You hear it on the news every day; social distancing, stay home, wash your hands. It’s all good advice to get the corona virus curve to go down. It will work too if we all take that little bit of effort to maintain that social distancing and more.
But if you look around, you’ll see that some people are getting back in the outdoors. The other day I took a drive just to get out of the house. I had no contact with any people, didn’t stop at any stores, and never got out of my car till I was back in my garage at home.
One place I wanted to take a look at was Tampier Lake. It’s not far away. Surprisingly the Cook County Forest Preserve lake was open for fishing. Parking lots were open and each had a handful of cars, nicely spaced away from each other.
People were fishing. Anglers were by themselves or with one or two others. Everyone I saw had ample space between them. Social distancing was being practiced. And several of the people were wearing facemasks. This was a good thing.
A friend of mine sent me an email the other day. He got out to go fishing. His nickname is Husker. Fishing small subdivision ponds is one of his favorite pastimes. Some spots are a short walk from his home while others might be just a short drive.
Husker is an angler who frequently fishing waters like LaSalle, Heidecke and Braidwood Lakes. He’ll fish Lake Michigan and our local rivers like the Calumet, DesPlaines, Illinois, Kankakee and DuPage. Access to so many of these bodies of water is closed now but that’s not the case for many local ponds.
The email from Husker had a couple photos a crappie and bass that he caught and released from a small pond that’s near his home. What a great way to get back in the outdoors. He had the lake all to himself. Saw no one else that day. I guess it’s safe to say that Husker agrees that COVID-19 shouldn’t get you down.
Just as it’s okay to go out of the house for take-out food for dinner or visit a grocery store, it’s ok to visit a local pond or the forest preserve to do a little fishing. But don’t gather a large group to join you. Remember to keep your distance from others. Avoid contact with others. Go ahead’ give yourself a break and carefully, get back in the outdoors.
Don Dziedzina of Illinois Outdoors Inc., has been involved in the outdoors industry for over 40 years.
Don has written columns for numerous outdoor magazines and many local newspapers. For a couple years he wrote outdoor columns for the Chicago Tribune in the Sports section.
For over 20 years ago Don was the producer and host of the Illinois Outdoors TV show. It aired on Comcast, Insight, and MediaCom Cable stations having a reach of nearly 7 million viewers every week.
Don joined Jim DaRosa as a co-host of the Fishing and Outdoor Radio Show. The very popular outdoor radio show aired every week, simulcast on WCSJ AM 1550, WCSJ FM 103.1, WSPY FM 107.1, WSPY AM 1480, WSQR FM 93.5 and WSQR AM 1180.
After two years of retirement from writing, TV and Radio, Don started a new blog on ChicagoNow titled Back Into the Outdoors.
On the Illinois Outdoors TV Show, Don always says, “Great Fishing (or hunting) is not that far away.” tm That saying is still popular today.
MINNEAPOLIS — Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns, died Monday due to complications from COVID-19 after more than a month of fighting the virus.
The Timberwolves made the announcement via the Towns family, which requested privacy. Karl Towns Sr., the father of the two-time All-Star player, was also hospitalized with the virus but has since recovered.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Cruz-Towns was a fixture at Timberwolves games from the start of Karl-Anthony Towns’ NBA career in 2015.
“Jackie was many things to many people — a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend,” the statement from the Towns family said. “She was an incredible source of strength; a fiery, caring, and extremely loving person who touched everyone she met. Her passion was palpable, and her energy will never be replaced.”
The family expressed gratitude to the “warriors” at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia and JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey, the hospitals where she received care.
After his parents first felt ill at their home in New Jersey, Towns and his sister urged them to seek immediate medical attention and be tested for the virus. Towns posted an emotional video on his Instagram account on March 24, revealing his mother was in a medically induced coma while imploring people to stay home to help stop the spread of the virus. The East Coast has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, with a death toll in New York state alone that has topped 10,000.
The Timberwolves expressed their condolences for the woman they considered part of their family.
“As Karl’s number one fan, Jackie provided constant and positive energy for him and was beloved by our entire organization and staff at Target Center,” the team said.
Towns made a $100,000 donation to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for COVID-19 testing.
Mourners salute from a distance at funeral of Chicago firefighter who died of COVID-19
Hundreds of Chicago Fire Department personnel and law enforcement officers stood more than 6 feet apart on North Pulaski Road and saluted Monday morning as the hearse carrying firefighter Mario Araujo traveled to a Northwest Side cemetery.
Araujo’s funeral, at Theis-Gorski Funeral Home in the Irving Park neighborhood, was attended by
only “a very limited number” of family members, according to the fire department. Hundreds of Araujo’s colleagues and supporters waited outside the funeral home and eventually joined in the procession to Montrose Cemetery, where a brief ceremony, featuring bagpipes and a 21-gun salute, took place in front of the crematorium. Araujo’s mother was presented with the Chicago flag that draped her son’s casket.
5:33 p.m. Heart woes spur partial stop of malaria drug study for virus
Scientists in Brazil have stopped part of a study of a malaria drug touted as a possible coronavirus treatment after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested.
