Editorial

Is There World Enough and Time?

One of the great luxuries of living in the United States today is the belief that someone else will clean up our mess. While this belief is not always well founded or well grounded, it permeates our decadent lifestyle:

Hummers, SUVs and highways glutted with single-passenger cars abound. The day of the single-car garage is well past, at least for most new construction. Lawns are trimmed and manicured, most often using gasoline-powered equipment.

Knowingly we ingest fat-filled, chemical-laden foods and we imbibe drinks injected with artificial sweeteners and extra caffein. Drugs of all kinds are just a quick trip away - alcohol, cigarettes, pain relievers, diet pills, as well as the ones we are not supposed to use.

The pleasures appear to be ours for the taking - in the words of singer John Prine: "Happy sailors dancing on a sinking ship."

Now it is dawning on us that we are custodians of this planet.

Evanstonians are probably further ahead in this area than residents of other cities.

We are encourging lifestyles that are healthier for us and healthier for the planet. Keep Evanston Beautiful just held a lawn-mower exchange, to encourage folks to give up their gas-powered mowers.

The City has committed to promote sustainability and has already created an office of sustainability. It is becoming more active in promoting the bicycle as a viable mode of transportation.

Schools are adopting policies to keep sweet treats and empty calories out and bring exercise and healthy eating in.

As the summer begins we already feel the effects of global warming, but the warm sunshine, the serene lake and the seductive beauty of the gardens throughout Evanston make us beleive we can do things to preserve this planet and its beauty for future generations.

The folksinger Tom Paxton said he wrote the haunting "Whose Garden Was This?" on his way to Evanston to celebrate the first Earth Day at Northwestern Univeristy. Decades later, we face the same problems - with greater immediacy, to be sure, but perhaps with more focused intentions. We are learning how not to be our own worst enemy.

Getting Life Right

By Charles Wilkinson

("Humility is truth." – Desiderius Erasmus, 1469-1536)

Being human is not that far removed from being humble, especially when one names and embraces the truth of self. There are those who, for whatever reasons, try almost on a daily basis to be somewhat more than human. They are the perfectionists among us.

Perfectionists are not perfect - and they are the first to admit it, over and over, if only to motivate self to keep trying to be just that. Something within, a need for control or to compensate for self-image inadequacies, tells them that who and how they are comes up short of standards they set for themselves. As a result, they constantly seek perfection. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as their seeking does not create a lie.

Years ago, a woman told me she hated to go into her neighbor's house, which she did most mornings. They both had school-age children and would get together for coffee and neighborhood chitchat after the last bus left.

"What makes you so uncomfortable?" I asked.

"Her house is spotless, Doctor. I mean spotless! Her three kids leave for school, and there is not a spoon out of place in her kitchen, not a crumb or a drop of milk on her countertop."

"Why is that a problem? I hope you compliment her."

"I do, constantly. But I hate her neatness. She makes me feel like a slob."

"Are you?"

"Of course not! But I go bananas picking up on the mornings she comes over."

Obviously, two perfectionists were waging unnecessary war with each other.

The humble part of being human can be defined as the ability to be aware of the truth and realities of self, accepting both as one's workplace in life. Being humble does not demand that one establish a sanctimonious sense of being finite and flawed, or that one slump through life wearing sackcloth and ashes. Rather, humility is all about being comfortable in one's skin while being challenged to grow toward, not perfection, but getting life right.

Humility is all about what happens inside a self. Perfection, as in the above vignette, is most often about show time, that is, how self and self's world is perceived by others. A core truth of healthy living is the need to love one's self, not in the distortions of what we need others to see, but in the essence of one's being, that is, knowing every self is a work in progress.

The demands of perfection or wholeness are a part of human life, if only because humans make choices. A perfect self can never be truth on this side of time. Humility, when understood properly, is an altogether different story.

Getting life right is not about perfection; it is about making healthy choices that respect and embrace the far-from-perfect realities that confront every human being.

Father and Child

By Peggy Tarr

Years ago, I did a painting from a photo of a father and his small son sitting together, listening to music at an outdoor festival. The image reminded me of some of the lines from the poem "Little Brown Baby" by Paul Laurence Dunbar,* a poem my mom liked to recite.

"Little brown baby wif spa'klin eyes,
Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee.
What you been doin', suh - makin' san' pies?
Look at dat bib - you's ez du'ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf - dat's merlasses, I bet; Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's.
Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit, Bein' so sticky an sweet - goodness lan's!
Little brown baby wif spa'klin eyes,
Who's pappy's darlin' an' who's pappy's chile...
He's pappy's pa'dner an' playmate an' joy...
Come to you' pallet now - go to yo' res';
Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies;
Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas' - Little brown baby wif' spa'klin' eyes!"

