Day of the Dead

This was a very unsettling mural on a building in residential southwest Chicago, Pilsen area, that my Irish eyes set upon recently. An awakened mummy trying to escape from the clutches and restraints of death. Freaky. Ghoulish. Very Halloweenish. What does it all mean, Basil?

Simply, the astounding artwork represents the Mexican festival of the year, Day(s) of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos, celebrated every November 1,2 coinciding with the Catholic liturgical calender of All Saints Day and All Souls Day respectively. However, isn't it a bit strange to be on a two day bender celebrating those that are dead. Hmmm, come to think of it, it's not such bad idea.

Seriously though, throughout the Hispanic world this festival is serious business with skull shaped candies, marzipan death figures and papier mache skeletons and skulls, all in honor of their beloved dead. "To the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the annual festival of the Day of the Dead, is an awakening of the dead who return each year to visit their living relatives- to eat, drink and be merry. Just like they did when they were alive." The candies, figurines, skeletons and even papa's favorite tequila or mezcal is put out on an "altar" or "shrine" of sorts for their annual return home.

Down the street from this sidewalk mural is the world reknown National Museum of Mexican Art. It just so happened that the museum was honoring this same festival. Within the gallery were "altars" of varying sizes, styles and messages for believers welcoming home their honored dead. It was truly fascinating. I saw one altar that displayed old grandpa's favorite Jack Tatum #36 silver and black jersey from the Oakland Raiders in the '70s. Even in the afterlife, Raider Nation rules.

So Basil, after being newly inculcated into the Day of the Dead world, I think I know what's going here. The Mexican spirit of living is so intense that they don't take anything lying down-even death. Death is part of life...so party on.

Cristo Rey High School in Chicago, Pilsen Area

Maybe you saw the piece on the CBS Sunday evening television staple, 60 Minutes, on the Cristo Rey High School Network. If you haven't, you need to cue up Cristo Rey on You Tube. And after seeing that piece and reading this blog and if you care at all about the education of our youth, you may feel the need to contact your Senator, your Congressman and Arne Duncan Secretary of Education and inform them about Cristo Rey's enlightened and revolutionary education program.

As you may know or will soon find out, the good folks at Cristo Rey know what they are doing in educating our young people over its fruitful 14 year history. Conversely, our government is seemingly feckless on how best to educate our youngsters as evidenced by its feeble history spanning generations. Want proof? Check out the latest stats on the US Public Schools by the Numbers as printed in the Wall Street Journal October 30, 2010:

1. 7,000 students drop out of high school every school day, for a total of 1.3 million students a year.
2. 12% of US public high schools produce nearly half of the nation's dropouts and 58% of black dropouts.
3. 50% of incoming ninth graders in urban high poverty schools read three or more years below grade level.
4. 39% of high school students reported spending one hour or less a week reading or studying in class in 2009.
5. 23% of new American teachers come from the top third of their graduating class.
6. 14% of new American teachers in high poverty schools come from the top third of their college class.
7. 100% of teachers in Singapore, South Korea and Finland come from the top third of their college class.

Sources: Alliance for Excellent Education, McKinsey & Co.

As the above alarming facts reveal, the American public school eduction is an unmitigated and unrelenting failure. President Obama bellowed for change two years ago. For education, nothing has changed. It's still a train wreck. Well, it's time for an apocalyptic change for our schools. Since government is hamstrung by powerful teacher unions and corrupt officials, let the private sector invoke the change. Enter Cristo Rey.

The founders of Cristo Rey discovered these same troubling facts and acted upon them years ago. Their program in educating impoverished youth is in effect every school day at the Cristo Rey High Schools around the country. It's not easy but the leaders at Cristo Rey and the students they educate are succeeding.

At the Chicago Cristo Rey High School in the Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen, the flagship school of the network, 538 young male and female Hispanic students march into school on-time and in uniforms all adhering to a strict set of rules of conduct and behaviour.

By design, Cristo Rey does not take the academic wonks of the neighborhood. They come from the middle of the pack. These hungry students come from families that average $34,000 annual income. (According to the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the poverty level for a family of 5 has a mean household income of $26,000.) The costs to educate one student at Cristo Rey is around $10,000/year. Well then, these obvious discordant numbers don't jive...they don't compute. How does this work? Let me briefly explain.

The Jesuits who run the Cristo Rey network came up with a novel approach. The students go to class four days a week and work one day a week. They work? Where? In Chicago, Cristo Rey made alliances with companies and corporations (ie., Ernst and Young, Black and Decker, R.R Donnelley, JP Morgan Chase and many others) that employs all 538 students for one day a week. These jobs are real working jobs. Not glamour jobs. They are entry level jobs. Mailroom. Receptionist. Messenger. The students are paid for their services. But the pay the student earns is not theirs, it is returned to the school as part of the tuition costs. The balance of the tuition costs come from grants and on average $2900 from the families own pockets. Cristo Rey felt that the program will work only if the families are invested financially and have some "skin in the game." Attendance does not seem to be problem at Cristo Rey. The families are committed and in turn the students to the Cristo Rey method.

