From Newsprint to Film

Via Michael Miner’s “News Bites” comes news that a Chicago-area entrepreneur is working on a short film about Mike Royko.

The film is not set in Chicago, but Bohners Lake, Wis., where Royko and his first wife owned a summer home.

It is also the subject of one of Royko’s greatest columns (if not his greatest).  If you haven’t read “A November Farewell,” which Royko wrote in late 1979 upon returning to the Chicago Sun-Times from an extended leave of absence following his wife’s unexpected death, take a moment to read it.

I first read the column in a special section dedicated to Royko that the Chicago Tribune put together after his April 1997 death.  It made me cry.

I read it again when the compilation of Royko columns, One More Time, came out the following year. I cried again.

It’s certainly appropos reading during the Fall, and it confronts the joy and brevity of life.

What she didn’t like was October, even with the beautiful colors and the evenings in front of the fireplace. She was a summer person. The cold wind wasn’t her friend.

And she saw November as her enemy. Sometime in November would be the day they would take up the pier, store the boat, bring in the deck chairs, take down the hammock, pour antifreeze in the plumbing, turn down the heat, lock everything tight and drive back to the city.

She’d always sigh as they pulled onto the road. He’d try to cheer her up by stopping at a German restaurant that had good food and a corny band, and he’d tell her how quickly the winter would pass, and how soon they’d be there again.

And the snow would finally melt. Spring would come, and one day, when they knew the ice on the lake was gone, they would be back. She’d throw open all the doors and windows and let the fresh air in. Then she’d go out and greet the chipmunks and the woodpeckers. And she’d plant more flowers. Every summer, there were more and more flowers. And every summer seemed better than the last. The sunsets seemed to become more spectacular. And more precious.

According to the Racine Times, producer Norman Skul expects to run the finished work (approximately 30 minutes in length) on the Internet. He bought the url http://www.royko.tv.

Skul says he will adapt another couple of columns into short films.  Likely, one will be political.  (Allow me to recommend the column where he assures his Uncle Chester that Harold Washington does not want to marry Uncle Chester’s sister).  How about another?

One column comes to mind every time the Cubs flop in the playoffs. It ran Oct. 6, 1989, two days after Will Clark and the Giants ruined the rest of my freshman year. (How’s that for overdramatic?)

Anyway, it would be funny if it wasn’t true:

Take my late father. He was not without vices. He sometimes drank, gambled, brawled and had an eye for a shapely leg. I could forgive him these minor character flaws.

But to this day, I cannot forgive him for taking me to Cub games at an impressionable age, hooking me on Herman, Hack, Jurges, Nicholson and Cavarretta. And telling me tales of Grimm, Hornsby, Wilson, Stephenson and other earlier heroes.

He didn`t tell me that I was going to have to live through Smalley, Jeffcoat, Miksis, Chiti, Dave Ding Dong, `69 and `84.

I suppose if there would be two others he should consider, here’s one.  It focuses on a member of Evanston Golf Club paying for a woman’s restroom on the course to satisfy his wife.

If the husband had been a purist, he might have said to his complaining spouse:

“My dear, it is your good fortune that we are financially able to belong to this very old and fine club. And, I must note, to play on a classic golf course designed by the late and revered Donald Ross, the finest architect of golf courses this country has ever known.

“Had Mr. Ross thought it necessary for there to be a lady’s bathroom on the back nine of his golf course, he would have put one there. Preferably located in a place that would have attracted errant shots that would have–we can only hope–conked the well-coifed heads of complaining females who don’t know how good they got it.

“But he didn’t. Obviously, he did not think a lady’s bathroom was essential to the creation of a fine golf course. In fact, I have scoured the writings of Donald Ross and I don’t think he has ever written one word about the proper placement of lady’s bathrooms. Cunningly located bunkers, yes. The devilish contour of greens, of course. But lady’s bathrooms? The master was silent on the subject. So who are we to question the genius of Donald Ross?”

I could go on and on with more and more Royko columns. (For example, the column he wrote lampooning Rupert Murdoch when Royko was just settling into the Trib Tower. Royko quit the Sun-Times when Murdoch bought it in 1984, and for a few days Murdoch sued the Tribune and ran past Royko columns, stating that Royko was merely “on vacation.)

I liked him when he was alive, but I really appreciate him now, especially when today’s Chicago newspapers are designed for people with attention spans shorter than five seconds and given the dearth of quality columnists today.

I look forward to this film.