Chloroquine and a newer, similar drug called hydroxychloroquine, have been pushed by President Donald Trump after some very small, early tests suggested the drugs might curb the virus from entering cells. But the drugs have long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.
The Brazilian study, in the Amazonian city of Manaus, had planned to enroll 440 severely ill COVID-19 patients to test two doses of chloroquine, but researchers reported results after only 81 had been treated.
One-fourth of those assigned to get 600 milligrams twice a day for 10 days developed heart rhythm problems, and trends suggested more deaths were occurring in that group, so scientists stopped that part of the study.
5:07 p.m. 74 more die in Illinois from coronavirus; Pritzker administration hopes cases are leveling
Illinois health officials on Monday said another 74 people have died from the coronavirus, bringing the state’s death toll to 794.
There are also 1,173 new confirmed cases, bringing the total of cases in the state to 22,025. There have been more than 100,000 tests administered, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The virus has also spread to an additional county, with 87 of 102 counties reporting cases.
Private labs do not report their results on Sundays, which has led to a lower number of confirmed cases on Mondays, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
Pritzker on Sunday said he was “cautiously optimistic” the state could be “bending the curve” to keep hospitals within their patient capacity.
4:42 p.m. Car insurance companies tout their refunds because of coronavirus, but they vary widely
Car insurance companies are touting their discounts because policyholders are driving less thanks to the coronavirus shutdown — but some discounts are better than others, consumer groups say.
State Farm, based in Bloomington, got an “A” ranking Monday by the Consumer Federation of America and Center for Economic Justice for announcing it will give refunds, on average of 25 percent coveringMarch 20 through May 31.
Allstate, based in Northbrook, got a “B” grade for offering a 15 percent refund for April and May premiums. Along with American Family, Allstate was cited for being the first to offer a refund to consumers.
4:10 p.m. Virus exposes US inequality. Will it spur lasting remedies?
WASHINGTON — The sick who still go to work because they have no paid leave.
Families who face ruin from even a temporary layoff.
Front-line workers risking infection as they drive buses, bag takeout meals and mop hospital floors.
For years, financial inequality has widened in the United States and elsewhere as wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated among the most affluent while millions struggle to get by. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has laid bear the human cost of that inequality, making it more visible and potentially worse.
Congress, the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve have mounted the largest financial intervention in history — a full-scale drive that includes mandating sick leave for some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals, allocating rescue aid to employers and expanding unemployment benefits to try to help America survive the crisis.
Yet those measures are only temporary. And for millions of newly unemployed, they may not be enough.
3:33 p.m. WATCH: Eerie video shows nearly empty Chicago Loop from 360-degree camera
Bustling downtown streets have largely been abandoned as life in Chicago has come to a grinding halt in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
To capture the eerie phenomenon, videographers Rob Gigliotti, owner of RRG Photography, and Mark Segal, who owns Skypan International, used a 360-degree camera to film various landmarks in the Loop on April 2. The sunny spring day less than two weeks into Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ongoing stay-at-home order. They cruised at about 15 miles per hour down normally bustling streets, with the camera atop a 10-foot pole.
Soundtracked by a loping guitar solo, the resulting video offers a stunning view of a city at a standstill. While some buses and trains can be seen running in the roughly 4 1/2-minute video, only a smattering of pedestrians and vehicles are seen braving the desolate cityscape.
3:05 p.m. Trump’s disdain for ‘Obamacare’ could hamper virus response
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s unrelenting opposition to “Obamacare” could become an obstacle for millions of uninsured people in the coronavirus outbreak, as well as many who are losing coverage in the economic shutdown.
Experts say the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets provide a ready-made infrastructure for extending subsidized private coverage in every state, allowing more people access to medical treatment before they get so sick they have to go to the emergency room. In about three-fourths of the states, expanded Medicaid is also available to low-income people.
But the Trump administration has resisted reopening the ACA’s HealthCare.gov marketplace for uninsured people who missed the last sign-up period. And it doesn’t seem to be doing much to inform people who lost job-based coverage that they’re eligible for insurance now through the ACA.
State-run exchanges prominently promote the availability of coverage, but users of HealthCare.gov have to go through a series of clicks to get that information.
“There is definitely a greater prioritization of coronavirus on the state exchange websites,” said Katherine Hempstead of the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The state exchanges put a message about coronavirus along the top of their home page — ‘above the fold’ — while on HealthCare.gov it appears that it’s business as usual until you scroll down.”
2:37 p.m. UChicago seeking former COVID-19 patients for treatment study
If you’ve recovered from COVID-19, the University of Chicago wants to hear from you.
Researchers at University of Chicago Medicine have launched a clinical trial to study if blood plasma from people who’ve recovered from the disease brought on by the novel coronavirus can be used to help those still suffering from the virus.
“Basically, it relies on the principle of passive immunity, where you want to take plasma from a person who has recovered from the disease — [who] likely has anti-virus antibodies — and then transfuse it into a person who’s currently sick with the disease in the hopes of making them recover,” said Dr. Maria Lucia Madariaga, the study’s principal investigator. “Right now, the preliminary data coming out from China indicate that it is a safe and effective therapy.”
