used to be affordable for a middle-class family is now a luxury. It’s a shame really.

I don’t envy today’s parents. And I almost forgot about Taylor Swift. Although prices varied, mom (and sometimes dad) and daughter would have spent a minimum of about $500 per ticket to attend her recent tour. In Chicago, many attendees were from out of town, so add travel, hotel, and meals. When I was a kid, these stadium extravaganzas simply didn’t exist. Somehow, we survived.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F, Cannon

I recently read yet another article about comedians and others self-censoring their jokes and other remarks for fear of causing even the mildest discomfort in their audience or readers. It reminded me of this piece, which was published nearly 10 years ago.

By Patrick F. Cannon

Myron Cohen (1902-1986) was a well-known comedian from the 1950s until his death. He was best known for his dialect jokes, primarily done in a Yiddish accent, but with a sprinkling of Italian and Irish dialects too. They were done affectionately and were short stories rather than the typical one-liners of the time. Before becoming a full-time entertainer, he had sold fabrics to the New York garment industry and claimed his story telling him set apart from his competitors. (Only Billy Chrystal today reminds me of him.)

            He appeared regularly on Ed Sullivan’s variety show, and on both Jack Paar’s and Johnny Carson’s Tonight shows. I remember three of his short stories, and I’ll try to do them justice here, but of course his delivery and accents added much to them. (By the way, I don’t recall that he thought his sex life was so fascinating that anyone would want to spend an hour listening to its gory details. Why this has become the norm with comedians today escapes me.)

                                                Stage Delicatessen

Sam was a waiter at New York’s legendary Stage Delicatessen. His boss, the manager (maître de is perhaps too fancy a word for that place), was named Max. They had both been there for about 25 years and had never said a kind word to each other. Their feuds were legendary, and indeed the customers thought their constant bickering was part of the delicatessen’s essential ambiance.

            Then one day at closing, Max took Sam aside and said: “Sam, I know we haven’t always gotten along {a massive understatement}, but I know you’re a hard worker with loyal customers, so effective immediately, I’m giving you a raise.” To say that Sam was thunderstruck would be an understatement. He was almost struck dumb and could only reply with a very weak “thank you.”

            When he got home and told his wife, she was amazed and said maybe Max wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Anyway, Sam had a spring in his step the next morning when he arrived at work. He went to the back room to put on his white jacket and apron. Max entered, walked over to him, and said “Sam, you’re fired!” “Fired,” the stunned Sam replied, “yesterday you praised me and gave me a raise. How can you fire me?”

            Max smilingly replied: “You should lose a better job!”

                                                Watch Out!

 O’Hara was a motorman on New York streetcars when such things still existed. He had been assigned to a route in Queens for many years but then got transferred to a route in lower Manhattan. Being a bachelor, he decided to move to an apartment on the lower east side, so he could be within walking distance of the streetcar barn.

            One day, he noticed his watch seemed to be losing a couple of minutes a day. Since an accurate watch was important in his job, and he had a day off, he decided to have it fixed. As it happened, he noticed a shop down the street with a large watch in the window. Assuming it was a watch repair shop, he entered and went up to the counter. Behind it was an elderly man with a beard.

            “My watch is losing time,” says O’Hara, “and I wonder if you could adjust it?”

            “I don’t fix watches, I’m a mohel,” replies the bearded one.

            “What’s a mohel, for God’s sake?”

            “I circumcise little Jewish boys.”

            “But why do you have that big watch in the window if you don’t fix watches?

            “So, what do you want me to have in the window?”

Goldberg and the Pope

We’re back at the Stage Delicatessen. One table has for many years been set aside for a group of garment industry men who gather every week day for lunch. Not everyone comes every day; but on a typical day seven or eight show up. Two of them, Goldberg and Pearlstein, show up most days. They are both competitors and old friends. Over the years, Goldberg had become known as a name dropper. If you mentioned Frank Sinatra, for example, he would mention that he helped Frank get his first job singing in a club in Hoboken.  In fact, almost every time a lunch mate mentioned a famous person, it turns out that Goldberg knows him or her from somewhere.

            So, one day his pal Pearlstein says to him that he knows someone he can’t possibly know. “I bet you don’t know the Pope!” Now, at the time, John XXIII was pope. Without batting an eyelash, Goldberg replies “Of course, I know the Pope. We’re pals from a long time ago.” A hush came over the table. After a pause, Perlstein challenges his old friend: “I’ll tell you what. Let’s take the wives to Rome on vacation. If you can prove you know the Pope, I’ll spring for the whole trip, but if you don’t, you pay!”

            To everyone’s amazement, Goldberg agrees. Two weeks later, the couples are in Rome, seeing the sites and eating lots of pasta. Goldberg tells his friend that in two days the Pope will appear on his balcony in St. Peters Square to bless the multitude. “I’ll give you a pair of binoculars and when he appears, you’ll see me come out behind him.”

            On the given day, Pearlstein joins the huge crowd waiting for the Pope to appear. He trains his binoculars on the balcony. The double doors open and the portly Pope steps out. Then, just behind him, who should appear but Goldberg. Pearlstein’s jaw drops in disbelief. He is transfixed, but he feels someone pulling on his sleeve. Next to him is an elderly man, who says to him: “I can’t see too well anymore. Could you please tell me who is that man standing on the balcony with Goldberg?”

Copyright (sort of) 2017 and 2026, Patrick F. Cannon