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Lester Jacobson

Creative Writing and Journalism

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  • Journalism
    • Writing Memoir: The Gift to Yourself March 31, 2021
    • Take My Earth Day Challenge
    • Extra Perspective, March 18, 2021
    • For COVID-19 Heroes, Pandemic Takes a Big Toll March 5, 2021
    • My Long-lost Pipes March 5, 2021
    • The Age of Hybrid Feb.17, 2021
    • Writing Your Life Story Feb. 3, 2021
    • Happiness Jan. 20, 2021
    • Lucky Jan. 6, 2021
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    • Received Wisdom: Monroe Kaufman
    • Received Wisdom: Daisy McGee (1934-2013)

Author Archives: Lester Jacobson

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Take My Earth Day Challenge

Lester Jacobson Posted on April 14, 2021 by Lester JacobsonApril 14, 2021

Evanston RoundTable, April 14, 2021 Imagine a day dedicated to being nice. They could call it, “Don’t Be a Jerk Day.” One day a year everyone has to be jerk-free, has to restrain their Inner Jerk. The other 364 they can be as big of a jerk as they want. Ridiculous? Well-intentioned as it is, Earth Day has a similar issue. The implication is that on the other 364 days we can ravage, despoil, and desecrate our planet. Of course that’s ridiculous too, no truer than imagining we could treat our own homes like that. But the Earth is our home. Turns out other people agree. For years neighborhood groups have organized periodic clean-up campaigns in City parks. And now there’s not just Earth Day but Earth Week and Earth Month. April is Earth Month and April 18 to 24 – which encompasses April 22, the original and annual Earth Day – is Earth Week. In connection with this heightened environmental awareness the City of Evanston has launched a “Reduce Waste Challenge,” which includes composting, reducing trash, monitoring water usage, and more. There are additional components every week of the month. Check out the details at https://www.cityofevanston.org/about-evanston/sustainability/earthweek In addition, the … Continue reading →

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Writing Memoir: The Gift to Yourself

Lester Jacobson Posted on March 31, 2021 by Lester JacobsonMarch 31, 2021

Telling our story becomes almost a moral obligation, an imperative to save that life and to retrieve and preserve those memories from oblivion. Evanston RoundTable, March 30, 2021 Last week I gave a Zoom presentation sponsored by the McGaw YMCA about the value of writing. I acknowledged that the title—”Write As If Your Life Depends On it”—was an exaggeration, but not much. I maintained that writing was like a gift to yourself, because it could make you a better person. I quoted the great authors George Saunders and John Gardner to that effect. It was something I had originally heard in a writing workshop some 15 years ago from Russell Banks, another award-winning author. He said, “You are never better as a person than when you are writing.” At the time I was trying to embolden myself to write my first novel, something I had wanted to do since I was a kid. So the sentiment was heartening and encouraging. Still, what did it mean? I took it to mean the act of writing—of putting pencil to paper or fingers to keyboard or even lips to recording device—is one of the greatest cognitive activities we can pursue, calling on all … Continue reading →

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Extra Perspective

Lester Jacobson Posted on March 18, 2021 by Lester JacobsonMarch 18, 2021

Evanston RoundTable, March 18, 2021 I emailed this recently to my dear friend Fran: 1. Somehow my Apple ID got screwed up. 2. Many Apple phone calls and technicians later, it cannot be fixed without… 3. Appointment Friday afternoon at Apple store to wipe clean phone & computer & restore both to “factory settings.” I liken this to a double lobotomy, or possibly an Ishiguro novel. 4. I’m transferring my phone calendar to a paper calendar in case they can’t restore my calendar & contacts (and everything else) (God forbid). 5. I notice that I have your birthday on April 24 and April 25. Unless you were born at the stroke of midnight, this cannot be. 6. Please advise. Fran wrote back: “OMG! Everyone’s nightmare :( April 24 is the day.” I’ve known Fran since first grade. We’ve actually drawn closer in the last 20 or 25 years as I always make it a point, when I’m in New York City, to visit her at her upper west side apartment. Many’s the time we’ve gone out for lunch nearby or hiked through Central Park. The thing is, with respect to her sympathetic response to my tech issues, she is currently … Continue reading →

