The Hinsdalean - Community journalism the way it was meant to be

Sometimes I wonder whether Teri Goudie was a figment of my imagination. Surely, no one individual could embody so much love, energy and life. She was the stuff that tall tales are... — Updated 7/13/2022

Today is my husband's birthday (love you, hon!). He is a year older than me, but looks younger by virtue of his hair somehow remaining as golden as it was on our wedding day,... — Updated 6/9/2021

Everybody knew her. She was an icon, a mainstay, a beloved figure zipping down the street in her sleek little car with the personalized license plate, "BEEJ." You'd see her... — Updated 4/14/2021

Remember the old cliché about insanity - doing something over and over again, but expecting a different outcome? That's, frankly, kind of the way I've been behaving for the past... — Updated 2/17/2021

T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock once famously stated that he had "measured out (his) life with coffee spoons." In these parlous times, however, I've found myself measuring out my li... — Updated 1/13/2021

It seemed like 2020 just couldn't stop dishing out nasty surprises, so this summer I went rogue and took a 1,400-hundred mile road trip to Arizona with the kids and the dog. I'd not... — Updated 10/28/2020

You see them everywhere these days. Their names are Max, Tillie, Sadie, Dixie, Leo, Rocky, Pepper. They are joyful, bounding around on lawns, their entire little bodies vibrating... — Updated 9/2/2020

I'm going to be honest: the bloom is off the rose. I'm done with family time. What little attraction shelter-in-place once had for me is now gone. We can say how nice it is to slow... — Updated 5/27/2020

There's a funny meme making its way through social media these days, which reads: "Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined with the plague, he wrote King Lear." This... — Updated 4/8/2020

Back in the olden days, when I taught literature, I often began with a broad discussion of what "comedy" and "tragedy" mean. Broadly speaking, classical comedy is a structure; the... — Updated 2/19/2020

I’ve never actually met two of my best friends, though our friendship has lasted over 40 years. John Irving and Stephen King have been dear companions of mine since 1979. I met... — Updated 12/30/2019

In a recent community theater production, I portrayed a woman who has an affair. “Becky” loved her husband and son, endured a boring job with good humor and did not suffer in... — Updated 11/13/2019

“Wow, you look warm,” someone comments. This is a frequent occurrence for me. Neither dewy nor glowing, I simply appear uncomfortably hot. Which, in fact, I am. But there’s a... — Updated 9/25/2019

I recently read about a study that investigated the relationship of human happiness to random social contact. Scientists found that even momentary social interaction with a... — Updated 9/20/2019