Forty Years Ago

If this isn’t the most dismal, drawn out water-boarded winter of all, kindly tell me of a worse one in our latitude this century. I don’t care if Max Beerbohm said, “There is nothing you can say about the weather that isn’t already observable,” – we’ve all over-observed, and as Howard Beale said for us in the movie, “Network,” “I’m mad as hell and I don’t have to take it anymore!”

I mean, when enough is more than enough, too much is enough than more! See?

I can’t even write straight because it’s been too cold and sloppy and grey for too long. “Ye Olde Poet,” Ezra Pound, once wrote a stinging screed about winter. In it, among other things, he slanders the deity, so it may be unfit for publication here.

In 1968 “Ye Olde Editor” Claude Walker fled to Florida during the Hell of winter. Maybe some excerpts from a column written down there may conjure warm reminders in your cold bones today: “The sun shone in all its glory” … “cabana” … “beach” … “bikinis” … and “sun lotion.” Thus, a past editor’s winter report from the Sunny Southland in ’68.

From the Jan. 25, 1968, Forest Park Review

Thirty Years Ago

Errors creep into newspaper articles, but the Dec. 28, 1977, issue had a bonanza. Bernie Friewall wrote the article, then compounded things with the following corrections:

“A misprint in the caption erroneously had it as Dorothy Koufeldt Jensen. It should have read Dorothy Koufeldt Goetschel and Goetschel is not with the library; she retired in 1974 when Josephine Austin retired in 1974 and is living in Arizona. Also, the name of Jerry Husfeldt was omitted. He is the assistant librarian under Cleis Jensen. Husfeldt also holds a master’s degree in library science from Rosary College in River Forest.

“It was erroneously mentioned that Mildred Powell had been librarian at the Oak Park library. It should have been that she worked at the Scoville Institute for six months as an assistant previous to taking the first directorship in Forest Park.

“Also it was erroneously reported that Cleis Jensen earned her master’s degree at Rosary College. It should have been at Northern Illinois at DeKalb.”

From the Dec. 28, 1977, Forest Park Review

Twenty Years Ago

For all his 18 years Vernon Hubbard seemed to have five times that much in misadventure. The troubled Forest Park youth found himself in the lockup charged with two counts of aggravated battery against his stepparents. According to police, Hubbard had been involved in a verbal dispute at their Troost Avenue home. He reportedly punched his stepfather in the face. He then allegedly pushed his stepmother, breaking one of her ribs.

Hubbard cast a long shadow of misdeeds, close calls and questionable activities. Six months earlier he and two other teens were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a 12-year-old girl. During a year’s probation, one of the other two youths was shot to death in an unrelated in incident.

Hubbard was also the driver of a northbound car on the Desplaines overpass that carried two others. It crossed the oncoming lanes and impacted the end guard rail so hard that the car split in two, both halves tumbling onto the Eisenhower Expressway. A vehicle on the Ike was struck – no deaths or injuries in that car – but a 16-year-old girl in Hubbard’s vehicle was killed.

From the Jan. 27, 1988, Forest Park Review

Ten Years Ago

“Lights and Sirens.” Maybe a variant of the old “Cops and Robbers” game? A woman was driving on Lexington when red and blue flashing lights appeared in her rear view, followed by a wailing siren. No police; just James King, 23, who allegedly got out and began walking toward the woman – only to run back to his car and speed away.

Apprehended a short while later, he was asked by police why he turned the equipment on. His answer was that he thought the special lights and siren were disconnected. It wasn’t immediately known which law enforcement agency his car was purchased from.

From the Feb. 2, 1998, Forest Park Review