Facebook
Twitter
It's been a terrible week, not a week to entertain, or be cute or flip about anything.
But a Chicago Tribune event had been planned months ago for my readers at the beautiful campus at Elmhurst College on Tuesday.
And so, bad week or no, I was going.
It was full to capacity. Some 250 people attended. I have the flu — and brought my box of tissues up to the lectern. You don't cancel out on loyal readers who get up out of their beds at 5 a.m. on a cold morning to drive to the western suburbs to have eggs and bacon with you at 7. And they brought something too, something I needed: their time.
Readers wanted to know how to give a proper Moutza and whether former Gov. Rod Blagojevich will do all his federal time, although Blago should do twice his sentence just for having read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and then admitting it. They asked about President Barack Obama and Boss Michael Madigan. And, they wondered, who'll be the last member of our Chumbolone Nation to leave Illinois once the political class spends us into complete ruin?
There were moms and dads and grandparents and even a few teenagers, including journalist and Lyons Township soccer player Gabbie Gresge, who woke before dawn to make the event.
"I got up early," Gresge said.
Thanks Gabbie. And go LT!
And there was one thing most readers wanted to know.
They wanted to know about Jake Hartford.
"He had a nice voice," said a woman from Aurora. "It was like a neighbor's voice."
That's what so many people in our business seem to forget. Listeners and readers don't invite imperious strangers into their homes. They invite neighbors into their homes. And now, we've lost one.
You probably know by now that WLS-AM 890 radio personality Jim Edwards — who went by the radio name of Jake Hartford — died over the weekend. We were partners, doing the Jake & John show midmornings from 9 to 11.
He'd have hated all this attention. He'd have insisted that the conversation turn to those 18 mysterious embalmed human heads held up by customs officials at O'Hare. I can just see him now, asking a medical examiner, "Doctor? Just how long does it take to defrost a head?"
They weren't frozen. They were cured. But he'd have pushed the frozen head angle anyway.
Many Tribune readers at the event had read the fine obituary written about him by reporter Ellen Jean Hirst. And there was a nice tribute by his friend and media critic Robert Feder in Time Out Chicago.
Edwards is survived by his wife, Marsha, and sons Jameson and Graham. Condolences, prayers and good wishes may be sent to the family at JakeWillBeMissed@gmail.com.
But when asked about him up at that lectern Tuesday, I didn't say what I wanted to say, including that the one thing he'd have hated was anyone talking about him in mournful tones. He'd have given us all a Moutza.
Going to work with him was like taking a master class in radio. He was patient, and I hoped that we were becoming friends. He'd been a news producer and had won numerous Emmys for hard news reporting as a legman for Walter Jacobson. And I think of myself as a reporter first, a columnist second. We had that together: We knew how the news worked, and we understood the interests that pull at the strings of the news. And this made the show better.
Jim had an absolutely killer wit, and he loved hoisting me on it like a speared fish. He pulled his famous spring-back/fall-forward routine and let me flop in the boat for everyone to hear. And I'd drive him crazy by swirling iced coffee too near the microphone, or by missing a break for traffic and weather.
