Mar 7, 2021Bakery GirlOn a bakery worker’s life, with a little input from Raymond Carver, David Thomson, Anthony Bourdain, and uh, Michelle Pfeiffer The longest relationship of my adult life has been with a local bakery: a Polish mom and pop in a Chicago suburb where I’ve been employed on and off since…Baking16 min readBaking16 min read
Jan 21, 2020How Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery Built a Prairie and Lost My AncestorsOf all the stories whirling around Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, the best one, meaning the most Chicago one, isn’t about ghosts or superstition but class. Hauntings and horror stories are a staple of cemeteries the world over, but only a city with a labor struggle pedigree like Chicago’s — site of…Chicago20 min readChicago20 min read
Published in Memoir Mixtapes·May 10, 2019René Recommends “Birthday” by White MysteryBig cities call for big voices to cut through all the noise, and birthdays call for big songs to celebrate being alive. Chicago birthday boys and girls are lucky then. …Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Published in Memoir Mixtapes·Apr 26, 2019René Recommends: “Purple Heather” by Van MorrisonVan Morrison’s “Purple Heather” is a song about idyllic summer-end love, but I feel spring whenever I hear it. Maybe it’s because I associate spring with hope, and hope with love — new or past, fleeting or undying, idyllic or otherwise. It could also be some quality in Van’s voice…Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Published in Memoir Mixtapes·Feb 1, 2019René Recommends: “Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the FrogI did not have a happy end to 2018 or a promising start to 2019. On New Year’s Eve day, I found a feral kitten in a window well behind my parents’ house. It was struggling to get out, so I gave it a little help by lifting it out…Rainbow Connection4 min readRainbow Connection4 min read
Published in Memoir Mixtapes·Dec 21, 2018René Recommends: “Belle” by Al GreenLife and listening to Al Green have taught me two things about the relationship between boundaries and love: romantic love too often comes down to transgressing boundaries, and self-love always comes down to reclaiming them. It’s all there in “Belle,” a song from Green’s 1977 watershed album of the same…Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Published in Memoir Mixtapes·Dec 11, 2018René Recommends: “Party Train” by The Gap BandWhen I was young, I had this notion that life would turn out to be a party. …Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Oct 3, 2018The Widow’s QuiltWhen the Widow Quinn’s husband died, Mom was the only woman in town who didn’t join in the gossip, who didn’t whisper around that the Widow had surely killed her man, poisoned him or maybe smothered him in his sleep or even henpecked him to death. And when Widow Quinn…Fiction25 min readFiction25 min read
Jan 5, 2016Dad’s Honor Flight: A Father’s Second Homecoming from the Korean WarDad’s first homecoming as a war veteran was in March 1953, two years to the month after he was drafted into the army for the Korean War. He arrived home to the U.S. at Seattle, to a port with a small crowd of civilians and a sign reading “Welcome Home…Veterans27 min readVeterans27 min read
