The Northwest Suburbs of Chicago are HOT!

Adrian Gunawan, of Arlington Heights, is a finalist in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Picture from SpellingBee.com.

The Keith Sluga Family of Arlington Heights tossed out the first pitch at Wrigley Field this year, which was especially significant as this is Year One of the Ricketts' ownership of the Cubs. Michael Ventrella from Bartlett became half the man he used to be to win The Biggest Loser. Then Lee DeWyze, from Mt. Prospect sang his way into America's hearts to become the newest American Idol winner. On the same day, Jonathan Spector, from Arlington Heights, was named to the USA World Cup Team. Olympian Evan Lysacek from Naperville came took second on Dancing With the Stars. Yes, April and May were big months for the Northwest Chicago Suburbs.

Of course, we can't forget that Glee was created by Ian Brennan, an alum of Prospect High School and formerly of Mt. Prospect. Academy Award Winner Marlee Matlin is an alum of my alma mater, John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. Brian McBride, of the Chicago Fire, hails from Arlington Heights and graduated from Buffalo Grove High School (and shares a birthday week with me). I could go on, but I won't.

Who's the newest celebrity to come out of the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago (namely Arlington Heights)?

Adrian Gunawan is a finalist in the Scripps National Spelling Bee! Adrian is an 8th grader at South Middle School in Arlington Heights and secured his place in the finals by correctly spelling "villicus." For those of you unfamiliar with "villicus," it's a Latin word meaning "pertaining to an estate, overseer, steward." Look it up if you don't believe me.

Anyway, it's pretty cool that Adrian is in the Championship Finals. It's in Washington DC and will be televised on ABC tonight. Ya, I'm a geek and I'll be watching. Because although I don't understand hockey, I do understand spelling.

There must be something in the water here that we keep producing all these super cool people who achieve so much.

All this brings back memories of my own spelling bee days at Thomas Junior High (also in Arlington Heights). Somehow I made it to the round where the parents were invited to watch and I lost in the first round. My word was "beagle." Fortunately, today I have spell check.

Go Adrian!

Update 8:33pm: Adrian lost in Round 8, tying for 2nd place with 2 other contestants. Nice job Adrian! The 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion is Anamika Veeramani from North Royalton, OH. The winning word was "stromuhr" which measures the amount and speed of blood flowing through an artery. Yes, really.

Kids Do the Darndest Things

As I've talked about before, there was a time when I was growing up that we lived on food stamps and got help from the local food pantry. I was in 8th grade and I was a student at Thomas Junior High in Arlington Heights, now Thomas Middle School. At the time, I don't remember ever doing things like food drives, although I guess we did. If we did, however, we all just brought a few cans to school and that was the end of it. We most certainly did not take time out of school to form a human chain to the Wheeling Township Offices and Food Pantry, which like today, were located just down the street from my school.

Having gone to the food pantry as a kid because we needed food and now being a regular donor, my heart swelled with pride in today's youth when I read this story about the students at Thomas Middle School. 872 students and 101 faculty and staff collected over 5,000 cans of food - more than double what they collected last year. WOW.

Summer is one of the hardest times for food pantries. Donations are down and demand is up. Demand is up because parents who rely on the free or reduced-fee breakfast and lunch programs to help them stretch their meager food budgets (usually food stamps) are suddenly without that supplement when school ends in early June.

I'm delivering a box of food to Wheeling Township tomorrow and I'll be bringing extra veggies from my garden later this summer. If we all just add a few extra items to our carts every time we shop for groceries, it's not a strain on anyone's budget and in no time we'll have a full bag to drop off at the food pantry. Many stores run "buy one, get one free" specials and these are great times to get extra items at no cost.

Will you join me in collecting food for your food pantry this summer? If less than 900 middle school kids can donate more than 5,000 cans of food, what can we do?

Read the article below and watch the video.

Arlington Heights students make dent in need at food pantry
By Deborah Donovan, Daily Herald Staff, May 29, 2009

Is it a world's record if 872 middle school students and 101 staff members pass cans and other nonperishable food items they've donated from hand to hand for at least five blocks?

The students at Thomas Middle School, 1430 N. Belmont Ave., Arlington Heights, collected more than 5,000 containers of food, and Friday they stretched out from the school door to a truck waiting across the street from the Wheeling Township Food Pantry, 1616 N. Arlington Heights Road.

While village authorities let them block streets like E. Lynnwood Ave., closing Arlington Heights Road during the morning rush hour was not an option.

The school is hoping to create a new category for the Guinness Book of World Records, said Jason A. Dietz, assistant principal: Longest human chain passing food.

The weather was gorgeous, the students were only getting out of homeroom, but things were more complicated than you might think.

