Quote of the Day (Ward Just, on a Brutal Midcentury Chicago Winter)

“The winter of the year my father carried a gun for his own protection was the coldest on record in Chicago. The winter went on and on, blizzard following blizzard, each day gray with a fierce arctic wind. The canyons of the Loop were deserted, empty as any wasteland, the lake an unquiet pile of ice beyond. Trains failed, water pipes cracked, all northern Illinois was locked in, the air as brittle as a razorblade.”—American novelist and journalist Ward Just (1935-2019), An Unfinished Season (2004)

I came across this passage while hearing the news that a winter storm was coming toward the Northeast, where I live. The description was reassuring to me, in the sense that, even with more snow than we have gotten so far this winter, it’s not remotely like what Chicago has received in the past.

According to the National Weather Service, the coldest winter in Chicago history was 1903-04. However, I wonder if Just took a slight bit of proverbial poetic license in setting this in the McCarthy period in the early 1950s, the better to convey a sense of menace? (The lake is “unquiet,” the air like “a razorblade,” and there's that gun carried by the narrator’s father sticking out in the first sentence of the novel.)

(The accompanying image of Ward Just was taken Sept. 5, 2015 by slowking4.)

Quote of the Day (Ward Just, on the Aim of Art and Politics)

“I believe that the aim of art is consolation, and it is the aim of politics as well; the artist and the politician are brothers." —American novelist, short-story writer and journalist Ward Just (1935-2019), Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women (1979)

The accompanying image of Ward Just was taken Sept. 5, 2015 by slowking4.

Quote of the Day (Ward Just, on Why ‘Politics is a Delusive Trade’)

"Politics is a delusive trade. In his secret heart a successful politician believes he is truly loved. Not merely supported or well liked but loved. He is father to a constituency of children, and while some of the children may be obstinate or disobedient, none of them is beyond salvation." —American novelist, short-story writer and journalist Ward Just, Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women (1979)

By the end of this protracted primary season, we will see how many politicians will feel like the father of the prodigal son after the latter's return home--and how many will be left desolate by ingratitude "sharper than a serpent's tooth," as The Bard might say.

(Photo of Ward Just taken in September 2015 by slowking4.)