The treatment, known as convalescent plasma therapy, has been used for more than a century and has previously been employed in fights against measles, influenza, MERS and SARS.
Eligible persons who are interested in donating plasma can contact University of Chicago Medicine at (773) 702-5526 or [email protected].
1:59 p.m. NY death toll passes 10,000, but new hotspots slow to emerge
MADRID — New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 on Monday even as the absence of fresh hotspots in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world yielded a ray of optimism in global efforts against the disease, though a return to normal was unlikely anytime soon.
Officials around the world worried that halting the quarantine and social distancing behaviors could easily undo the hard-earned progress. Still, there were signs that countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions and grim predictions of a virus that would move with equal ferocity from New York to other parts of America had not yet materialized.
New York’s state’s 671 new deaths on Sunday marked the first time in a week that the daily toll dipped below 700. Almost 2,000 people were newly hospitalized with the virus Sunday, though once discharges and deaths are accounted for, the number of people hospitalized has flattened to just under 19,000.
“This virus is very good at what it does. It is a killer,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday during a state Capitol news briefing.
11:40 a.m. Trump says he’ll decide on easing guidelines, not governors
President Donald Trump asserted Monday that he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining how and when to relax the nation’s social distancing guidelines as he grows anxious to reopen the coronavirus-stricken country as soon as possible.
Governors and local leaders, who have instituted mandatory restrictions that have the force of law, have expressed concern that Trump’s plan to restore normalcy will cost lives and extend the duration of the outbreak.
Trump has pushed to reopen the economy, which has plummeted as businesses have shuttered, leaving millions of people out of work and struggling to obtain basic commodities.
Taking to Twitter on Monday, Trump said some are “saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect…it is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons.”
“As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out,” the April 11 health alert said. “At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagnose and appropriately manage patients with more severe illness.”
“That is great news on the testing front,” Pritzker said. “I’ve spoken before about a stabilizing or bending of the curve, and today is another piece of evidence that it might be happening.”
8:50 a.m. Six ways the coronavirus pandemic will hit Chicago’s economy hard
1. Spending local gets harder
Even before the crisis, times weren’t good on the local commercial street. Start with outmoded space, lack of parking and a poor mix of stores, add in digital shopping and compound that with a hard recession and you’ve got a surfeit of “for rent” signs and landlords with little incentive to maintain things. Sam Toia, CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, worries that 25% of his members in Chicago will never re-open. Maybe cheap rents and cash on hand will bring out successors.
2. Don’t believe the construction cranes
In the office market, job cuts mean lower demand for space. Ross Moore, economist at the real estate firm Cresa, wrote, “Accounting for new construction, the U.S. office vacancy rate could therefore easily double in the next 12 to 24 months to nearly 20%.”
3. New respect for the suburbs
Chicago has ridden a wave of urbanization led by young people drawn to other young people. The West Loop can look like a post-graduate campus town. But something about a plague makes living cheek by jowl less attractive. Then those folks go to work in techie open-plan offices that cram people together and give them a coffee lounge to keep them happy. Some may decide that living with backyards like their parents did isn’t so bad.
7:17 a.m. Longtime 911 operator expressed concerns about COVID-19 precautions at work weeks before dying of virus, daughter says
A longtime 911 operator who died of complications from the coronavirus last month had told his family he was concerned he and his co-workers had not been provided with adequate personal protective equipment, according to his daughter.
Russell Modjeski was a hard-working man dedicated to his family and his co-workers, his daughter Hannah Modjeski told the Sun-Times in a phone interview Saturday.
Modjeski died March 29 of a COVID-19 infection, with diabetes and hypertension as contributing factors,” according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
In the weeks before his death, Modjeski, 60, told relatives that hand sanitizer was being supplied at his office, but that workers were not being given masks, gloves or other protective equipment while working for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
The Pritzker administration sounded the alarm Sunday over attempts by President Donald Trump’s Labor Department to narrow the ability of self-employed workers to qualify for new COVID-19 jobless benefits, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
A package of unprecedented, enhanced and extended unemployment benefits in the emergency $2.2 trillion federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act — known as the CARES Act — was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law March 27.
Allowing self-employed, independent contractors and gig workers — such as Uber and Lyft drivers — the ability to collect unemployment on a temporary basis is a key new program created in the CARES Act.
Illinoisans already receiving unemployment payments should have received another $600 last week, with the federal government providing the emergency extra cash under the CARES Act.
The extra benefits are intended to quickly send money to workers who lost their jobs or were furloughed or whose income sources dried up because of the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and the meltdown of the economy.
4:10 p.m. Racism and coronavirus double the damage inflicted upon African Americans
Today we are all sheltering in place. To defeat a lethal enemy, we sacrifice freedoms, limit contact with others, surrender financial security, and restrict ourselves from things we would like to be doing, in service of greater good of saving lives.
In past weeks, I have often heard that we are living in unprecedented times. That is likely true, but deceivingly so. This date in history remind us that staying in less-than-ideal places has more than once been a strategy for saving lives.
