Our world is populated with wonderful people, who love, give, create and share with God's own grace.
The Hollywood creeps, the City Hall sneaks, the White House oafs and psychopathic haters who dominate our media would have us believe the world is toast and needs a fork stuck in it.
Not so.
I am an empiricist, a south side Catholic one to be sure , but a skeptical observer of the passing scene -Tell a tourist, Bub, I live here. I run encounter great people.
Last night, I was treated to a 65th birthday fete, by Miss Sullivan, a woman of extraordinary beauty, grace and deportment, that began with brisk walk through Little Italy to Rosebud on Taylor Street. The lady enjoyed Veal Piccata and I the sinful Eggplant Parmesan, followed by a shared scoop of Lemon Sorbet. We walked off this meal and went to my car for the present - Seats at Chicago Winery for Lani Hall and Herb Alpert!
This is what I'm talking about!
We sat with strangers who turned out to share paths in our lives- one woman is the sister of the owner of Katerina's on Irving Park Road, where Terry Sullivan sang with her trios and the other woman and her husband owned property near La Lumiere School, where I taught for years. We both know and love a woman Jane Lindborg, who cooked for the school and authored the delightful quasi-memoir Tappy in 2002.
Strangers no more three couples two native Lakeview couples, my emigrant Buckeye beauty and this cynical south sider swapped yarns, memories and associations as if were familiars at a Leo Alumni dinner. We don't know if we were Hilary voters, or Deplorables; we were enjoying each others company.
Lani Hall and Herb Alpert had packed Chicago Winery with people who love their music and what it did for us as people.
The couple is madly in love -- 43 years and change. Herb Alpert, the Steve Stunning record label tycoon and savvy musician of the 1960's met Lani Hall, a Chicago girl from Lawrence and Kimball and a Von Steuben High grad through Sergio Mendez. Mendez discovered Lani Hall at a north side pub and added her to the roster of Brazil '66 which had signed with Alpert's A & M records.
The love between is as real the examples I see at Mass at Scared Heart in Morgan Park and all around my immediate neighborhood and beyond.
My empirical senses were reignited after weeks of navel-gazingly horrible news on air and in print.
This is a Pretty World !
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Mas Que Nada!
That's Portuguese for "Yeah, right!" - in a good way.
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