By Patrick F. Cannon

I have always thought of composer George Gershwin as the American Mozart, and not only because they both died young, Gershwin at 38 in 1937 and Mozart at only 35 in 1791. They both had that magical and mystical gift for melody.

            I’m not sure  how you define “melody.” In simple terms, it’s a pleasing sequence of musical notes that helps you remember a composition,  making it easy to hum or whistle, or even hear in your mind (sometimes when you’d rather not!). Mozart and Gershwin were by no means the only composers with this gift – off hand I can name Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Foster, Berlin, Kern, Lennon, McCartney – well, you get the idea.

            One remembers the lyrics to some songs only because of the melody. Although I might get a word or two wrong, I can recite the lyrics to songs I have rarely heard recently. On the other hand, I once knew many poems by heart but can now only recall snatches. For example, I once memorized a good deal of Shakespeare and could recite The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Now only snatches remain: “It is an ancient mariner, and he stoppeth one of three…”   If only Coleridge had set it to a catchy tune!

            It’s difficult to say who was more prolific. Mozart composed 41 symphonies, 22 operas, and 27 piano concertos among his more than 600 published works. Gershwin composed far fewer symphonic works and only one opera, Porgy and Bess, but he composed over 500 songs, many of which were featured in the dozens of Broadway  and Hollywood musicals for which he wrote the scores. His melodies have also been the basis for interpretations by Jazz artists from around the world.

            If I am wrong, please do correct me, but I doubt that any major university requires a course in music history as part of the core curriculum. Like so many other aspects of our culture, young people can graduate with little or no knowledge of their artistic heritage, unless they major in one of the arts. To too many people, music history consists of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The performers they idolize, the Taylor Swifts and Beyonce’s, wouldn’t even think of mining the great American song book, preferring to write songs targeted at the emotions of teen age girls, whose parents seem happy to pony up fortunes to send their kids to concerts, often in faraway cities.

            I think no harm and much good would be done if our schools set aside part of every day to expose children to their artistic heritage. And not, and I want to emphasize this, as a credit course, but simply as a part of the day when they can open their ears and eyes to what their fellow human beings have accomplished. No grade pressure. What if they could hear Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 one day, and the next hear Ella Fitzgerald singing “But Not For Me,” followed by Fred Astaire’s version of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” Or perhaps Lester Young playing anything by Gershwin, or Leadbelly singing the blues. On another day, they might be shown a sequence of paintings and etchings by Rembrandt or hear a series of poems by Frost.

             Of course, I realize this may be a vain hope. But in an era of tawdry public and political discourse, aren’t such reminders needed more than ever?

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

President Trump may have been disappointed not to have been given the Nobel Peace Prize this year, despite very public lobbying by his adoring minions. Nevertheless, if the peace agreement he negotiated with Israel and Hamas holds, I say give it to him. After all, it’s been given to some pretty dodgy characters over the years, including Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, and even the United Nations.

            He would be the fifth American president to be honored – starting with Teddy Roosevelt, and including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama. Roosevelt won it in 1906 for brokering peace between Japan and Russia to end the Russo-Japanese War; Wilson for his famous 14 Points peace plan (it didn’t work in the end) and for helping to found the League of Nations (which we refused to join); Jimmy Carter for his achievement in getting Egypt and Israel to bury the hatchet at Camp David and for the achievements of the Carter Center; and Barack Obama for being the first black president, a good speaker, having a photogenic family, and saying nice things about world peace..

             Despite changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, sending troops to frighten shoppers on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue (a city with a declining crime rate), and saving court costs by killing drug traffickers on the high seas, President Trump  has always styled himself as a man of peace. This would certainly explain his avoiding the draft during the Viet Nam years with a diagnosis of bone spurs by a podiatrist whose office was conveniently located in a Trump-owned building in Queens.

            Being nominated for the Peace Prize next year will also give Trump an opportunity to broker a peace between Russia and Ukraine. You may recall that he claimed he would end both the Gaza and Ukraine wars the day after he took office, but of course that was his usual hyperbolic bluster. But if he manages to broker a peace in Ukraine too, that should seal the deal.  

I’m afraid I’m not on the list of those who can submit a nomination. You can nominate if you’re a head of  state (but alas you can’t nominate yourself); member of a national assembly or government; member of the International Court of Justice; a professor of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology or religion; university rector or director; past Peace Prize recipient; or member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

            Don’t despair if you’re not on the list. You can always write and encourage those on the list to do the deed for you. For example, you could write to your representatives in Washington to submit nominations. In my case, it would be Congressman Danny Davis and Senators Tammy Duckworth and Richard Durbin. I’m sure they would be willing to put patriotism above partisanship for this worthy cause.

            One American who should have been awarded the Peace Prize was former Maine Senator Geoge J. Mitchell, who brokered the deal that ended the so-called “troubles” in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday  agreement of 1998, ending (at least so far) the armed fued between Roman Catholics and Protestants that dated back to 1542, when Henry VIII was declared King of Ireland. The immediate cause of the Arab/Israeli conflict was the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, a mere 77 years ago compared to the 456 years it took to bring peace to Ireland.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I have a long history of travelling from the Chicago area to Wisconsin. I first crossed the border in (I think) 1948 with my brother Pete to attend summer camp at Camp McLean in Burlington. In hindsight, the idea was to get rid of us for a couple of weeks of peace for our parents. We took a bus from the Irving Park YMCA, with foot lockers full of required gear, some of which never made it back to Chicago.

            It took about half the day to get there on those pre-expressway roads. For someone born and raised in or near big cities, it was like travelling into the wilderness. For much of the way, there were actual trees lining the two-lane highways. The camp itself seemed to be in the middle of a primeval forest. Actually, it was on the outskirts of Burlington, now a city of some 11,000 souls. But the camp was on the shores of a lake! Among other skills I picked up was how to row a boat! I learned to live in a barracks-like setting with little privacy. Life in the Army later in life was no shock to me.

            My next foray to the Badger state came with my first wife Mary’s family, who owned a cottage near Lake Geneva. It was largely built by my father-in-law, but never quite finished. We fondly called it “Grizzly Acres.” It had the great advantage though of being part of an association that owned frontage on Lake Geneva, so it had a beach, picnic area, and docks for a few boats. You could also walk along the lake front and see the  summer mansions of the Chicago rich, including the Wrigley’s, Swift’s, and Schwinn’s. To give you some idea of their scale, the former Harris mansion (of Chicago’s Harris Bank), later owned by Richard Driehaus, sold for a state record $36 million. No wonder Lake Geneva was called “The Newport of the Midwest.”

            My late wife Jeanette’s father’s family was from the Manitowoc/Two Rivers area, so we often travelled there for family events. It wasn’t much further to Door County, which we visited several times. Surrounded by Green Bay on the west and Lake Michigan on the east, and full of charming little towns, it’s famous for its “fish boils.” Well, you have to be famous for something!

            Milwaukee is only 90 minutes from Chicago, and I’ve been there many times. My wife Mary and I had friends who moved there from Chicago, and we often visited. More recent trips have included visits to the spectacular Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Santiago Calatrava with 217-foot sunscreen “wings” that open and  close twice a day. It must be seen to be believed.  One holiday season Jeanette and I stayed with my daughter Beth and son-in-law Boyd at the legendary and holiday-decorated Pfister Hotel.

            Just this last weekend, Beth, Boyd, and I attended a birthday event in the Devil’s Lake area for his brother Bart and Bart’s father-in-law Duane, and their families. The three of us stayed at a farm B&B, whose residents, in addition to  host Adam, included many chickens, ducks, one turkey and a pot-belled pig. Because of the unusually warm weather, the Fall color was minimal, but the landscape thereabouts is glorious.

            On Saturday, many in the group visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, the home he built when he left Oak Park in 1910. Taliesin means “shining brow” in his mother’s family’s Welsh language, and the stunning house does indeed sit on the brow of a hill. It’s instructive to visit the home of America’s greatest architect, but another highlight of our trip was breakfast at Candy’s Café in Merrimac (pop. 527). When we arrived, only one table was occupied, by a group of local farmers (I think). They had obviously known each other for years and probably gathered regularly.

            Only the cook was there when we arrived. She may have been Candy. Or Candy may have been the waitress who arrived about 10 minutes later. Everyone there, except us, knew one another. The food was great, and breakfast was about $5 cheaper per plate than the Chicago area. To top it all off, Merrimac has the only free ferry in Wisconsin. It crosses Lake Wisconsin, which is  really just a widening of the Wisconsin River. Inexpensive breakfast, free ferry. How can you go wrong?

            On the way back to Chicago, we stopped in Middleton (just outside of Madison) to have breakfast at Sofra Family Bistro with our old friends from Oak Park, Helen, and Paul Julius, who now live in the area. Sofra’s specialty is Albanian sausage and eggs. Quite tasty, and still a couple of bucks cheaper than Chicago. I can’t wait to tell my barber, Frank the Albanian. He probably thinks you must go back to the old country to get a taste of home.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

When I was a kid, we had a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post. It came every week, and its contents included non-fiction, fiction, and cartoons. It was famous for its covers, many of which were created by the legendary Norman Rockwell. In its heyday, it was America’s favorite magazine. Over the years, it published fiction by Jack London, Edith Wharton, Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis (these last three all Nobel Prize winners), and Kurt Vonnegut. But my favorite writer was an Englishman named C.S. Forrester.

            Forrester (1899-1966) wrote a series of 11 novels detailing the exploits of Napoleonic era British naval officer Horatio Hornblower (I kid you not). Several of them were serialized in the Post and were illustrated with full color battle scenes (the illustrator’s art flourished in those days).  Hornblower was a quirky character, but a master seaman and brave as a Lion! The books are pure adventure, entirely accurate in naval detail, and still readable. As far as I can tell, they’re all in print.

Only one Hollywood movie was made, starring Gregory Peck as Hornblower (1951). A later British TV series starred Ioan Gruffudd as our hero (1998-2003). There were seven episodes based on several of the novels. I believe all of them are available on screening services. As I recall, they’re reasonably good in production quality.

Covering roughly the same historic period, but on an entirely different level of literary distinction, are the novels that have come to be called the Aubry/Maturin series by the late English writer Patrick O’Brien. In 20 novels, O’Brien not only tells exciting stories of naval warfare, but manages at the same time to make vivid the reality of  living in that time of radical social, political, and scientific change. We see all of this through the lives of naval officer Jack Aubrey and his friend Steven Maturin. They couldn’t be more different – the bluff, hearty, physical Aubry, and the introspective medical doctor, naturalist (and spy!) Maturin.

The supporting cast of characters includes Jack’s long-suffering wife, Sophie (Jack is known to stray and is at sea for months and even years at a time); and Steven’s wife, the “dashing” but wayward Diana. Actual historical figures like Joseph Banks, King George III and his son and heir, the Duke of Clarance, occasionally appear and many others are mentioned, most notably Horatio Nelson, Jack’s hero.

While there are 20 books in the series, taken together they are really one novel of 6,451 pages! I know that because my son gave me a boxed set of five beautifully printed and bound volumes that include all the finished novels and one that was unfinished at O’Brien’s death. The pages are numbered as if it really is one long novel. But believe me, each of the 20 can be read separately with pleasure. It somehow doesn’t seem nearly as daunting as reading War and Peace, which has a mere 1,136 pages in the edition I own.

Only one movie has been made from the novels, Master and Commander, directed by Peter Weir and starring Russel Crowe as Aubrey and Paul Bettany of Maturin. Crowe was perfect, but I thought Bettany a bit too good looking. I always thought the Irish actor Steven Rea would have been a better choice. The plot is a combination of elements from the title novel and The Far Side of the World. Great pains were taken to provide an accurate portrayal of shipboard life, and the battle scenes are terrific.

If you’re interested in taking on this magnificent work, start with Master and Commander. If you’re hooked, you’ll have begun a voyage through a great work of history and literature.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Like most bullies, President of the United States Donald John Trump – thanks to some of your fellow citizens, and maybe even you, that’s what he is – loves to dish it out but doesn’t seem to be able to take it.

            Just as a reminder, here are some of his more familiar insults:

• Former President Biden is “Sleepy Joe” or “Crooked Joe.”
• Hillary Clinton is “Crooked Hillary.” (He’s obviously enamored of “Crooked.”)
• Nancy Pelosi was “Crazy Nancy” to him.
• Before he became Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio was “Little Marco” or sometimes “Liddle Marco.”
• Because she claimed some Native American blood, Elizabeth Warren became “Pocahontas.”
• That constant thorn in his side, Bernie Sanders, became “Crazy Bernie.”
• Fellow Republican Michael Bloomberg – who was on to Trump early – became “Mini Mike,” a reference to his short stature.
• Pete Buttigieg was called “Alfred E. Neuman” after the Mad Magazine cover boy. (Trump is not now known to read anything, including the Constitution, but perhaps he did read comic books as a child.)
• Illinois Governor Pritzker is a “slob,” a not so subtle reference to his weight.

Because turnabout is fair play, I thought I might return the favor and give Trump a few nicknames to call his very own.

• Teflon Don comes to mind. The conventional wisdom among his supporters is that all his legal problems – including a felony conviction and numerous indictments — were purely political. I agree. It’s inconceivable to me that the current Republican party would ever even investigate him. And, of course, his credulous supporters believe his every word. I have a theory. Trump knows he’s guilty, so he’s determined to remove from office anyone who knows and could prove it. So far so good on that front.
• Lyin’ Donald. During his last term, The Washington Post kept a tally of his lies; the total was about 40,000. To be fair, someone pointed out to me that they counted the same lie every time he uttered it. So, let’s reduce that number to 20,000, still a Guiness Book of World Records kind of number. Jeff Bezos now owns the Post and stopped it from endorsing Kamela Harris for president. Trump used to call Bezos “Jeff Bozo.” Now they’re pals.  
• Multiple-Mulligan Trump. The president is a fairly good golfer, so his well-documented cheating is just another example of his essential corruption. I have dabbled in the game for most of my life. I used to play in a group that agreed that we were allowed one “mulligan” per round. For those of you who think golf is “a walk in the park ruined,” a mulligan is being able to take a bad shot over. They are forbidden by the rules of golf but widely practiced if agreed by all before the round begins. Trump just takes as many as he needs. If you’re playing a match (for dough often), it is also legal to concede a short put to your opponent.  You may not, however, concede a put to yourself, a common Trump practice. Keeping a proper score in golf is a matter of honor, a concept foreign to him. I won’t bore you with how golf handicaps are computed, but Trump is known to record only his best scores.
• Free Speech President. In his inaugural address, President Trump promised to “stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.” He also said that “never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.” Well, in my view, this was a reasonable response to the efforts of his predecessors to shut him and others up, his suspension from Twitter being the best example. Almost all speech is protected, even so-called “hate” speech. You can lie to your heart’s content if you don’t do it under oath. But like most politicians, Trump doesn’t really believe in free speech for anyone but himself. And he is himself using “the immense power of the state” to punish people who dare to criticize or make fun of him.
• The Great Emancipator. He has made himself a hero to the approximately 1500 people convicted for taking part in the January 6, 2020, attack on the U.S. Capital building. The majority pled guilty for their role in damaging public property and injuring police officers. The rest were convicted by juries of American citizens, who must wonder why they bothered. But President Trump is of a forgiving nature.

Let me conclude by noting that the Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives since January of 2023, and both houses of Congress since this January. With full investigative and subpoena powers, and a compliant Justice Department, they have yet to indict any of those “crooked” or “crazy”  Democrats. But have faith – they may yet trump up some charges.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

The residents of my Forest Park condominium building and its almost identical (but smaller) neighbor next door were all atwitter (or aghast or even appalled) early this week as an episode of the NBC series “Chicago Fire” was shot in and around us. The big day was Tuesday the 16^th, although set up began the week before. The entire 200 block of Elgin Avenue was closed on the big day, with no parking permitted.

            As it happens, our neighbors on the block are a series of detached single-family houses, small two flats and a row of attached town homes. I can’t imagine they were all pleased to have their street thus occupied, but art must have its way. For those of you not familiar with “Chicago Fire,” it is now in its 14^th season. It is part of a franchise that also includes “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med.” Unlike some “Chicago based” series and film, which use only some exterior images, they are filmed entirely in the city.

This episode will air on Wednesday, October 29 on NBC at 8:00 pm. Since they have decorated some of the balconies in our buildings and the exteriors of some of the other houses on the block for Halloween, the date seems meaningful!

             While it has been interesting to experience the filming process, it’s nothing like as important or exciting as my experience 67 years ago watching the filming of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. I was a young man of 20 then and working as a clerk for the New York Central Railroad at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago. Both are long gone, but I swear it wasn’t my fault. As I recall, the crew came the day before the filming to set up cameras, lighting, and sound equipment.

            Of the stars (including James Mason) only Eva Marie Saint (still with us at age 101) and Cary Grant appeared. I never actually saw him, although I caught a glimpse of Saint. I did see more of  Hitchcock – and he was as roly poly as you may remember him. He was dressed in a suit and tie, and left before the scene was actually shot, apparently satisfied that all was well. If you remember the movie, Grant stows away on the 20^th Century Limited, the New York Central’s legendary train from New York to Chicago. All the set up was for the briefest of scenes. Grant knows that the police (and bad guys) might be waiting on the platform to see if he’s on the train. So, he bribes a Red Cap and changes into his uniform, and escorts Saint and her luggage down the platform.

            Thus disguised, he makes his escape. Among the extras they used were actual LaSalle Street Station Red Caps. They were delighted to do this and even got paid. Another Chicago location was the Ambassador East Hotel, where nabobs and movie stars often hung out at the famous Pump Room restaurant before catching Santa Fe’s Super Chief to La La Land. If you haven’t seen the movie, I can highly recommend it. Pay particular attention to the LaSalle Street Station scene. It brings back memories for me.

            The 20^th Century Limited, which in its heyday had a barber shop, a stenographer (look it up), a dining car with gourmet food, and two cars where you could get a drink or two, made its last run in 1967, victim of the speedy jet air liner. LaSalle Street Station itself was torn down in 1981, replaced with a bare bones Metra station.

            One of my jobs as a junior clerk was to meet the 20^th Century every morning at 9:00 am (it was rarely late). I would swing on to the baggage car before it fully stopped, open the door and fetch the company mail bag, which every other Friday contained the Chicago staff pay checks. As the years went by, and more people flew, the number of celebrities sighting dwindled. The last one I remember seeing was Victor Mature. You remember him, don’t you?

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Funny how the mind works. How discussing one thing leads to another, then another, then finally to the subject of today’s article – Ted Williams.

            It started at a family event at my niece Eve’s, my late sister’s eldest daughter. It was a rare occasion when her sisters Noelle and Ellen were both in town. The group also included my daughter Beth, son-in-law Boyd, and Eve and her husband Tim’s sons and their families. At dinner, the lads started arguing the merits of (mostly) pro football players. When I could get a word in, I would throw in names like Sammy Baugh and Don Hutson (look them up), NFL heroes when I was a kid.

            Comparing players from different eras is difficult. For example, Sammy Baugh of the Wasington Redskins threw for 2,938 yards in 1947. It was 1960 before this was exceeded by Frank Tripucha (remember him?), who threw for 3,038. The current record is 5,250 yards, by Patrick Mahomes in 2022. The game is different now, so how do you compare Baugh and Mahomes?

            Baseball, of course, is statistics mad. One that didn’t exist when I was young was WAR, which stands for “wins above replacement.” Although it’s a bit more complicated, in simple terms it means the value of a player over an average player who might replace him. Unsurprisingly, the all-time leader is Babe Ruth, with a WAR of 182.6 (the total of yearly values). The list includes pitchers, and numbers two and three are Walter Johnson and Cy Young. The only other pitcher in the top 10 is Roger Clemens. (I could find no list that included Negro League players.)

            Barry Bonds, whose stats are tainted in my mind, is at number four with 162.8. Willie Mays (156.2) and Hank Aaron (143.1) are in the top ten. Ted Williams is at number 14 with a WAR of 121.8. He missed five prime seasons serving as a Marine fighter pilot in World War II and the Korean War. It’s estimated – conservatively in my mind – that he would have accumulated 41.6 more WAR points during those years, for a total of 163.4, which would have put him second among position players on the all-time list.

Interestingly, Ruth’s WAR includes 20.4 earned as a pitcher. Ruth of course hit 714 home runs to Williams’s 521 (which would likely have been in the 600s if he had played those five seasons), but Ted had an on-base percentage of .482 to Ruth’s .474. Career batting averages were .344 for Williams and .342 for Ruth. As far as average runs batted in (I deleted 1952 and 1953 for him since he played so few games in those seasons) Williams averaged 108, and Ruth 101. Lou Gehrig topped both with 117.

Who was the greatest hitter? Not easy to say. For getting the bat on the ball and reaching base, you would have to say Ty Cobb. He averaged .366 for 24 seasons. But the world loves a power hitter, so Ruth has long been considered the greatest hitter of all time. He helped his cause by being flamboyant and approachable, the kind of man you could image having a beer with (or quite a few as it happened!). Williams could be prickly, particularly with the beat reporters who covered baseball daily. He had close friends, but very few.

In his final at bat for the Red Sox, he hit a home run. The Boston fans gave him a standing ovation, but he refused to come out of the dugout to acknowledge them. I saw him once, in 1949 I think, at Comisky Park, a game the Red Sox of course won. At the end of that year, the Red Sox and Yankees were tied for the American League Pennant. The Yankees won the tie breaker, thus confirming the “curse of the bambino.” For you curling fans who don’t follow baseball, it refers to the 1919 sale by the Red Sox of Ruth’s (the Bambino) contract to the Yankees, who went on the win multiple World Series before the Red Sox finally won one in 2005. In 1949 Williams batted .343, hit 43 home runs and batted in 159 of his teammates. Alas, not enough to break the  curse.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I bet you haven’t thought about actor Fred MacMurrey (1908-1991) lately if you’ve ever thought about him at all. In his day, he was among the most famous of the screen actors; in fact, for several years, he was Hollywood’s highest-paid performer. If he is remembered, it’s usually for his long running television series, My Three Sons, which ran from 1960 to 1972.

            Toward the end of  his career, he was most associated with family friendly films like The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1963), and Son of Flubber (1963). His characters tended to be good-hearted, if a bit, as in the title of the movie, a bit absent-minded. In real life, he was a shrewd businessman, who amassed a fortune far beyond his acting income alone. Born in Kankakee, Illinois to a devout Roman Catholic family, he apparently retained a strong faith for the rest of his life. He married the actress June Haver in 1954 after his first wife died, and they apparently had a happy marriage until he died in 1991.

            But it’s the films where he played against type that are still worth seeing and are, in fact, classics.  The first of these is Billy Wilder’s 1944 Double Indemnity. MacMurray plays Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who is lured by a very seductive Barbara Stanwyck into killing her husband for the insurance money. The screenplay was written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, based on a novel by James M. Cain. Insurance investigator Edward G. Robinson plays Neff’s friendly nemesis. As you might imagine, it doesn’t end well for poor Walter.

            In 1954, he played Navy Lt. Thomas Keefer in the movie version of Herman Wouk’s 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Caine Mutiny.  The cast also included Humphrey Bogart as the unhinged Captain Queeg (he was nominated as Best Actor but lost to Marlon Brando). Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer also gave exceptionally fine performances. I won’t go into the plot in detail, but MacMurray’s Keefer instigates a mutiny against Queeg, then denies involvement at the subsequent court martial, letting his fellow officers hang out to dry.

            Finally, he starred with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, which won the 1960 Academy Award for Best Picture. MacMurray plays a despicable personnel manager who coerces aspiring executive Lemmon to lend him his apartment to carry out his extra-marital affair with elevator operator MacLaine. It would be difficult to imagine a more unsympathetic character, but he did a convincing job of it!

            MacMurray made more than 100 films in his career, including comedies and westerns. He got lucky with these three, which became classics.  Of the three, he said his favorite was Double Indemnity, in which his character at least generates some sympathy. But he made important contributions in all of them, which you should see if you haven’t already.

            Fred wasn’t Kankakee’s only famous son. It also boasts Harold Gray, creator of the ageless Little Orphan Annie; nor should we forget Kankakee native Geoge Ryan, one of four Illinois governors who have served time in Federal prisons. It also has a great name, rivaling Walla Walla, Kalamazoo, and Ashtabula. And let’s not forget Kokomo, Indiana.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I mentioned in last week’s piece on Bill Bryson that I was currently reading his At Home, which is a story of how private homes have developed over time. As it happens, I give tours at legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s original home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois. It was built in 1889 and added on and changed over the years, with the connected studio added in 1898. It was restored as it was in 1909, after which Wright left his family, closed the studio, and moved his basic operations to Wisconsin.

            The house has indoor plumbing. This is no surprise to visitors until I comment that in 1890, only about one percent of American homes were so equipped. Most homes had an outhouse in the back, above a cesspit. You didn’t necessarily have to trudge out there in all weathers; you could use chamber pots, then empty them outside at your leisure. As usual, it was good to be rich – your servants could do that for you.

Nor does anyone comment on the electric lighting that can be turned on when darkness falls. That same one percent would also have applied to electric light in 1890, mostly in the homes of the rich, who often powered their houses with on-site generators. As it happened, the electric lines reached Wright’s neighborhood in 1891.

            Where did Wright get these new-fangled ideas? Almost certainly from his employers, the architectural firm Adler & Sullivan. The year he built the house was the same year they finished building Chicago’s Auditorium Building, which Chicagoans will know as the home of Roosevelt University and the famous Auditorium Theatre. It was not only then the largest private building in the United States, but a marvel of technology.

            The building encompassed a 400-room hotel; a 4,000 plus-seat theatre; and an office tower (the tallest structure in Chicago at the time). Not only did it have electric lighting – often spectacular in its effect – but the theatre also had a sophisticated air circulation system, which included an early form of air cooling, consisting of massive blocks of ice and blowers! I should also mention that the structure was supported by massive rafts, which floated on Chicago’s spongy subsoil. It was assumed the building would settle 18 inches, which it in fact did. Later buildings would be supported by caissons drilled down to bedrock. Had the bedrock been inaccessible, Chicago’s skyline would be quite different today.

            By 1889, Wright was the firm’s chief draftsman, so would have been responsible for producing the working drawings that made construction of this marvel possible. So, it’s no wonder that he would want the latest technology in his own, more modest, home. Indeed, embracing technology would be a hallmark of his lengthy career. One of his early essays was titled “The Art and Craft of the Machine.”  Another house that embodies these concerns is the famous Robie House, completed in 1910.

            I led tours there for many years, and my partner James Caulfield  and I are currently working on a book on the house, which should be published early next year. The house has a sophisticated lighting system; a pump driven hot water heating system (since replaced with a modern climate-control system); a three-car-attached garage; and even a central vacuum system. By the way, by 1910, only 10 percent of American homes had electricity.  This had only reached 50 percent by 1924, but large areas of rural American were only electrified starting in the 1930s with the New Deal rural electrification programs.

            As to indoor plumbing, as late as the early 1970s, 20 million people in rural America still did without it. I know that because a client of mine at the time was a government-funded program to bring water and sewer service to unserved areas. I quoted that number in a  news release that the New York Times printed verbatim on the front page, albeit below the fold! Anyway, as you wander about your house, keep in mind that the facilities we take for granted were once luxuries enjoyed only by folks like the Rockefellers and Morgans. So, flush with pride (unless you have one of those new toilets that flushes itself!).

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon

Image of Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio, copyright James Caulfield, all rights reserved.

By Patrick F. Cannon

The dual American/British citizen Bill Bryson is one of those non-fiction writers you can read with real pleasure no matter what captures his fancy. The subjects of his 20 odd books include travel, memoirs, language, science, and history. Oh, and one biography – of William Shakespeare, another notable wordsmith.

            He was born in 1951 in Des Moines. His father was a long-time sportswriter for the Des Moines Register, where his mother was the home furnishings editor. After a couple of years at Drake University, in 1972 he put on his backpack and headed for Europe. He ended up in Great Britain, where he worked for a  time at a psychiatric hospital, where he met his wife Cynthia (she was a nurse, not a patient). They returned to Des Moines so he could finish his degree.

            Back in Britain, he worked for newspapers, including senior editing positions at The Times of London, and the Independent. Some idea of the esteem with which he is held was his election as chancellor of Durham University in 2005, where he succeeded the great Peter Ustinov. He was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the same year.

            I have now read about half of his books, and plan eventually to read most of them. A good place to start would be with his 2013 bestseller, One Summer: America, 1927, a year in which Charles Lindgerg flew solo across the Atlantic; Babe Ruth hit 60 homeruns; Sacco and Vanzetti were executed; Ford transitioned from the legendary Model T to the Model A; and talking pictures began with the release of The Jazz Singer. It is both interesting and hilarious.

            Another book that has those qualities is 1997’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. By then, he had moved his family back to the United States, and was living in Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College. Hanover is near one section of the trail, and, on a whim (of mid-life crisis?), he decided to undertake the 2,000-mile walk.  His wife, understandably dubious (he was 44 years old), didn’t want him to do it alone, so he ended up undertaking the journey with an old friend from Des Moines, Stephen Katz. Their adventures, and misadventures, made for a well-received and popular book, which was later made into a 2005 movie, with Robert Redford as Bryson, and Nick Nolte, perfectly cast as the overweight and out of shape Katz.

            While in Hanover, he also published a series of essays that appeared in London’s Sunday Mail on his experiences of returning to America in I’m a Strange Here Myself.  His friend Stephen Katz also figures in Bryson’s 2006 memoir of growing up in Des Moines, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: Travels Through My Childhood,  I’m currently reading At Home: A Short History of Private Life, which, as with most of his books, is both factual and amusing.

            Finally, for you Shakespeare buffs, his biography, Shakespeare: The World as Stage, tells us everything known about that genius, while convincingly putting to rest all the looney theories that claim anyone but him wrote the plays. I recently saw the fine British actors, Mark Rylance and Derek Jacobi, claim that someone like Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, was a better candidate because he was Cambridge educated and more widely travelled. In the end, does it really matter?

            Anyway, reading anything by Bill Bryson is both instructive and a pleasure. He reminds me most of the late E.B. White. Like White, he wrote about language, including books on the differences between American and British English. The next time you’re tempted to pick up yet another thriller or mystery, instead why not read something by one of the greatest current practitioners of our mother tongue?

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon