Pet pieces
Here you will find a collection of my favorite pieces. Some are here because I thought them well-reported, some because they were well-written, some because I thought they were funny. It is not a "best of” list exactly (although quality is a criterion), and a list with so many pieces on it cannot be said to be select. They're just pieces on topics that I found interesting or important and that I thought worked in terms of my ambitions for them. Just about all of them appear under other topics elsewhere in this archives.
There are more explainers than I expected, and fewer polemics, on all sorts of topics. Not much in common, in short, although I did notice that just about every piece I did that involved actual reporting made the list. I should have gotten out and mingled much more than I did; when I bothered to get up from my desk, the results were usually good. Young reporters might take note.
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How one woman’s mistake may have doomed ERA
The Weekly (Champaign-Urbana) June 19, 1981
Touring Springfield As It Was 150 Years Ago
The Town Branch of Spring Creek, rediscovered
Illinois Times December 24, 1976
How I Became an Historian
Unpublished essay 2016
The Old State Capitol: Tarnished Jewel
Springfield squabbles over an inheritance
"Prejudices" Illinois Times January 30, 1981
Taking the anthropological view in Chicago
“Prejudices” Illinois Times May 3, 1990
The risks of asking strangers for directions
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 7, 1989
The Young Man and the Suburb
Oak Park welcomes Hemingway back home, at last
Reader March 30, 1990
Charlie Boon, Logger, of Goofy Ridge
A tinkering entrepreneur in the old Illinois style
Illinois Times November 24, 1978
The Family Farmer: An Endangered Species?
A “typical” family farmer of central Illinois in the 1970s.
Across the Board September 1978
Craig Findley of the Gazette-Times
Trying to make a good country weekly very good
Illinois Times August 12, 1977
A Day in the Life of the Havana River Research Laboratory
Public science on the Illinois River
The Nature of Illinois Fall 1988
The devastation of Gulf fisheries by Illinois farm runoff
Illinois Issues July/August 2006
Nature and nativism in the prairie restoration movement
Illinois Issues July/August 2007
Illinois legislators get their cults confused
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 15, 1979
Saving History from the Wrecking Ball
Richard Nickel and Louis Sullivan's legacy
Illinois Issues October 1986
The Natural History of an Unnatural Lake
Lake Springfield, this is your life
Illinois Times May 27, 1977
Local arts critics show courage under fire
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 10, 1981
I look back at public school and see myself
“Prejudices” Illinois Times March 5, 1987
My Life as a Guide at the Lincoln Law Offices
Part barker, part sheep dog, part player piano
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 5, 2009
Kirk Dillard mixes his messages about family
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times June 13, 2013
Dragooning jurors to serve justice is unjust
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 30, 2014
If you liked Dan Walker, you’ll love Gov. Bruce Rauner
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times March 13, 2014
Why Springfield street improvements seldom were
“Prejudices” Illinois Times August 13, 1992
Public servants shouldn’t get servants’ wages
"Prejudices" Illinois Times February 5, 1991
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love LaRouche
Lunatics hijack a major party primary. Sound familiar?
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 3, 1986
The world through the eyes of Farm Week
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 3, 1983
Springfield’s “new” aldermanic government turns 30
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 26, 2017
Term limits are bad politics and worse government
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times September 26, 2013
Going On . . . and On
One writer struggles against prolixity, and loses
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times March 22, 2012
Flood of Memories
Reflections on Chicago’s Great Leak of 1992
Reader April 9, 1993
Taking the Christian out of Christianity
The YMCA picks up a new name but sells an old idea
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 12, 2010
No Stickers
Seeing the universe in the sand burr
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times May 2, 2011
Report from Illinois's Sand Country
Cactus? In mid-Illinois corn country? You bet.
Illinois Times November 10, 1978
Libertarians limber up their guns along the Illinois
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 2, 1981
Carp Diem
What are the leaping fish trying to tell us?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August09, 2012
I Think Icon, I Think Icon, I Think Icon
The iconography of building decoration explained, sort of
Crain's Chicago Business April 5, 1993
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