Brooklyn

I did a double-take the moment I saw this and I predict you will also. Did you know that there are 25 Illinois cities with a higher crime rate than Chicago? It's true and I have the numbers to prove it.

Oh, we all celebrate on our birthdate, but the real people who should have been celebrating my birthdays over the years were my parents.

It is times like these that set one’s mind into overload and with that can come some creative vibes. One such vibe came to me as I sat down and pondered the world we now live in.

The Y101 Radio Morning Show took a direction the other day that I thought I would never go. The topic was goat milking. That's right goat milking.

In a world of shopping malls, mega markets, Walmarts and large grocery outlets, there sits in Quincy one of the last remaining small family-owned grocery stores in Winking Market at 416 South Fourth Street.

My, how the world has changed in my lifetime. As a kid in Brooklyn, New York, I could go out and play in the neighborhood. There was no fear of someone coming by and taking me away. Unfortunately, we don’t live in my past world and kids are being taken away. Such was the case of 10 year old Hailey Owens of Springfield, Missouri.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York so watching what is happening there as a result of Hurricane Sandy has more of an effect on me that most mid-westerners. To watch the Battery Tunnel and Battery Park fill up with water, to see some 90 homes in Queens go up in a huge blaze, to see the subways fill up and to see a total shutdown of the City of New York is beyond belief.