Veterans Day 2026!

Today is Veterans Day, a holiday that began back in 1919 as Armistice Day, which celebrated the end of World War I. That horrific conflict, ironically called "the war to end all wars," ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. And in 1954, the day became Veterans Day, a national holiday that would honor all war veterans, living and dead, to be celebrated on Armistice Day, and those ranks of veterans included my father Nelson, who served during World War II. My father was a dentist, and as the story goes, he and his friend Ed were listening to a Northwestern University football game on the radio in the fall of 1943 when he got a telegram telling him that he had been drafted. At the age of 34, he probably thought he was home free, but no. Ed, also a dentist, thought that was very funny, until he got home and found out that he had been drafted, too. My father wound up being sent to Okinawa, while his friend Ed went to Paris. The Hoyt family luck has never changed throughout the generations. My father was forced by his parents to become a dentist, and he just hated it. My mother Mary once told me that my dad actually liked his time in the army, fighting teeth on Okinawa, since it was a break in having to practice that career back in Chicago. He can be seen in the photograph above sitting in the back row, third from the right. In any case, he came home in the fall of 1947 and after my father, mother, and sister Susan lived with my mother's parents for what was no doubt a fun-filled year and a half, they bought and moved into the house in the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago where I would grow up. My mother was so happy to finally have a place of her own that she hated to leave it, even to go on vacations. And that is today's Veterans Day story. No thanks necessary.

Delray Beach And Art On The Square

My sister Susan and I drove down to Delray Beach from Stuart, Florida this past Sunday for the Art on the Square Fine Art Show. The last time we drove here, in August, to see an art show at Old School Square, the Delray Coastal Showcase, there was no sign of an art show whatsoever. I was worried that the same thing would happen this time, too, but thankfully it was taking place there as promised. This was not a major festival, but still very nice, and worth attending. There were paintings, sculpture, mixed media, photography, and other types of art on display. I checked out the photography booths - all were tropical scenes, none very interesting, and after a while we moved on to check out downtown Delray Beach.

Delray Beach always seems to be crowded on the weekends, and most of the restaurant patios were doing a booming business. I have noticed that many of these restaurants have bars lining the sidewalks, and most of those barstools were filled, too. And for those of you who have followed my posts about the Blue Anchor Pub, which was built in the 1840s in London, but disassembled and rebuilt in Delray Beach in the 1990s, it is still closed due to multiple health code violations and lawsuits concerning unpaid rent. It is haunted, by the way, by Bertha Starky, who was killed along with her lover by her husband when he returned home unexpectedly and found them in their upstairs quarters. She now has the place all to herself, at least for now.

We parked in the Pineapple Grove Arts District, the home of galleries, studios, boutiques, and the Arts Garage, which has live music, performances, and exhibitions, and is considered the cultural center of Delray Beach. And there is also free parking on the street, which is a major plus for me. I took the photograph on the left of that wall mural of a happy looking monkey as we were walking back to the car. Just like the last time we visited, the traffic heading west toward I-95 on Atlantic Avenue, the main drag, was bumper to bumper, and so we headed east to A1A and the ocean, and drove along the beaches and past multi-million-dollar mansions on the way home, hoping that the tax cuts the owners received from Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill were helping them with what must be huge mortgage payments. And speaking of Trump, he was in residence at Mar-a-Lago this past weekend, and so our trip along the ocean was cut short as we had to detour off Palm Beach Island, since the road in front of his club was closed in order to prevent anyone from getting anywhere close to the front gate of that deranged old SOB's home. And I mean that with all due respect.

The 25th Annual Feast Of Little Italy

I attended the 25th annual Feast of Little Italy in the Abacoa neighborhood of Jupiter, Florida this past Saturday afternoon. This is an annual event that celebrates all things Italian, including food, music, and art, and attracts a very large crowd. And everyone seemed to be very enthusiastic about being Italian - it looked to me like half the crowd was wearing Italian themed tee-shirts or hats to show their pride. I suspect - but cannot swear - that a lot of people from New York and New Jersey, many of Italian heritage, have moved to South Florida over the years, accounting for the huge turnout every year. The only other Italian festival I have attended was Festival Italiano in Lakewood, Colorado, just to the west of Denver. Lakewood, to me, is an ugly suburb, but does have two things going for it - Belmar Park, a 20th Century history park, and Belmar, a mixed-use development similar to Abacoa that now functions as Lakewood's downtown area. Belmar is located on the site where a shopping mall called Villa Italia once stood, hence the origins of Festival Italiano. This was also a very popular festival but was discontinued during the pandemic and never came back. Belmar has been facing foreclosure due to financial struggles (evidently the people of Lakewood prefer tacky West Colfax Avenue to Belmar for their shopping needs), which perhaps explains why Festival Italiano has never returned.

But back to the Feast of Little Italy. The entertainment part of this festival took place at the Abacoa Amphitheater, which includes a stage where singer Philippe Harari, a singer and real estate developer, no less, along with his wife Bobbi Rae, were performing, and a greenspace where there was a beer garden, as well as tables and chairs for people to sit and enjoy the music. And bordering the amphitheater was an entire block of food vendors selling every kind of Italian food you can think of, although, as you can see in the photograph on the right, a French Macarons booth was allowed in, too. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. They should be more careful next time. In any case, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a pleasant, sunny day in South Florida.

