40 years ago

With Editor Claude Walker in the hospital, son Dick took over his dad’s column. Because he had been doing some heavy-duty air travel, he reported on a few recent airline experiences.

He acknowledged that pre-selection seating (something new then) was a big improvement over lining up ahead, processing your ticket, then bolting for your own window seat. Before revolving luggage carousels, the traveler could have a devil of a time finding his bags ’til the next return trip from Antarctica.

Walker also reported seeing a young mother juggling her baby and a suitcase amid a plentiful absence of porters. So our reporter became a porter and schlepped her bag. Even refused a tip.

Ah, the simplicities of times past. Today we have such complications as pat downs, shoe removals and the confiscation of suspect liquids. What next – full body scans? O Brave New World, here we go again. Air travel is here to stay whether for traveler, tourist or terrorist. We’ve come a long way baby, haven’t we? Haven’t we?

From the Mar. 18, 1970, Forest Park Review

30 years ago

For its popular and sometimes fabled 17-year run, Giannotti’s restaurant and banquet room at 7711 Roosevelt Rd. was not only Forest Park’s largest dining facility but a favorite stopping off place for hometown residents and visiting Chicago entertainers.

A family-owned operation, it had reopened its double doors to a remodeled and expanded room in the spring of 1980. The food, not surprisingly, was Italian; not just the taste of Italy, but family Italian fare that was wonderfully prepared, judiciously seasoned and artfully served. With consistency. (And great sauce.)

About the visiting celebs – Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. brightened up the place three or four times, as did Ann Margaret, Don Rickles, Don Adams and others.

From the Mar. 5, 1980, Forest Park Review

20 years ago

Even though this article went to press two decades ago, some of it is as up to date as tomorrow. It concerns the Learning Center of St. Bernadine School, Principal Jerry Lordan and the minds of the school children there.

“Kids learn in different ways,” said Lordan. “There are visual learners, tactical (touch) learners as well as the auditory and kinesthetic (movement) kinds.

“Most teachers and students are visually interactive,” he added. “And most communicate well enough. But if a kid who is, for instance, an auditory learner, you and he may have a problem. The goal, then, is to compensate for this bias by having a place (the center) where the child can go to learn in his way.”

In an oversimplified nutshell, that’s why there’s a Learning Center, according to Lordan.

“The journey to anywhere is hardly ever a straight arrow,” he said. “It’s the getting there – and enjoying what you find.”

From the Mar. 7, 1990, Forest Park Review

10 years ago

I admitted getting fed up with the infinite variety of dumbnesses, endless stupidities and just plain damage inflicted on the rest of us that gets committed and reported every week in the police reports. However, this caper has a little flair and originality to go with the dumbness.

A 21 year-old Chicago chap lifted five packages each of Aleve pain reliever and Nicorette from the K-Mart pharmacy shelves. Running from the store’s security agents in the parking lot, he flagged a slow-moving vehicle and asked the driver and his passenger for a lift to a job interview for which he was running late.

Unable to come up with a specific address, he was shown a couple of police badges. The hapless fellow had stopped an unmarked tactical police car and was given his ride, but to an unexpected destination.

From the Feb.16, 2000, Forest Park Review