By Patrick F. Cannon

Last Thursday, I was leading a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chicago-area sites called “Wright Around Chicago.” It begins in the lobby of the Rookery Building in Chicago’s Loop, which Wright remodeled in 1905. A bus then takes the group to Oak Park for a tour of his Unity Temple; after that, the group walks to the architect’s Home and Studio a few blocks away.

            During the walk, I describe several Wright-designed homes we pass on the way. Last Thursday, we passed a home with Roses growing along its fence. Several members of the  group actually stopped to smell those roses, so I did too. It was a sunny day. The rose bushes were in the shade of one of the most beautiful residential streets in the world. Why wouldn’t I stop and smell those roses? Things aren’t all that bad after all, I thought to myself.

            Usually, it’s all too easy to smell the rot instead of the roses. Just to take one example, have we ever had a sadder group of politicians? Maybe we have,  but in the past they hid their ignorance better, or at least didn’t insist on it. The Chinese want to dominate Asia; and the Russians want their empire back. The Earth is warming, and we don’t yet know for sure what that means. And the Cubs and Sox seem to be back to their old ways.

            But when I turned the radio on early Saturday morning, I was greeted with one of Mozart’s thrilling horn concertos. At my whim, I could play CDs that would yield the genius of Beethoven, Shubert, Bach, Brahms, Gershwin, Porter, Cohen and Berlin; and the voices of Bennett, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Armstrong, Astaire, Pavarotti, Flemming, and even Blossom Dearie. You may prefer the Smashing Pumpkins, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Alexisonfire, The Sadies, Beyonce, or Taylor Swift. It’s all out there, and much more.            Any day I want, I can take myself by EL or car to the Art Institute, where I can be reminded of the creative genius of men and women who live both today and a thousand years ago or more. They saw something in people and places that they thought were worth preserving for all of us. And the Institute has a school that encourages talents that may be remembered a thousand years from now.

            In about a month, I will travel to the Laurel Highlands of Western Pennsylvania for the Donnelly Family Reunion, the first to be held since Covid. The attendees will be descendants of my Grandparents, Frank and Catherine Donnelly and their seven daughters and one son. I will be the second oldest; the patriarch is my cousin Jimmy Goldstrohm (no actual Donnelly’s are left). The 50^th Anniversary Reunion took place in 2016 at the Seven Springs Resort; the first was a picnic held at Renziehausen Park in McKeesport, PA. As I recall, the men of my generation – still in the bloom of youth – played softball to work up an appetite. What can be better than to see once again the cousins you grew up with, and their children and (now) children’s children?

            Finally, when I opened my blinds this morning, the Sun was out, and the four pots of flowers I bought to hang on my balcony railing were in full bloom. The pots were planted by Pesches Garden Center in Des Plaines, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure what all the flowers actually are, but they give me pleasure, and maybe also to passersby who look up. Throughout Chicagoland and where you live, people have planted and are tending gardens that we can all enjoy. If there are Roses, why not  stop and smell them?

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon