Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others:
Stonewalling at Concordia: We are a week out from the Journal’s front-page report on the social media posts of Eric Hiller, a member of Concordia University’s board of regents. And yet, inexplicably, he remains on the Lutheran college’s board.
The comments, undisputed by the school, are horrific and disqualifying. Hiller says women — the majority of the school’s student body — should not take on substantial careers lest they reduce their focus on home and hubby; he opines on the virtues of “a girl with a great body;” he links feminism with Satanism; says minorities are “incompetent and lazy;” and refers to Asians as “Orientals.”
An online petition drive launched by Concordia graduates offended by Hiller’s comments and continued governance role is pushing 3,000 signatures. The school’s brand new president, Russell Dawn, is up to two public statements papering over Hiller’s offenses, and the board of regents is a month away from a scheduled meeting where this topic might or might not be raised.
This isn’t a close call. Hiller should resign from the board. And if he doesn’t, the board of regents ought to have enough respect for its students and enough sense of the self-interest of the school to push him out the door.
Our friend Bob: Bob Sullivan, one of the most fierce and gentle souls to pass through the doors of Wednesday Journal over our 39 years, has died at age 86. Already basically retired, Bob arrived at the Journal eager to sell subscriptions by phone, as thankless a task as ever created. Bob, though, enjoyed it and did well.
Wasn’t long, however, before he began to write for us. And what a gift that was. There were features for the Journal and most notably in our Forest Park Review was his “From the Pages” column, which used the paper’s archives as a launching pad for all manner of whimsy and wisdom. As Ken Trainor notes in a loving remembrance today, Bob was also the only person we’ve ever run over with our St. Patrick’s Day Parade float. Still not sure how that happened but Bob happily popped back up.
A brave fighter of severe depression, a deep reader, a generous friend, Bob Sullivan was everything good about life in community and about community journalism.
After 100 years, a playground: St. Catherine-St. Lucy School has sat at the corner of Washington and Humphrey for a century. For as long as I can remember it has been surrounded by asphalt. It’s what passed for a playground for generations of skinned-kneed kids. Until this month.
Thanks to a $25,000 grant from Enchanted Backpack, a suburban nonprofit, a small playground has now been installed for the school’s younger students.
Our old house on Humphrey was about 300 feet from the school’s fenced-in play area. One of my favorite things on fall and spring mornings was to sit on our porch swing with a newspaper and coffee and listen to the kids at St. Catherine’s before they headed into class. Happy, joyous voices greeting the day. And now a playground.
George Will, you say: Someone sent me a link the other day to a George Will column. Not everyday that happens or that Will interviews an Oak Park business person for his column.
Laura Pekarik owns Courageous Bakery at Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street. As we’ve reported over recent years, Pekarik got her start operating a food truck in Chicago. She has been battling the city in court over its restrictions on food trucks, limits she believes are designed to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants and the taxes they pay to municipalities. Pekarik lost her latest challenge at the Illinois Supreme Court but now plans to bring the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. That is where George Will, nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, entered the story. His libertarian beliefs align with food trucks and free markets. But it’s likely this is his first foray into Oak Park.
