Dusty Rhodes: Fresh Ink

What I’m about to tell you doesn’t matter. I mean, if it were important, the Illinois State Police would have punished the guy who did it, right? Instead, ISP director Larry Trent allowed this guy to retire with the maximum pension, plus paperwork showing that he resigned in good standing. You might want to keep […]

We’re approaching the fifth anniversary of an event that forever changed the fabric of American life, an event that shook us to our core — or might have, if anybody had bothered to notice. No, I’m not talking about 9/11. I’m talking about the disappearance of the Big Chief tablet. I got to thinking about […]

Your insurance policy got canceled last month. Didn’t receive your notice in the mail? Me neither. I just happened to stumble across it recently while doing some research. The good news is, you’ll probably never, ever need this insurance. The bad news is that it’s kinda like an earthquake rider — a safety net you […]

Tilden Hooper was 14 when he started riding wild horses — or at least started trying to. All his friends competed in rodeos, and Tilden figured he could ride bareback broncs, just as his father, Terry, used to do. Problem was, Tilden had failed to inherit his dad’s innate ability to keep his pants pockets […]

Normally, I’m not what you’d call an “animal person.” I don’t think twice about eating chicken or beef or wearing leather shoes. I gave our last cat away when the doctor discovered my (human) baby was extremely allergic to felines. And I must confess, I actually guffawed the first time I saw the classic animated […]

By the time Thomas Alan Banning got lucky, it was almost too late. His life, laid unvarnished on a single sheet of paper in big letters and plenty of spaces, reads like a country song with a steady beat and little melody: A roll call of siblings, in which Tom was the fifth of 10. […]

Next to “like,” I believe the most overused word in the English language is “ironic.” It’s, like, you turn 12, and you learn, like, this cool word, and you suddenly realize that, like, your whole life is chockfull of irony. OK, I’ll stop with the “like.” Let’s go straight to the irony. Last Thursday was […]

When I met Rodney Miller, I was shocked to find him wearing blue jeans and a turtleneck. From all I’d heard, I expected him to be dressed in spandex tights and a cape, because people who knew Miller promised me he was a superhero. I was doing some preliminary research on our local Goodwill Industries, […]

There’s a new kid in town. He’s a shadowy figure — wears a mask and a backwards baseball cap. As the new icon of the common criminal, he’s slowly taking over the turf occupied by that classy fellow with the snap-brim fedora and opera cloak. The new kid is pictured on the neighborhood-watch signs posted […]

Today’s column is dedicated to my copy editor and my mom. My mom, see, skims everything I write, trolling for clues that might explain why the heck I turned out this way. The copy editor has no choice; it’s her job to peruse every syllable published in the newspaper. As for the rest of you, […]

Last Monday morning, Lori Burger joined hordes of petty criminals, plus their kith and kin, in room 7D of the Sangamon County Courthouse. Crowded into pews and forced to sit with unsavory strangers, some first offenders grew restless during the hour and a half that lapsed before the judge appeared on the bench. But Lori […]

The call came while Mike Hickey was still huddled in the basement with his wife and their three kids. A journeyman communications technician for City Water, Light & Power, Hickey was summoned to the shop to begin mending the city’s fiberoptic-cable system. The first inkling he had of the magnitude of the disaster came as […]