Fifty-seven years ago, on the spring date of Good Friday, 50 courageous individuals chose to be commanded by the government to remain in place; they did so to combat a pernicious, nation-ravaging evil that had taken countless lives and seemingly knew no borders. Led by Martin Luther King, Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Albernathy, these peaceful protest marchers were incarcerated by Bull Connor. They intentionally remained in jail, eschewing bond, to combat the deathly evil of racism.
From that very Birmingham Jail, Dr. King would pen his rightly famous letter, first published 57 years ago this very day. He challenged us to pay attention to what his moment made clear, bringing to the surface the problems already present.
12:33 p.m. A pandemic is no excuse for rolling back environmental protections
Special interests are setting the stage for another public health crisis once COVID-19 has passed. Let’s stop them while we can.
As the nation focuses on the coronavirus pandemic, polluters and their allies are quietly working overtime to ease the rules against fouling the environment. They want to allow cars to spew more contaminants. They want to give a new pass to factories that pollute our water and air.
Widespread and enduring health problems would be sure to follow. People would get sick and die, though nobody would call it a pandemic. It would just be a return to a day that our nation fought hard, standing up to corporate despoilers of the environment, to move beyond.
Many industries genuinely deserve help to get through the pandemic. But others have been exploiting it to take advantage of the Trump administration’s consistent willingness to weaken environmental protections. The administration itself is trying to take advantage as well.
6:01 a.m. Airlines safe, but Trump would let post office die
You can’t vote by mail if there’s no mail.
One of the many disasters that will ensue if the government actually lets the United States Postal Service go belly up, which it might do as early as September.
A disaster to democracy, small “d” — the mail knits this country together in a fundamental way, like the interstate highway system — and I suppose to large “d” Democrats, too. That’s because their frequent majority — which is supposed to be the deciding factor in elections, remember — is constantly being undercut by Republican voter suppression.
The GOP casts this anti-democratic (and yes, anti-Democratic) action as a campaign to suppress voter fraud, which is rich, like the guy breaking into your house and stealing your TV declaring it part of an anti-burglary campaign.
At least we haven’t gone back to literacy tests and poll taxes. Yet.
The USPS going bust would also be a disaster to already cratering employment. Unemployment shot up due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a record-shattering 16 million unemployment claims in three weeks. If the USPS goes, another 600,000 jobs — good jobs with benefits — go with it.
The $2 trillion bailout package approved by both houses of Congress would have been the perfect time to help out letter carriers, since the volume of mail is down some 50 percent due to COVID-19.
The package manages to rescue the airline industry; you’d think the mail would be a no-brainer. But even no-brainers are hard when you haven’t got a brain. Or, rather, when the rude ganglional clump that controls your actions only lights up when the topic is you.
So, you want the Chicago Bears to trade back and acquire more picks? We’ve got the perfect solution.
At this point, you have probably seen several 2020 mock drafts for the Chicago Bears. Most of us are hanging out at home (hopefully) and absorbing all of the NFL content we can possibly obtain, since it’s truly the only major sport with anything going on. So, what better to pass the time than draft content for the Bears?
The 2020 NFL Draft is going to happen as scheduled, thankfully. Of course, it is not going to be anywhere close to normal. The league is going to conduct the draft virtually, with 58 prospects being invited to participate from their homes. The general managers, coaches and front office personnel will be communicating via remote technology as well, as they all try to get through the COVID-19 pandemic as best they can.
It is going to be different, but that doesn’t change the fact that the show goes on. This Bears roster has a ton of talent, but also a few holes to shore up in the roster. Ryan Pace is going to have to fix those areas with limited capital in this draft, too.
Most fans know the situation — two second-round picks and not much after that. There are no picks in the first, third or fourth rounds for the Bears. So, naturally, a lot of fans would like to see Pace trade back and acquire more capital by dealing one of their second rounders.
What would an ideal trade-back scenario look like? Who could the Bears select with the extra picks? That’s what I try to tackle here, and to be perfectly honest, this might be my favorite mock draft I have completed, yet. Let’s kick it off with the Bears’ 43rd overall selection before things get fun.
Offensive targets for the ChicagoBears in the later rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft.
The Chicago Bears find themselves in an extremely tough spot in the 2020 NFL Draft. First of all, they don’t have a first-round selection. Obviously, having Khalil Mack on the roster helps soften that blow, but not having an ability to land one of the premier prospects in the 2020 NFL Draft class hurts the Bears’ chances to improve this offseason.
While the Bears do not have a first-round pick, they do hold two selections in the second round, No. 43 and No. 50 overall. Unfortunately, the Bears do not go on the clock again until the fifth round. Chicago does have seven selections in the 2020 NFL Draft, but all of them but those two second-round picks are set to come on Day 3.
Simply put, if general manager Ryan Pace and company expect to perform well in the upcoming draft, they are going to have to dig deep into the class and find some late-round gems to bring into the mix.
We are going to focus on the later-rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft in this post, specifically offensive targets for the Chicago Bears. Their defensive unit undoubtedly needs some work as well, but there are many offensive prospects who stood out to me as specific fits for this team. Also, with five picks on Day 3, the Bears will have plenty of opportunities to land at least one or two of these prospects.
Without further ado, let’s dig into the list. Here are five offensive prospects who the Chicago Bears should target late in the 2020 NFL Draft.
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Note: All measurements listed come from the NFL Scouting Combine via NFL.com unless otherwise noted.
The ChicagoBlackhawks have a lot of pretty good centers. They might be able to move Dylan Strome now that they have Kirby Dach in the mix.
The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t miss the playoffs by very many points in 2019. They didn’t have great odds in the draft lottery as a result but they did get very lucky. The New Jersey Devils won the first overall pick, the New York Rangers won the second overall pick, and the Blackhawks won the third overall pick. The Devils selected Jack Hughes followed by Kaapo Kakko to the New York Rangers. Then, the true intrigue began with the Hawks pick at number three.
They selected big center, Kirby Dach, from the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL. He is projected to be one of their top-six centers for a very long time. There is even a hope that he takes over as the team’s number one center when Jonathan Toews is past his prime. That is a tall order but Dach has the talent to do so.
Well, he made the team out of his rookie Training Camp which impressed some people. He made it passed the nine games to burn his entry-level deal so he was locked into a roster spot for the season. Well, he had a pretty good rookie season for a teenager. He had eight goals and 15 assists for 23 points in 64 games for Chicago. For his 18-year-old season, he had good production and it can only get better.
Drafting Dach might have opened the door for the Hawks to make some moves. Dach and Toews could be the 1-2 punch of the next few years and you never know who could be drafted in the future drafts. That could open the door for a Dylan Strome trade. Strome is a great player that is also a top-six center so he might be able to get the Blackhawks some assets.
Strome is also on an expiring deal that will make him a restricted free agent. The Hawks have his rights but with him due for a raise, they might be looking to move him. If they see Kirby as a huge piece of their future, which they do, they could eventually move Strome so Dach can be the full-time second-line center. Obviously, this is just speculation but anything could happen. The door is certainly open for it to happen.
FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA – MARCH 29: Ian Mitchell #15 of the Denver Pioneers skates with the puck during his team’s NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey West Regional Championship Semifinal game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Scheels Arena on March 29, 2019 in Fargo, North Dakota. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)
The ChicagoBlackhawks need help on defense. Well, Ian Mitchell is on his way and that should go a long way in helping them in that area.
The Chicago Blackhawks really have something in Ian Mitchell. He has had been in the spotlight for Chicago drafted college players this season because everyone wants him to come into the NHL now. We won’t have to worry about him going back to Denver for another year and potential free agency because he has signed his entry-level deal with the Hawks.
Mitchell will forgo his senior season at the University of Denver to have a chance at the NHL. Obviously, he has to make the team as he tries to avoid playing for the Rockford Ice Hogs but all signs point to him being ready to play in the National Hockey League. They might have a much younger defense in 2020-21 if Mitchell is in the mix but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
It is interesting to think about who Mitchell would play with once he gets to the NHL. A solid two-way guy like him is probably is the best fit. He will probably form a good trio on the right side with Adam Boqvist and Connor Murphy. The Hawks need Murphy to stay healthy and see more growth in Boqvist. Boqvist is probably more offensively gifted than Mitchell but Mitchell is set up to be better as an all-around guy.
With all of that in mind for the right side, they need to find good players for each of them on the left side. Duncan Keith might be the perfect fit for him as a partner. Keith is probably the defenseman in the history of the franchise so it is hard to see Mitchell living up to that role but he does resemble him to some degree.
Mitchell was very good in college playing for Denver. He continued to get better as his years went on as well. In 2019-20, he had 10 goals and 22 assists for 32 points in 36 games. He also had the honor of being the captain of the team which shows he is a leader. He is perfect leadership material for a team like the Chicago Blackhawks. Don’t be surprised if he has a letter on his sweater one day in the future of his career.
This was a brilliant move for Chicago to have him turn pro. He has come a long way since being a second-round, 57th overall, in the 2017 NHL Draft. The Hawks surely are lucky to have this guy in the mix and he should be so excited to get started. This team could be building a nice young core to see their legends ride off into the sunset.
We’re now living a life of social distancing. Almost all of us are isolated at home. The only people you regularly see are the ones living in your house. Occasionally you’ll Facetime or Zoom your friends or family, but it’s not the same as a live contact. It’s a lot less personal. Running into people that you don’t know is a rare occurrence.
So how do you act when you have the rare live meeting with a stranger?
I’m outside for a walk around the neighborhood a few times each day. It’s my way of getting some exercise and fresh air. It also helps kill the time and the monotony of being quarantined all day.
During my walks, I usually see a few others outside. Some may be walking their dogs, while others just want to do the same thing as me. When we approach each other, someone will move to one side of the street. We definitely are staying six feet or further away. Respect the boundaries of the other person. Respect social distancing.
But while keeping that distance, a greeting is almost always exchanged. Sometimes it’s just a wave, Other times it’s “Hi. How ya doing?” Occasionally there’s a short discussion about the crazy way we’re all trying to exist.