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For COVID-19 Heroes, Pandemic Takes a Big Toll

Lester Jacobson Posted on March 5, 2021 by Lester JacobsonMarch 5, 2021

We can’t thank these front-line hospital workers enough. All we can do is bear witness to their heroism, courage, and skills. Evanston RoundTable, March 4, 2021 Mary Elizabeth McDonough dreams about how she and her colleagues at NorthShore University HealthSystem will celebrate when the COVID-19 pandemic finally disappears. Ms. McDonough, a registered nurse and Evanston resident, works three 12-hour shifts a week at NorthShore’s Glenbrook Hospital COVID intensive care and step-down units, where she says she has witnessed or heard of more patient deaths than she can count. One of the doctors there has proposed a big celebration dinner when the times comes with her nurse and doctor co-workers. And when will that be? When enough people have been vaccinated to generate herd immunity, Ms. McDonough said. She’s not predicting when the joyful day will arrive. “It’s something we all dream about.” The Louisville native had just graduated with her RN diploma from Western Kentucky University before she and her husband relocated to Evanston in the fall of 2019 for his new job, a few months before the pandemic began to spread. She decided to volunteer for the COVID-19 intensive care and step-down wards at Glenbrook Hospital because, without children … Continue reading →

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My Long-lost Pipes

Lester Jacobson Posted on March 5, 2021 by Lester JacobsonMarch 5, 2021

Storied Stuff, Facebook, March 5, 2021 Lately I’ve taken up pipe smoking again. It’s a comforting habit, sitting at one’s keyboard gripping a pipe stem with satisfying resolve and expelling great clouds of white smoke like the Vatican announcing the new pope. It’s also a trifle ridiculous, since no one smokes a pipe anymore. It’s gone out of fashion. That wasn’t the case when I took up the habit in college. Over the years I built up a decent collection including a wonderful meerschaum, the sovereign of pipes. Meerschaums are made from soft white clay and maintain a cool, refreshing smoke right down to the bottom of the bowl. They darken as they age, acquiring a handsome golden patina. Aside from the meerschaum I had perhaps eight or nine other pipes, all attractive and “good smokers.” But then I stopped. I don’t remember when or why. My collection disappeared too. Did I sell it? Give it away? Unlikely, I’m a hoarder by nature. When I resumed pipe smoking a couple of years ago, I had to start a new collection. But somewhere around the house, I suspected, the old pipes were still squirreled away, just awaiting discovery. I even dreamt … Continue reading →

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The Age of Hybrid

Lester Jacobson Posted on February 17, 2021 by Lester JacobsonFebruary 17, 2021

Evanston RoundTable, Feb. 17, 2021 Change happens slowly, then all at once, Hemingway wrote in “The Sun Also Rises.” Take the National Health Service in Great Britain. Free nationwide health care had been debated in Parliament for decades, but it took World War II to make it happen. Once the war started and the Luftwaffe began raining German bombs down on English cities, health clinics were quickly established to provide free care. “The wartime period necessitated the creation of the Emergency Hospital Service to care for the wounded, making these services dependent on the government,” according to an article in “Historic UK.” The House of Commons in 1948 easily passed the bill that established the NHS, which has been described as “… the institution which more than any other unites our nation.” Much the same is happening here and now. After years of slow change in American customs and commerce, COVID-19 has had something like the impact of wartime. Great and sudden change is emerging as the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions force changes in the way we communicate, work, and learn. Combining the new with the old will result in a hybrid approach I call “The Age of Hybrid.” That’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | Tagged CDC, National Health Service, Zoom | Leave a reply