I remember, as a little kid, making mud pies with my sister and our little friends and the fathers of our playmates pretending to eat our "cooking." The fathers smacked their lips as they held the mud pies close to their mouths. I still feel the warmth these men exuded and how loved they made us kids feel by taking the time to play with us.

The fathers thanked us for the make-believe food and gave it back to us, pretending they were too full to eat another bite.

I still grin from ear to ear when I remember this scene, just as I did when it occurred. It's an absolutely glorious feeling that's locked inside me. These were wondrous adults!

Wondrous men! Wondrous fathers! What a sense of love and connectedness these fathers gave us kids.

Father's Day is this Sunday. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! Some positive time with (your) kids can go a long way, Fathers. Some positive time with your fathers can go a long way, kids. Have a good one!

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906; black American writer who wrote in both dialect and conventional English.

Letters

Year-Long Study of D65 Schools Is Needed
Editor:

I was pleased to learn the District 65 School Board will be conducting a year- long planning session on the structure of and options within our schools. I applaud them for being strategic and for including community voices and ideas in this process.

Hopefully, they will seek expertise and support from a strategic planning professional who can help guide this process and maximize its effectiveness.

As a community, I believe we have an obligation to participate in this process and do so in a way that is most supportive of the children within District 65.

While the details of the process will hopefully include specific and thoughtful steps for soliciting and incorporating the views of the community, I hope each school community will take very seriously its role in this process by coming to understand what all of their families and educators want and then participating in cross-district discussions and planning.

Honest, open, productive, respectful conversations within our school communities and across the District are essential to ensuring our schools are the very best they can be for all children within District 65.

These conversations are also an important opportunity to model for the children of Evanston the importance of being involved, speaking up and working with and respecting others, including those with whom you do not agree.

Let's take this opportunity to support our children and show them that people can work together constructively, particularly when the cause is as important as the success of our schools and the students who attend them.
--Patricia Maunsel

Depend on D65 for What?
Editor:
Depend on District 65 for what, when they are failing the African-American and Hispanic students? It is sad and a shame today in the 21st century that we face problems like this.

Why deal with a Board of Education who are not African-American and don't want to be related to programs that the taxpayers want if they are for African-Americans and Hispanics?

The District 65 School Board has enough money for everything they want, which sometimes has nothing to do with the educational system. Depend on District 65 in the past or present for what?

Why doesn't the Board ask Springfield for money for such things as the two-way immersion program (TWI) and the African-centered curriculum (ACC) and a school in the Fifth Ward?

The City Council should have become more involved in the matters of the District 65 school system. Depend on a District 65 that is not concerned about other races?

District 65 has an African-American Superintendent and more African-American principals and teachers than ever, after the Civil Rights movement, and still African- American students score lower than white students: 53 percent of black third-grade students are failing in their reading and 56 percent of fifth-grade black students are failing in reading. If that many are failing, there is something wrong with the schools.

Black and Hispanic students need to have our own private school to see our children get the utmost education. The NAACP sure encourages a school in the Fifth Ward, since there is no school there. Depend on District 65 for what?

Special education does not improve the learning skills of black students. District 65 needs to introduce programs like Sylvan Learning Center. Taxpayers' money is wasted in millions and millions of dollars on a poor system like special education, but the District is not concerned.

Depend on District 65? Depend on ourselves.
--John C. Harmon, NAACP

KEB and Chute School
Editor:
In 2001 Chute teacher Ms. Okano attended a Keep Evanston Beautiful school garden seminar. KEB was offering $300 in seed grant money to interested schools to start edible gardens: Kitty applied for and was given the seed money. The planting was begun with the help of teacher Ms. Przekota, volunteer parents and staff and the kids at Chute; and in 2003 Ms. Okano's summer school English- as-a-Second-Language class chose gardening as the theme for developing their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

The children did the planting, weeding, watering and harvesting. Everyone got to eat from the garden. Outdoor recycling was introduced through the installation of a compost area wherein organic material from the garden and the schoolyard – and, subsequently, the worm farm – could be placed. The kids recycle uneaten lunch foods in a worm farm whose indoor bins were provided through a grant from SWANCC, the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County. The compost is used each year to nourish the garden soil and the planted areas in the school courtyard.

In 2005, KEB wrote a proposal for a junior high school recycling club, funded by monies from a grant from Keep Illinois Beautiful. The purpose was to engage middle school students in thinking/learning about how they can improve the environment by practicing good waste reduction and litter practices at their school. Chute School was chosen because of the relationship between Ms. Okano and Ms. Przekota and KEB. Evanston Ecology Center environmental educator Ellen Fierer was chosen to lead a series of five workshops at Chute School over a two-month period.