It’s always friendly.
Were personal interactions with strangers always like this? Of course not! Because of the strange days in which we’re living and our longing for personal contact, we’re changing our behaviors in all sorts of ways. This is one of them.
This new friendliness is one of the good things to come out of the pandemic. Give it a try the next time you run into a stranger. See how good it makes you feel….unless you’re in the toilet paper aisle of the grocery store. Then you’re on your own and anything goes.
My so called friends think it’s time to edit this section. After four years, they may be right, but don’t tell them that. I’ll deny it until they die!
I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for four years.
It started as a health/wellness thing and over the years has morphed to include so many things that I don’t know how to describe it anymore.
I really thought this was going to be the final year of the blog but then Donald Trump came along. It looks like we’re good for four more years..God help us all!
Oh yeah…the biographical stuff. I’m not 60 anymore. The rest you can read about in the blog.
I love getting a new idea. I love the magic of that initial spark. I’ll be walking Crash, taking a shower, sitting at my laptop, and something will just click. Oh! What if I wrote about this!
It’s hard for me to say, “I came up with the idea,” because the idea came up to me. At best, I’m like the guy walking along the beach with a metal detector; all I did was show up with some clumsy equipment.
And “showing up” could be as simple as watching TV. Like last fall, I was watching the FIBA World Cup of Basketball. I was one of maybe 39 people in Chicago tuning in live. The United States had already been eliminated (by France) and the championship game was between Argentina and Spain.
For whatever reason, that’s when a new idea hit.
Oh! What if I wrote a series of posts about Argentina basketball?
I’d start it with the upset over the United States at the 2004 Olympics. A young Manu Ginóbili and Luis Scola winning gold. The story would retell their careers and the rise of international basketball over the last 15 years. Talk about Manu. Dirk Nowitzki. The Gasol brothers. How the Olympics became a bit of an arms race. The United States reloading in 2008, reclaiming gold, led by Kobe and LeBron. We’ve been winning gold ever since, up until the 2019 tournament.
Ideas rarely travel alone. They’re more like ants than cockroaches. The more time I spent with this idea, the more it started to snowball. What if the post was about Argentina’s culture too? I’d do an entire post about food. And what about that, “Don’t cry for me Argentina” song. Wasn’t that a movie? Alright, well, that should find its way into the story. Probably add something on the tango.
This new idea’s entire family moved in. Unpacked their suitcases. I poured them a glass of orange juice at breakfast and asked, “Hey, so when’s your return flight?”
“Our what now?” they replied. That’s when I knew I was in trouble.
There was no turning back on this story idea. I searched, “Argentina” on Netflix. Found an Anthony Bourdain Buenos Aires episode. Watched it. Took notes. Things got really bad when I found a recipe for Carbonada en Zapallo. I was convinced I’d do a post about making an Argentine beef stew inside of a pumpkin.
It gets worse. I looked up flights. I asked Ashley, “What would you think about a trip to Argentina?” “Why?” she replied. And before attempting to explain, “It’s for an article on Manu Ginóbili,” I looked at the prices again. Yeah… maybe I’ll look around Chicago.
Tango Sur is the place you go after you’ve lived in Chicago three years. Year 1: You’ve never heard of it. Year 2: Someone at work says, “There’s this place called Tango Sur.” Year 3: You wait for the stars to align. Because the dinner question: What are you in the mood for? That’s always met with things like burgers, pizza, Chinese food. There’s rarely a moment when someone says, “You know, I’m really feeling like an Argentinian steakhouse,” and you reply, “Oh, I know just the place.”
You pretty much need to start on Southport to end up in Tango Sur. The formula: You’re coming to or from the Music Box Theatre. The Music Box means you’re already a little bit off the trail. You’ve opted for an obscure film rather than a Marvel movie. You head maybe 300 feet north and to your right is Tango Sur. This is when you’ll have a “Dory from Finding Nemo” moment. All of these memories will flash by in a split second. Tango Sur. Steakhouse. Argentina. That guy with the weird Argentina blog. Oh! P Sherman. 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. We should get dinner here!
So I looked up how to contact Tango Sur, still pursuing this ever-evolving Argentina article. Along with Tango Sur, they also own the small wine and tapas bar next door called Bodega Sur. And the grocery store on the corner with my favorite empanadas in town (El Mercado). This stretch of Southport is known as a little Argentina. Different owners, but the nearby 5411 empanadas is named after the 5411 dial code to reach Buenos Aires. Then there’s FRÍO serving up Argentine gelato.
Outside of Southport, the owners of Tango Sur also have another candlelit restaurant in Wicker Park called Folklore and a lounge in Avondale named Barra Ñ.
I reached out about the article I had in mind. Arranged an interview at Folklore. Went to the restaurant, interviewed Paulo Villabona, his title listed as Director Of Bar Operations/ Catering & Private Events/International Man of Mystery. Took my notes home. And then I didn’t do anything with the idea for seven months.