Writing Your Life Story

Lester Jacobson Posted on February 3, 2021 by Lester JacobsonFebruary 3, 2021

Evanston RoundTable, Feb. 3, 2021 Many years ago a colleague of mine mentioned that his mother had an interesting saying: you should always have more to look forward to than to look back on. At the time I was in my fifties or even sixties, well past the midpoint of my life. The view out the rear-view mirror was growing ever larger and the road ahead ever diminishing. But there was work, children, volunteer projects—in other words, plenty to keep me busy looking ahead. Now I’m halfway through my eighth decade and the rear-view mirror is the size of an Imax movie screen and ahead is a TV monitor shrinking by the week. Yikes. Still, until incapacitation sets in, I believe that no matter how old, there’s always plenty more to gainfully occupy one’s time. At the top of the list should be writing a memoir. There are many reasons why it’s important. For starters, writing is possibly the most wonderful, challenging, and healthy cognitive activity you can do. It engages every ounce of brain matter. As the author Russell Banks says, writing makes you the best person you can be, by tapping all your skills of imagination, discipline, and … Continue reading →

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Happiness

Lester Jacobson Posted on January 20, 2021 by Lester JacobsonJanuary 20, 2021

Sometimes life obligingly puts obstacles in our way. And sometime we have to create them in order to live up to our fullest potential. Evanston Round Table, Jan. 20, 2021 I recently asked some friends to tell me what happiness means to them. Is it something they do, or that is done to them? Is happiness possible to cultivate, or even possible at all in these difficult times? The answers were interesting and thoughtful. Neil, whom I’ve known and loved since high school, said, “Communicating well and being honest with yourself and doing your best to live the life that you want to live and that you’re comfortable with. Having love, affection, and meaningful communication with others.” “In these crazy times,” replied Laurie, a friend and former colleague, “the simplest things make me happy and appreciative: a walk in the park especially when the snow is gently falling and I can take peace in the quiet, Tuesdays and Thursdays when I get to spend the day with my grandson, working in the garden this past summer and those days when I can connect with family and friends to share smiles, laughter, and the hopes that we will soon be able to … Continue reading →

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Lucky

Lester Jacobson Posted on January 6, 2021 by Lester JacobsonJanuary 6, 2021

Luck has given me a passport to enjoy life, which I have been lucky enough to use to the fullest. Evanston RoundTable, Jan. 6, 2021 On New Year’s Eve I celebrated my 75th birthday. Being in general good health and good spirits, keeping busy but not overburdened with one fun thing and another, enjoying the friendship of good people from every stage of my life, and being close in proximity and devotion to my family, it was a day of great enjoyment. So-called “big birthdays” like three-quarters of a century are both eventful and mundane. They are “just another day” if viewed as the 27,393rd of them; or a fluke of our numbering system which in say a base-12 arrangement would have no special meaning at all. But of course we don’t signify our lives by the day or divide it by base-12: it’s years, and 75 is a big, round number of them that can’t help but inspire big, round thoughts. The biggest of which was: how lucky I am. Lucky to have been the child of caring, responsible parents who nonetheless left me alone to make my own way in the world. Lucky to have grown up in … Continue reading →

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The Essence of You

Lester Jacobson Posted on December 23, 2020 by Lester JacobsonDecember 23, 2020

We chip away daily to reveal and release the masterpiece within us. Evanston RoundTable, Dec. 23, 2020 Every person is unique, like a snowflake, a fingerprint, the ever- and infinitely changing ripples of water running through a stream. That uniqueness is a challenge and a gift, the likeness of you never seen before or ever after, like a custom-designed suit to be discarded after you are done wearing it. It should be one of our life’s missions to discover and live into that essence. There are two big hurdles. The first is to find it. That should be easy, you’d think, because it is there—our individuality, our personality, our being—inside us when we are born and carried with us throughout our lives, tempered of course by environmental forces. But surprisingly, that essence is not always easy to find, and many people resist it. They too readily assume the identity other people like their parents or siblings or peers assign them. Peer pressure is especially strong in the teen years, because young people are still growing into their life identities and are frequently confused by its emerging shape and scope. For a lot of kids it’s trial and error: trying out … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | Tagged Russell Banks | Leave a reply

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