The first workshop entailed constructing a "Garbage Pizza"– a pie graph showing the percentage of various kinds of materials that are thrown away and how much of those materials are recyclable. That was followed by a hands-on class on building a landfill – discovering the components of a landfill, where area landfills are located and how trash is hauled to landfills.

Following that was a discussion of the four R's – reduce consumption, reuse, recycle and buy recycled. Packaging was deemed especially wasteful and slow to decompose in a landfill. A Recycling Club was formed to develop a recycling plan and to increase recycling awareness.

The Recycling Club meets on Thursdays at lunchtime for the sixith-graders. A recycling bulletin board was created and hand-made recycling posters and recycling information are posted. The club is working with the PTA on a cell phone recycling drive and, with Ms. Davis and Mr. Resnick, teachers at Chute, on developing new recycling ideas. Gym teacher Ms. Nance worked with the club in April on the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe drive, sponsored by SWANCC. Paper recycling occurs on Fridays, overseen by the Student Council. The club has begun recycling cans, plastic bottles and brown paper bags during the 6th-grade lunch period and pizza boxes and soda pop cans after assemblies. Because the school pays for trash hauling, but not for pick-up of recyclables, the club is saving the school money.
At the end of the school year a locker clean-out will be held. Stations will be set up to collect and recycle all paper. Other items will be sorted, reused and redistributed. Club members participated in the "Trashy Fashion Show" put on by the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County in April. The students made their own jewelry and outfits from paper, cardboard and scraps of material from old upholstery books.

KEB will reward the Recycling Club's efforts with a trip to the Ecology Center and canoe rides on the canal.

The faculty and staff at Chute are as involved as the students in this process, with Principal Jim McHolland providing the necessary support. Together they are working with recycling professionals, elected officials and community volunteers to impact the way District 65 schools and students dispose of recyclable materials and to develop a "green school curriculum."

Keep Evanston Beautiful applauds the fine progress made this year in recycling at Chute.
--Sally Ennis, President, Keep Evanston Beautiful

Oakton Mural Story Omitted Someone
Editor:

Speaking on behalf of the Evanston Arts Council, I was delighted to see the story about the pending repair of the wonderful WPA murals at Oakton School. But there is another person who was not mentioned in the story, but has worked passionately and tirelessly for the release of the $100,000 of state funds that had been allocated for the restoration project three years ago.

That person is Nancy Flannery, an Evanston videographer, who was awarded an Evanston Cultural Fund grant in 2003 to document the restoration of the murals based on the information at that time that the state funds would soon be forthcoming.

Months later Ms. Flannery informed the Arts Council that the State of Illinois had not released the funds, and there appeared to be no immediate intention of doing so. She requested an extension on the grant, and then, because she is incredibly committed to the preservation of WPA art, she began to call the representatives who serve Evanston and other people whom she thought could be influential.

When the money was still not forthcoming, she traveled on her own time and expense to Springfield to lobby officials there…and got a lesson in the politics of how allocated monies do, and don't get spent.

Back in Evanston Ms. Flannery continued to talk to anyone whom she thought could help; she wrote letters, she regularly kept the Arts Council informed of her enormous efforts to shake the money loose from the state, and she produced a documentary DVD on the worsening deterioration of the Oakton School murals.

The Arts Council commended her for her dedication to this project, but in 2005 we all agreed that it would not be possible to complete the video documentation since it appeared that the restoration funds were never going to materialize.

Needless to say, it came as an incredible surprise when the Arts Council was recently informed by Representative Julie Hamos's office that the funds would be released shortly. Ms. Flannery was stunned, but thrilled, when we called to tell her the good news. It is our belief that her efforts and perseverance in keeping this issue in front of our legislators greatly contributed to the release of the promised $100,000.

Although there may not be funding available to realize Ms. Flannery's original vision of documenting the restoration at Oakton, she has moved on to another project: cataloguing and documenting all the other works of WPA art in Evanston.

Thank you, Nancy, for not giving up!
-- Lois Roewade, Chair, Evanston Arts Council

Child Care Center of Evanston Gives Thanks
Editor:

For the third time in our 62-year history, the Child Care Center of Evanston, Inc. ("CCC") thanks the Woman's Club of Evanston for its help in making the seemingly impossible come to life. In World War II, the CCC was started with government funds to provide daycare for children of color during times of segregation to free mothers to enter the workforce. When the government funding stopped at the end of the war, the Social Service Committee of the Evanston Woman's Club secured support from the Community Chest to permit the CCC to continue. Then in 1968, when the CCC was raising funds for a permanent home, the Young Woman's Auxiliary of the Evanston Woman's Club designated the Center's Building Fund as one of two beneficiaries of its Annual Benefit Performance. Combined with the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Clement Stone and donations solicited by nearly 100 volunteers, the CCC purchased and moved into its current home at 1840 Asbury in 1969.