Because Argentina lost to Spain in the FIBA World Cup championship. It wasn’t even close. Luis Scola had eight points. And if I’m going to do an article inspired by a tournament that no one was watching, why not at least pick the champion? Plus Ashley and I went to Madrid a few months earlier. I could write about eating Spanish tapas from the source. Why would I do the Argentina one?
I love getting a new idea. I love the magic of that initial spark. But every idea – the good, the bad, the ugly – will hit the same fork in the road. It’s not even the middle of the project, it’s like Chapter 5. All of the initial excitement is replaced by totally rational reasons why you shouldn’t keep working on it. Questions like: What’s the point? Why spend all the time and energy on this? What are you gaining from this project? Couldn’t you be working on something else? Again… what’s the point?
Sometimes you blow right past this little rut. The idea and the connection you have to the idea is so strong this moment is more of a speedbump than a rut. But other times the rut does become a major obstacle. It’s at this point you either dig deeper, get the wind back in your sails, power through Chapter 5, 6, 7.
Or you don’t.
I could feel the spark waning the moment I thought, “Well, maybe I could do the Argentina post AND the Spain post.” It was a feeble attempt to “Yes And,” the dying project back to life. But it was over. There was too much other stuff going on. Other new shiny ideas showed up. The Argentina idea couldn’t keep up.
But ideas linger for awhile. Seven/eight months later, I finally pulled it back out. Ready to see where the story would go.
Despite the name, Medium Rare isn’t normally a food blog. But for the next several weeks, I’ll be featuring great local restaurants around the Lakeview neighborhood in hopes that readers support them with pickup & delivery orders now and go in-person later this year. Other posts include:
I was born and raised in Midland, Michigan and moved here to Chicago a couple years ago after graduating from Hope College. I live in the city with my beautiful wife Ashley.
A little bit about me – I go to bed early, I enjoy greasy food and would wear sweatpants everyday if I were allowed to. I just signed up for a year-long Divvy membership, but could very well be the slowest bicyclist in Chicago.
I write the Medium Rare blog and will have a new post up every Monday.
One of the most formative moments of my life was the afternoon my older sister first tried to kill herself.
I was sixteen, a college student, in the middle of a studio art class I adored. My cell phone rang and I took it into the hall. It was my younger sister, in a rush she told me our older sister had intentionally overdosed, that our parents had revived her, that the ambulance was on the way. “Should I come home?” I asked, numb and unsure what to do. “There’s no point,” she said. “You’ll be home after class anyway, and Mom and Dad won’t be home before then.”
So I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and went back to work.
I had long been used to taking a deep breath and doing something hard because my sister needed me. To keep her safe and out of trouble I had stolen our parents’ car time and time again. “You know I’ll crash it and die if you don’t drive,” she said, and she was probably right, so I did. I drove my underaged sisters over state lines to sit soberly watching drug use I could not understand enjoying, only to drive everyone home before my parents noticed their car missing. I learned young to sit in silence and listen when she came into my room to rant a mile a minute about hallucinogenic-fueled epiphanies on death and life; I learned that being present and receptive and kind was all I could often do for somebody hurting.
When she survived a serious car accident, her car drifted across three lanes of the freeway, rolling through the ravine and nearly taking off half her face when the airbag deployed, I took a deep breath and went back to work. I was in Chicago, she was in Michigan with our parents. There was nothing I could do for them, or her. I could do was not think about my grief or rage or fear, and keep moving.
My mother emailed me half a dozen times in the weeks leading up to my wedding, warning me how suicidal my sister had become, what she thought the odds were of my sister living until the wedding, and telling me, “If she kills herself the week before the wedding, I don’t think you should cancel.” I assembled centerpieces and folded programs, and it wasn’t until half an hour before the wedding began that it was clear my sister was alive, attending, and en route.
She tried to kill herself again when I was pregnant with the twins. I was maybe ten or twelve weeks along, and she took a bottle of aspirin or something, her heart rate was terrifyingly low for a very long time, and I could hear in my mother’s voice on the phone how weary and frightened and resigned she was. “I’m coming,” I said. That was another formative moment. I got on a train and went to my parents, where I sat in silence with my sister on the porch as she let cigarettes burn down to her fingers without raising them to her mouth, and I gently urged her to sit if she fell asleep standing up.
In the years of my youth and early adulthood the idea that I would have a real, meaningful relationship with her, that I would be friends with her and trust her and spend joyful hours with her as mature adults, was not something I could believe. She was mentally ill, though she denied this vehemently. She suffered from addiction, although she did not believe this was a problem. She was belligerent and self-destructive. She was also brilliant, so her wit and comprehension and intellect so mind-shatteringly broad, she seemed to me proof perfect that there was danger in being too smart, that too much intelligence was itself madness, that the brain could not withstand the burdens of understanding so much.
She remains the smartest person I have ever known.
Around the time my twins were born, she got on methadone. Although she would never ascribe her choices to any external factors like addiction treatment or the birth of her nieces, I believe they were two critical facets in the prism of her transformation. She loved those babies on sight, despite generally hating babies. She enjoyed not getting dope-sick, being in more control of her life. She did get in control of her life, more in control than I ever guessed she could be. She shared her writing with me, in which she was frank and painfully honest about the traumas she could not begin to see as anything other than facts; rapes, assaults, homelessness and disease, and the rage that burned in her at these experiences in her youth that gave way in adulthood to an aching sadness she never seemed willing to acknowledge.
