Summer Vacation!

This time of year I think back to when I was growing up in the Brainerd neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, counting the days until the school year ended.  I remember sitting at my desk on the third floor of Fort Dearborn Grammar School, the window open and a warm breeze blowing in, listening to the sound of the lawn mowers across the street, and wishing school would end. A few years ago I went back to Chicago and took the above photograph of Fort Dearborn, holding a photograph of one of the Kloak kids that I took there way back when.  At the time I didn't realize that our teachers were probably counting the days until summer vacation, too.  Years later it is only teachers who still enjoy this long break.  For the rest of us, time off like that usually means unemployment, which gets old real fast.