And now, the Woman's Club of Evanston has once again helped the CCC with a major acquisition. The CCC devised a multi-stage plan to transform our large play yard into a multi-sensory outdoor classroom for our urban, predominantly low-income children. We hoped one day to install a trike track with a special surface, incorporating hills and differing textures to teach our children about physics, as they pedaled harder uphill and learned that different surfaces were easier to ride on. The track would also keep the riders safely separated from children engaged in other activities. With a price tag of $38,000, we did not expect to complete this installation soon.

But the Woman's Club selected our Center as the beneficiary of this year's Spring gala. The evening was an unprecedented success, with dancing to the live music of the Llamas, great food, drink, and, thanks to the generosity of numerous local businesses, an unbelievably well- stocked silent auction. They also raised money with games, a raffle, and a very entertaining live auction. With over $60,000 in proceeds, we will not only get our trike track, we will also be able to tackle other phases of our project!

Thanks to the Woman's Club of Evanston, hundreds upon hundreds of children will look back on their childhoods, having spent many happy hours discovering the joys of the out-of-doors and riding on the Woman's Club track. On behalf of the children who will benefit from the hours of hard work planning and executing this mammoth fundraiser, the Child Care Center thanks you. We hope that the community shares our appreciation for your years of dedication to making Evanston a wonderful community for all of us.
--The Child Care Center of Evanston, Inc.

About Greater Development
Editor:

I am a former resident of the North Shore area and read your article about the new plan to tear down the retail space and build more condos. Allow me to say that I think this is a travesty, I have fond memories of the old theaters and believe that they are one of the few historic landmarks remaining in Evanston. I understand the motivation to revitalize the area but not simply throwing up overpriced condos and a few retail spaces that will ensure an endless rotation of fad shops and boutiques. Unfortunately, families will no longer be able to take a nice summer evening stroll to Custard's Last Stand and maybe catch a movie or grab some great Lo Mein at their favorite Chinese restaurant. Sadly, those theaters and that once-vibrant area will be victims of some real estate developers myopic greed.

Evanston is a beautiful city with immense history and significance to Chicago, but the direction that the city's planning department is headed will slowly drain any cultural or societal value from the City's diverse neighborhoods. Soon Evanston will be filled with "luxury" condominium high-rises and devoid of our original flair. The Evanston of old is the community I picture my children being raised, with its locally owned theaters and restaurants, where the local businesses lined the streets with pride, not fearing their next eviction to make way for the new Starbucks.

Sorry for the rant, but I felt something should be said in defense, if nothing else, of what once was.

--Stephen Mayes

Volunteers Needed
Editor:

Volunteers. Flexible hours - days, evenings, weekend - you pick. No pay, butmany rewards and terrific benefits - spiritual, mental and physical. You'll never feel better.Work with children, adolescents, adults, families or seniors. Many positions are immediately available because there are so manygreat volunteer opportunitiesin Evanston. And, Evanston lost one of its best volunteers, Chuck Remen, as well as Terry Dickerson, one of the most gifted youth workers in town.

For many of us there's a huge sense of loss in Chuck's and Terry'spassing.They meant so much to so many and did so much all around Evanston. So get involved - call your school, place of worship, the City of Evanston, or any one of the many social service agencies and organizations that rely on volunteers to serveyour community.
--Bill Geiger, McGaw YMCA and Don Baker, Y.O.U.

Food Aid Center of Evanston Needs Your Help
Editor:

We are compelled by a sense of urgency to share with you the story of our needy neighbors who live right here in our own city of Evanston. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 9.5 percent of our elementary school students live in poverty.

F.A.C.E., the Food Assistance Center of Evanston, assists seven Evanston faith communities, servicing eight soup kitchens and a food pantry. Each week, teams of volunteers at these sites prepare and serve food to approximately 850 guests in need of nutritious meals. Twice a month the pantry supplies food to 100 individuals or families.

F.A.C.E. seeks to provide financial assistance to these organizations in Evanston that feed the hungry. Providing 44,000 meals each year is a daunting challenge for all of us in Evanston. We have established a F.A.C.E. speakers bureau to go into the Evanston community to speak with civic, educational, and benevolent organizations.

We believe there are many people of good will in Evanston who would like to join our ranks as volunteers, supporters or sponsors of fundraisers. Contact Elinore Davis at 847- 967-6445 or by e-mail at elinoredavis@sbcglobal.net.

Our speakers look forward to meeting you and sharing our story. Please include us in your planning calendar for the year!
-- Elisa Graves, President, FACE