She wasn’t sad, she was neurotic. She had bouts of agoraphobia or mania, she became easily overwhelmed. But she was also kind. She was also sweet. She was thoughtful and demonstrative and although her brain was never something I had the capacity to understand, she used it for compassion.
During the last years, when she lived in Chicago, she and I saw each other often. She babysat. We went out to eat on whims. We were friends. We were part of each other’s lives. My children never saw the version of her I had been so used to having in my life. In the last decade, I didn’t tell “Shana Stories,” tales of her arrests and brilliant insanity, the outrageous hijinks she got into, the infamy of her adolescent misdeeds. I didn’t want to sully anyone’s opinions of her. She was amazing. She was brilliant. She was hilarious and charming and passionate and talented. She wasn’t my fuck-up older sister. She was awesome. We didn’t always get along, but I had the older sister I believe I would have imagined when we were small, if little children imagined mundane adult lives.
She was incredible, baffling, hilarious, utterly unique.
We lost my sister last week. It wasn’t suicide, or a drug overdose. Most likely it was a seizure, currently presumed as triggered by Covid-19. We won’t know for months until the autopsy results come back. All we know is she didn’t turn up for our family’s virtual seder, though she was cooking a brisket, although she said the day before she was looking forward to seeing everyone, although she had virtual second-night-seder plans with her friends. With me and Mike going through so much, in the last weeks of her life she had ordered me a birthday present early, and sent dress-up costumes to my children. She had plans to be there, not only on Wednesday night but for years. She was planning on being alive, something still new and thrilling to her.
I have spent the last eleven years getting more and more comfortable with the idea that she wasn’t going anywhere. That she is gone is like a knife in my gut. I spent so much of my life getting ready for this moment, then peeling away all my defenses in order to enjoy how close to her I could become. I had no idea how raw I would be underneath that armor. I feel flayed. I feel hollowed out.
With the volume of dead rushing through the city morgues, with lockdowns and sheltering-in-place, none of the things one expects in the wake of the death of a loved one are true. We cannot sit as a family together and mourn. I cannot hug my parents, or my surviving sister. “My surviving sister.” It is only through the goodness of a dear friend who works in mortuary science that I was given a chance to view her body, shroud it, and say goodbye– but I did this without the rest of my family, changing gloves every time I touched her, my sobs muffled behind a mask, unable to wipe my tears from fear of touching my face. Hers was not a good death, and it was nearly two days before she was discovered, and I cannot say it was easy to see her. But the morticians did more than they needed to, in an act of deep kindness, to soften the blow. When I had done all I could to give her the dignity and drama she deserved, when I had told her I loved her, I always loved her, I always envied her and aspired to her brilliance and craved her approval, and that I was so sorry I ever made her feel she deserved less than that, I turned my back, took a deep breath, and I went back to doing what needed to be done.
My sister is dead, and my family is in mourning, in all our disparate shelters. We’ll have a memorial, someday, when we are free to travel and gather. For now, there isn’t much I can do for my parents, my surviving sister. The community that came out en masse for me and Mike this summer, they are still there online and on the phone, but there will be no crew of friends carrying my burdens when I am too weary. There will be no coffee dates and long lingering hugs. There will be no parade of friends and neighbors with casseroles to fill my freezer.
What I can do is sit and listen when the kids come in and talk a mile a minute. I can tell them how brilliant their aunt was. How funny. How observant and incisive. How her vocabulary stunned me. How her talent awed me. How her complete self-possession inspired me. And when it’s time for me to stand up and advocate for my husband, when the phone rings and it’s time to schedule nursing care or chemotherapy, I will take a deep breath, and do what needs to be done.
If I am strong, it is because she made me strong. If I am ambitious, it’s because I knew there was no world in which I would achieve a fraction of what she could. If I am well-read or informed or opinionated, it is because I was always trying to keep up with her, always trying to match her, always trying to be somebody she would also look up to, somebody she would see as a peer.
Her friends tell me, she did.
She didn’t believe in an afterlife, but if her ghost is still wandering around somewhere, I hope I can make her proud.
Her obituary is here: https://www.mykeeper.com/profile/ShanaBorenstein/ If you knew her, please feel welcome to leave stories about her, pictures of her, anything. We miss her dearly, and every remembrance warms our hearts.
I wrote about my sister in the anthology, “My Other Ex: Women’s True Stories of Losing and Leaving Friends.” I also wrote about another fraught friendship when promoting that book, and the friend I wrote that about died in February. To have lost two such important people in such short order, in such tragic ways, feels like being waterboarded with grief. You can read about my friend Jac here: In Memory of JM Bates
Lea Grover scribbles about sex-positive parenting, marriage after cancer, and vegetarian cooking. When she isn’t revising her upcoming memoir, she can be found singing opera, smeared to the elbow in pastels, or complaining/bragging about her children on twitter (@bcmgsupermommy) and facebook.