• There you are, toe on the line. Ready to leave shelter and plunge out into the rain. You’re going to hold that shipwrecked ruin of a cheap umbrella aloft like someone confident, someone prepared—someone dry. You’re also going to throw it away when you get to the parking garage. Except by then? You’ll have survived. You’ll have forgotten. It’ll go back into the bag. And it’ll happen again. 

    Words by STEVE HENDERSHOT, Founder, Cedar, Cathedral Narrative Studio, Chicago

  • I was finishing grad school at the University of Iowa when I scoured the Chicago Tribune help wanted section. The Tribune typically had zoned sections and the classifieds would not have been in the paper shipped to Iowa City, but a printers' strike meant just one edition of the paper. I spotted an ad for a reporter at Forbes magazine's Chicago bureau and applied. When I arrived in Chicago for the interview I walked up the street, anxiously looking for 410 N. Michigan, having no idea that it was the Wrigley Building. I worked there three years and later at the old, low-slung Sun-Times building through the Wrigley Plaza and also at the Tribune Tower across the street. I popped over to the Wrigley to visit a pal working in there and the elevator man/ front desk person, who I recognized, said, "Oh hello! It's been a while!" (In fact it had been like 20 years). 

    Words by JAN PARR, Freelance writer, Beverly Shores, Indiana 

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Taken in Stride Three
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Taken in Stride Five