Vacationing with books, bikes, ticks and dirty tricks

One of the joys of a summer vacation is cozying up with a good book. It's even better when an old friend unexpectedly pops up on Page 337.

Jack Mabley, or at least an excerpt from one of his columns during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, appears in Rick Perlstein's historical, political book "Nixonland." Jack, whose legendary newspaper career included more than 16 years as a Daily Herald columnist before his death in 2006 at age 90, shows up a couple of times in the book, which attempts to explain the divisive nature of politics and our nation.

Jack covered that turbulent '68 convention round-the-clock from the seat of a bicycle, and his fair and honest reporting drew praise from the Chicago cops and the protesting Yippies.

My family logged some time on bicycles during last week's vacation to Wisconsin, but the wildest things we saw were a large, red-topped, pileated woodpecker and a family of wild turkeys. The one thing we were grateful we did not see was a Lyme disease-carrying tick.

Wisconsin is the Midwest hot spot for Lyme disease, a debilitating and mysterious illness that can cause joint and muscle pain, fatigue and other problems. Cases of documented Lyme disease in Wisconsin have jumped from 740 in 2003 to 1,466 in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Illinois reported only 110 cases in 2006. But we have seven times the number of mosquito-borne cases of West Nile virus as our neighbor to the north. I get itchy just typing this stuff.

While it sounds like some sort of disgusting pimple on the side of a perch, a "fish boil" is one of Wisconsin's trademark dining experiences right up there with the bratwurst. My family thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Door County's famous White Gull Inn, but a fish boil doesn't seem any more complicated than grilling a brat. The "master boiler" throws little red potatoes, chunks of fresh whitefish and five pounds of salt into a 10-gallon pot of boiling water, and tosses kerosene on the flames to make the pot boil over and spill the oils floating on top of the water.

Much more difficult than being a master boiler is the job of musician Lou Close, who patrols the restaurant playing tunes on his accordion. He nailed every Broadway tune and the Wisconsin fight song but didn't know any of the accordion works of kid-requested Weird Al Yankovic. When I suggested a Beatles tune instead, he responded by playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

Probably just a Brewers fan who thinks adding pitcher C.C. Sabathia will enable Milwaukee to catch the Cubs.

Even though we were in Wisconsin, we saw more Cubs fans than Brewers fans. Heard them, too. While I used to enjoy "people watching," I'm now just as entertained (if not more so) by "people listening."

"I've given you 13 years, and you can't even give me one holiday weekend," growled one lonely, and very angry, woman into her cell phone while I stood 2 feet away on the sidewalk. I imagined that she had been having one of those long and fruitless relationships with a married man.

People act as if being on a cell phone makes them invisible to the outside world. They talk about nasty rashes, sex partners and other intimate details of their lives. But the most interesting conversation I heard was face-to-face at a beach. After discussing ticks, Lyme disease, a fatty tumor that people mistakenly think is cancer, and a publisher's apparent reluctance to snatch up a just-completed autobiography, two women talked about how they require a religious outlet that isn't too strict.

"You see," one woman confessed, "I occasionally like to smoke a cigar."

"So do I," the other woman responded. "There is nothing in the Bible against smoking a cigar."

"Oh, no," concurred her companion. "I think Noah smoked a pipe."

I don't pretend to be an expert on the ark, but I can't imagine Noah risking all his hard work in rounding up two of every animal (and making sure those pileated woodpeckers weren't two males) by lighting up in a wooden boat filled with dry straw. If he had to have tobacco, Noah might have chewed.

"A lot of them smoked," the second woman said, referring to the Twelve Apostles. "And Jesus didn't smoke, but he was a drinker."

My Bible doesn't even remotely suggest that Jesus was what I'd call "a drinker," but it does seem logical that Jesus didn't condemn people who drank. After all, with all the power of heaven and earth at his disposal, Jesus did spend his first miracle turning water into wine.

Which brings us back to this miraculous (in my opinion) story from the suburbs. Last fall, I wrote about a bunch of high school kids taking on problems from needy people in the suburbs to the horrors of Darfur. Drawing strength and connections from her All Saints Lutheran Church in Palatine and the Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Fremd High School senior Kellie Kinsella founded a charity called Youth Hunger Opposition in Palatine.

Using bake sales and the like, she and her friends set lofty goals. Then they exceeded them.

The kids raised $112,000 and have made a real difference in the lives of the 180 families each month who need help from the Palatine Township Food Pantry.

That's a story that would have pleased Jack Mabley, who privately gave more to charity than anyone I've known.