To date, Cristo Rey Chicago proudly proclaims a 70% graduation rate. The students also learn the value of work and rigorous educational training. Granted Cristo Rey is not for everybody. 100% of the graduating senior class was accepted last year to college. Remarkable. Cristo Rey gave these students a platform to succeed and they seized upon it.

So, the bad news is our public school system remains broken with little hope. The good news is the alternative Cristo Rey network prospers amidst great daily challenges providing hope and dreams realized to the least amongst us. Thank God for Cristo Rey and for those getting paid, and, more importantly, for those doing two years of volunteer service to do God's work.

Only in America could this happen. God bless this country.

(Postscript: The picture above is of our son, Jack, in his classroom doing God's work as the Physics teacher, cross country coach and part time bus driver at Cristo Rey High School in Chicago.) Stay warm, my friend.

Shoreacres

Shoreacres. Lake Bluff, Illinois. Golf Course Architect: Seth Raynor. Est. 1916. Hole #15. Par 5. 478 Yards. Dogleg left with ravine left edge of fairway and crossing at second turn point.

Every once in awhile I come across a hidden gem, for me, in the world of golf. Shoreacres, quietly in the top 100 in the United States, is one such course. Located about a 90 minute train ride from Chicago's Ogilvie Station headed north along Lake Michigan to the Norman Rockwellish town of Lake Bluff.

Recently, on a gorgeous autumnal October morning, I made the trip north to see this little jewel. The course architect, Seth Raynor, is one with whom I am familiar. Knowing his body of work, I knew the trip would be worth the effort. I was not disappointed.

I grew up next to a Seth Raynor course in St. Louis, Missouri and have been fortunate to either have played or toured several of his fine courses: Camargo in Cincinnati, the old Dunes Course at Monterey Peninsula CC, Fox Chapel in Pittsburgh to name a few. Additionally, I saw his handiwork at courses on which he collaborated with the self-proclaimed father of Golf Course Architecture in the United States, CB Macdonald. Those old courses remain notable worldwide: National Golf Links, Fishers Island, Mid Ocean, Yale University and Shinnecock Hills redesign. High quality enduring projects all.

Seth Raynor graduated with a Civil Engineering at Princeton in 1898. With degree in hand, he established himself as a skilled and well respected local surveyor on Long Island...he had zero interest in golf.

As life evolved, golf serendipitously came to him in the form of CB Macdonald. As golf began to grow inn the USA, dreamers and visionaries like Macdonald needed skilled people to help make his dreams become reality. Macdonald hired Raynor who provided the intellectual muscle to make his vision work in the real world.

After years of working with the combative and egocentric Macdonald, Raynor went out on his own. After several successful solo projects as mentioned above, Seth Raynor was commissioned by Samuel FB Morse to route three courses for Del Monte Properties in the Pebble Beach forest. Two of the courses were for the Monterey Peninsula CC and other was for Cypress Point Golf Club. Unfortunuately for Raynor, he died suddenly from pneumonia at age 52 in 1926 and was replaced at inimitable Cypress Point by Alastair Mackenzie. In the world of "ifs and could haves", arguably, if Raynor lived Mackenzie would not have had the subsequent designs of Augusta National, Royal Melbourne, Crystal Downs and many others. Such was the cachet of the Cypress Point project for the designer of record.

In any event, Raynor's short career was rich as defined by his splendid work. Shoreacres remains one of Raynor's lasting legacies. For the true golfer, it is a joy to walk and play. Shoreacres topography belies its surroundings. Flatness and dullness prevails in most of Illinois. Yet, Shoreacres land was exceptionally created for golf. The topo rolls, heaves, dips, climbs and meanders as if one is on a nature hike in the woods. Across the 18 holes, I suspect, the elevation differential between high and low is no more than 50 feet but it feels like more. The fairways, the greensites and the bunker sites are all suited perfectly for what the land allowed. The subtlety of the contours and landforms that may have been marginally touched by man seems indistinguishable from the natural. The abundant treescape add a certain sense of enclosure on each hole which heightens the drama. And the ever-present serpentine and forboding ravine which effects 11 of the 18 holes was used brilliantly by Raynor in adding strategic and aesthetic value to the holes.

Raynor also introduced some folly into his courses. As an example, his #6 green at Shoreacres, an adjustable straightaway par 3 from 150-210 yards, has a two tiered green with a cross sectional valley that measures well over 20,000sf total. A putt over 200' is possible on that green. Now that's a folly!

The old traditional golf courses are wonderful creations. Shoreacres is 6305 yards from the tips. Short by modern standards but who cares about modern standards when you are in the presence of artistic genius. Thank you Seth Raynor for creating such terrific courses for our enjoyment.

Chubby

You may know of this man, Chubby Chandler, super agent to alot of European Tour Golf Professionals. If you don't, let me tell you what I know about him.

First of all, you gotta love someone who introduces himself as "Chubby" because he is. He's fat all around...like a bowling ball. He doesn't have a problem with it and it certainly hasn't held him back. In fact, his obvious chubbiness, baldness and ebullient comforting personality makes him irrespressible to all. Makes him nicely human...a mirror of his similarly flawed public. He just has a certain je ne sais quoi about him. You just wanna be around somebody like Chubby.

Chubby came from nothing. Breeding none. Advantages none. Education some. Worked hard every step of the way. Had athletic ability. Check out those snowshoe hands in the picture above. He played on the European Tour for 15 years. The Tour provided a modicum of success for him. Survivor he was. Prosperity not really.

After he left the Tour as a player several years ago, he opened an agency in his apartment representing professional golfers and other athletes. To fast forward, Chubby now represents some of the finest players in the world: Ernie Els, Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, to name a few.

This past July at The Open in St Andrews, Chubby rented the iconic Jigger Inn, a famous pub attached to the Old Course Hotel alongside #17 Road Hole. Chubby rented it for the entire week. Probably cost him upwards of 150,000pounds.

Throughout the week, Chubby wined and dined his guests and clients at the Jigger Inn. Business was brisk at the Jigger with Chubby working the room. Everybody wanted in to that venue. Chubby held the guest list. It was the hottest ticket in town.

As luck would have it for Chubby, one of his clients, Louis Oosthuizen from South Africa, won the prestigious Open at St. Andrews. Louis blew the field away by seven strokes. Louis's victory celebration was held at the Jigger Inn...all night long. Chubby presided.

Isn't it an interesting coincidence that the current rise of professional Euro golf dominance across the globe is coupled with the rise of Chubby's influence in that world? His fun approach to life seems to have filtered down to his clients. His clients play with a certain joie de vivre. They win trophies. While their American counterparts play with an IMG-like sterility. They cash checks.

So kudos to a fat man named Chubby who lives life the way it should be lived. As Red said to Andy in Shawshank Redemption, "get busy living or get busy dying." Chubby is very busy living these days.

2010, Year of the Euro

...not in money but in professional golf. 2010 was not kind to the "euro" as in money. Greece, Ireland, Spain, UK all contibuted to its collective malaise and near collapse of their monetary unit. But the "Euro" in golf, short form for European, was off the charts greatness. Go no farther than the recent picture above taken at St. Andrews during the Dunhill Links Championship. The conquering Euros hold three of the most coveted trophies in all of all golfdom: Martin Kaymer, a German, holding The Wannamaker, Colin Montgomerie, a Scotsman, holding The Ryder Cup and Graeme McDowell, a northern Irishman, holding the US Open. As an American, I say, "say it ain't so, Joe." Sorry Joe. So and true it is. And get used to it, Yank.

The Euros have replaced the Americans as the dominant force in professional golf. 2010 signaled a changing of the guard. With Tiger in shambles and his golf homies about as interesting as the NBC Nightly News, the Euros rule with flair, togetherness and a contagious personality.

Sure the Americans had their moments in 2010. Exactly two. Phil winning at Augusta. Emergence of rookie Rickie Fowler. And, hmmmm, what else? Well not much else. Professional golf in the USA all of a sudden is boring...lifeless. While the Euro golf world is the polar opposite. Fun, supremely talented and confident.

Honestly, do you get off watching Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar? They are about as exciting as two loaves of white bread. Give me Rory, Graeme, Ian, Padraig, Luke, Lee, Miguel, Paul, Molinari brothers, hell, even Monty, any day of the week. They are exciting, full of the dickens and life embracers. The Americans, on the other hand, spend alot of time looking at money lists, private jet schedules and bible verses.

So, as American fans, what shall we do? Appreciate the opposition and hope our guys loosen up and take note of the fact that the Euros play golf as a game not as a business. They have fun. Our guys look like they are going for root canals. Seriously, has Jim Furyk ever smiled on a golf course? Oh yeah, a couple of weeks ago when he won $11.5mil in the absurdly obscene and meaningless Fedex Cup finale, he managed a sly smile. Wow what a memorable millisecond of golf green theatre that was! Not.

Meanwhile back in Scotland, the Euros drank Guinness together out of the three championship cups at the Jigger Inn in between the incessant "ole, ole, ole" chants.

I could hang with those guys, how 'bout you?