Rushing The Season - A South Florida Tradition

This past August I went into the Home Depot here in Stuart, Florida, and noticed that the entire front of the store was filled with Halloween items, ranging from skeletons to cackling, full-sized witches to God knows what else, a full 3 months before that scary holiday. And this past Wednesday, I was driving down Rosemary Street in West Palm Beach's CityPlace neighborhood when I saw that they were putting up Christmas decorations, including the tree in the photograph on the left, three full weeks before Thanksgiving. Let's face it - it is all about making money. The commercialization of Christmas is not a new thing, but all those decorations, Christmas trees, and Christmas Muzak seem to appear earlier and earlier each year. I also noticed that that tree at CityPlace has a large entrance, and I suspect that inside there is where Santa Claus will be setting up shop.

And that is the exact spot where what they call the Water Pavilion is located, where children go to play in the water, while their parents sit in chairs on the lawn and watch, as seen in the photograph on the right. Far be it from me to question the judgement of a major mixed-use development like CityPlace, but if Santa Claus's workshop is located over what is a fountain the rest of the year, is it too far-fetched to think that some grinch might discover where the controls to that Water Pavilion are located, and on one particularly busy day turn that water back on, soaking Santa, his helpers, and all those kids and their parents? Kind of like that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" when some kid opens up the retractable floor on the basketball court during the senior dance to expose the swimming pool underneath, and Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall right in. If it was up to me, I would move that tree off to the side, onto the lawn, to avoid tempting a prankster from doing just that. But that's just me - I always tend to look for that dark cloud behind every silver lining.

The November Mutt of the Month

I took the photograph above of the November Mutt of the Month at the Tennyson Fall Fest in Denver's Berkeley neighborhood last month. This was a really nice street festival, but what made it even better were all the dogs walking up and down Tennyson Street past the vendor booths. And why so many dogs? Because they had a costume contest for dogs earlier that morning, bringing out all those mutts in force. And why wasn't this dog wearing its costume? I think because the day was so warm and sunny that the animals would have suffered if they had kept those costumes on after the contest. In any case, this dog seemed perfectly happy to pose for a portrait and even gave me a big smile. And so, thank you for your cooperation, Mutt of the Month!

The November Issue Of Chicago Magazine

I just finished reading the November issue of Chicago Magazine - the online edition, of course, since only people still living in the Chicago area can get an actual physical copy - and have come to a startling conclusion: Chicago Magazine and its readers are obsessed with food. Four of the last eight issues have had cover stories about food, with the latest, the November issue, being "Breakfast." Besides this article, which goes on for many pages, there are also articles on "Table Settings," "Why do Chicagoans despise Ketchup?" and "Tableside Carts Making a Comeback." There is also a review of a Puerto Rican restaurant called Culebra, and another review for Muhajir, which serves south and southeast Asian cuisine (dinner for two averages $250, a real bargain!), with a suggestion by the author to request the waiter to secure you a seat at Bobo, the adjacent speakeasy, for afterwards. Regular Chicago Magazine readers must spend their entire lives doing nothing but eating and drinking.

Personally, I would recommend the Beacon Pub, located just down the block from my first apartment, a studio in west suburban Forest Park. I used to walk past this place all the time on my way to the "L." I never ate there, but since it appears to have survived the 50 years since I last lived in the neighborhood, has an online rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, and costs an average of $10-$20 per person, how can you go wrong? I took the photograph on the right of the place in 2010, the last time I went back to Chicago. But I digress. This month there is also an article titled "Bike Lane Backlash," about the controversy of eliminating car lanes and parking along Chicago's streets to put in bike lanes. Besides the traffic and parking problems this causes, it appears that conservatives feel bike lanes are another form of DEI and strongly oppose them. Is there anything that isn't political anymore? However, I do have sympathy for the anti-bike lane people. All the parking spaces on the block where my condo building in Denver is located were eliminated for bike lanes, and now there is nowhere for guests to park, as well as for me when some idiot parks in my spot. Finally, there is a feature article titled "American Pope," which is an excerpt from a new biography recounting Pope Leo's early years in South Suburban Dolton, Illinois and how the Catholic community there shaped him. Basically, Pope Leo grew up in a very religious Catholic family, went to mass twice a week at St. Mary of the Assumption in Riverdale and soon became very involved with the church. No surprises there. The most interesting part was reading about all the places in the South Suburbs of Chicago I am so familiar with - Dolton, Riverdale, Glenwood, Chicago Heights - from when I lived in nearby Country Club Hills for 10 years, before finally making an escape. All in all, an interesting issue. Be sure to pick up a copy if you are lucky enough to have access to one. Of course, there is always the online edition as a last resort. Just deal with it, as have I. Kind of.

The Sun Has Returned At Last! - Time For Paragliding!

The sun has returned to South Florida after days of heavy rains and widespread flooding, and so I decided to take a drive down to Jupiter to check out the beach, which is miles long and really quite impressive. And found that there were a bunch of paragliders in the air over the shoreline, one of whom can be seen in the photograph on the left. The wind was quite strong along the water, providing perfect conditions for them. And I wasn't the only one taking photographs of the action - there were a number of beach goers taking photos, too, talking about how much fun it must be, and wondering what it would be like to try it themselves. It looked to me like those paragliders were all by themselves, and not part of an organized group, and so if someone wanted to try out that sport on the beach, you might very well be on your own. Which would be scary. However, back in Colorado, I know that Lookout Mountain, just above Golden, is a pretty popular spot for paragliding, and there are companies like Golden Paragliding that provide lessons for beginners, which is kind of tempting. It does look like a fun sport, after all. However, I imagine they charge money for those lessons. Probably a lot. That and the fact that I might die are the only two things holding me back.