Believe it or not, the food--two or three times what they collected last year -- did not move in a smooth-flowing chain. Miscues caused cans and boxes to fall to the grass or sidewalk. Sometimes nothing seemed to be coming down the line, but then Danielle Stasik, 13, was juggling so many items that a classmate popped one into the hood of her sweatshirt.

Small groups of students -- usually eighth graders like Abbey Groves, 14, and her friends -- served as unofficial quality control experts, pulling out damaged cans and packages. Groves also pretended to confiscate a box of tea when she noticed it was her favorite brand.

All kinds of nonperishable items were donated from tins of tuna to boxes of breakfast cereal and plastic bottles of syrup and of course cans of pork and beans.

"I'm collecting good dinner ideas," said Victoria Self, a teaching assistant who lives in Inverness. "I've never seen some of these brands."

All year the students sponsored projects that demonstrated kindness and compassion to others, said Dietz.

"The students and staff at Thomas have worked hard to start a 'chain reaction' of kindness and compassion for others," he said. "Creating a human hand chain and passing the cans allows everyone to be a part of something special."

My Boys

In junior high, John, Pete, Gary, and I were thick as thieves. Although I've known John since first grade and we grew up just a block apart, it took us until junior high to get tight. That's when Pete and Gary came into our lives. They were the kind of guy friends my parents trusted implicitly. My parents always knew that if I couldn't be found, I was probably off causing trouble with My Boys.

When I had an emergency appendectomy in 6th grade, Pete and Gary came to visit. When my parents split up a year later, the Boys were my rocks. John's parents were already divorced, so he knew what I was going through more than the others. John and I used to walk the mile home from junior high together regularly. I always knew that no matter what, I could count on My Boys to get me through.

One of my favorite memories of My Boys took place without me the summer after 7th grade. In what I'm certain was his effort to give us some normalcy even though there was no way he could afford it, my dad had taken Dave and me to Watervale for a week and my mom was home alone. At some point that first night alone, mom was woken up by incredibly loud noises and the sounds of all of the pipes rattling as the outside hose being turned on. Believing burglars were trying to break-in, she picked up the phone and called 911 without looking out the window.

Terrified by the horrendous sound of the pipes rattling, she sat on the floor of her bedroom whispering to the 911 operator and within a few minutes was told she can go to the front door and speak with the officers. No fewer than 6 squad cars had arrived from all different directions and when she opened the door, she saw the entire house and all the trees had been tp'd, lipstick had been used to write on the garage windows, and the hose was used to make it all that much more difficult to clean up. There may also have been eggs involved. She and the officers had a good laugh.

I'm sure she knew that John, Pete, and Gary were behind this hysterical prank, but they were no where to be found. The boys and I never spoke of it.

John and I have reconnected on Facebook in the last few months. He and his beautiful family are in town this weekend and we had plans to get together for some drinks tonight, but I've been really sick and had to cancel. One of the first things he said to me when we first reconnected was about a night he and Pete, and Gary tp'd my house. We had a good laugh because he didn't know they'd scared my mom so badly she called the cops. He has also apologized profusely, which I've assured him was entirely unnecessary. Truthfully, my mom thinks it was so funny that she tells the story to this day. "Jessica, do you remember that time when Dad took you and Dave to Watervale . . . . " is all I have to hear to know we're headed down the tp'ing path.

It's been 20 years since we've seen each other, but the thing about some friends is that you just pick up right where you left off. John is one of those friends.

Since I couldn't go out tonight, I've put John on notice that if my house gets tp'd tonight, I'm coming to find him early in the morning!

I Love Facebook!

For the 3rd or 4th time in as many months, I have reconnected with a long lost childhood friend through Facebook. And I don't mean that we found each other on Facebook, sent a friend request and now are Facebook Friends (TM). Yes, we've done that, but we've gone further and had real conversations and become part of each others lives again.

First, it was Laurie. We were good friends in high and on the cheerleading squad together. It turns out she's living back in the area and her sister owns Grand Cru Wine Merchants, a wine shop about a mile from my house.

Next, it was Paul. We've known each other since we were 6. The first thing he said to me when we reconnected was "do you still hate me for throwing that baseball through your sliding glass door"? For about a month in 1982 after my house burned down, we were back door neighbors. We chat a couple of times a week now after not speaking since high school. And, for the record, I don't hate him. I don't think I hated him then. But it's fun to laugh about that door, especially since no one got hurt. He now lives in California.

Tonight, it was Jeff. Again, Jeff and I have known each other since we were 6. We had fun catching up tonight and sharing all kinds of crazy memories (none of which I'm going to share here - sorry!). I think we both even learned a few things that we didn't know. Jeff is living in Lake Villa.

How did we find and reconnect with long lost friends before the Internet and Facebook? Thanks Al Gore.