hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra biography
Dave Hoekstra has been a Chicago Sun-Times staff writer since 1985. His work has also appeared in Playboy magazine, the Chicago Reader and the Journal …
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Portland grows up, keeps its cool
PORTLAND, Ore. — A city is best experienced from ground level. Some of my most vivid neighborhood memories are of the embryonic years of Key West, Fla., Oakland, Calif., and even Wicker Park in Chicago. During the mid-1980s I lived in a graffiti-tagged, former heroin …Read More
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Old Town School: A new place to play
A trio of concrete panels highlight the exterior of the new Old Town School East Building, 4545 N. Lincoln Ave. The panels are bold and muscular in a Chicago way, but they celebrate the tender diversities of music.
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Philadelphia prison popular with tourists — could Joliet be next?
It is a place that celebrates the liberating expression of architecture, outsider art and even Bastille Day street parties. And it is a prison.
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No sibling rivalry in sight for White Mystery
Occupy the White house! Alex White and her brother Francis Scott Key White have done a mighty job of taking over their late grandmother’s two-flat in the northwest side Arcadia Terrace neighborhood. It’s the 82-year-old house in which they were born and raised. The first …Read More
Shipping out to Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
STURGEON BAY, Wis. — Shipbuilding is the right theme to launch a new year of travel. Metaphors ahoy! But the storied shipbuilding history of Sturgeon Bay is a well-kept secret. Battleships, yachts and cruisers have been built in Sturgeon Bay since 1856. There were five …
Camino de Santiago: Uniting will of spirit, work of flesh
DAVE HOEKSTRA: “The Way” is set and filmed along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. People have walked the route for a thousand years. True believers say the Camino lies directly under the Milky Way and reflects the energy from the star systems above it.
Iowa museum keeps on truckin’
WALCOTT, Iowa — A little trucker lives inside of all of us. We are coming and going, yet trying to settle in the moment during the holidays. True hearts rail against big wheels and gas bags. We like attention. “What kid hasn’t tried to get …
Musician Jessy Dixon dies
Singer and songwriter Jessy Dixon, whose extensive travels helped popularize gospel music outside the United States, has died.
Wisconsin town taps potential of revitalized Potosi brewery
DAVE HOEKSTRA: The four-story Potosi Brewing Co. complex in downtown Potosi, Wisconsin, reopened in June 2008. It’s now a big fish in the small pond of roadside attractions.
Michigan family’s Mountain Dew jelly creates buzz
DAVE HOEKSTRA: I can think of one thing better than drinking Mountain Dew. That would be eating Mountain Dew. The yahoo lasts longer.
Sun Studio wants to help landmark Chess Records attract tourists
DAVE HOEKSTRA: Howlin’ Wolf was a mountain of a man. His voice sounded like bald tires spinning on rough gravel. Wolf is regarded as part of the Mt. Rushmore of Chicago’s Chess Records, along with Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Willie Dixon. But Wolf debuted in 1952 with Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn. The spirit of Sun Records could be coming back to Chess Records.
High on a hill, Dubuque calls to me
DAVE HOEKSTRA: I couldn’t afford to travel to San Francisco this summer, so I settled for the next best thing. Dubuque, Iowa. Why not? Dubuque is the San Francisco of the Midwest.
Norfolk theater remains a must-see attraction
NORFOLK, Va. — Like the form of a fine guitar solo or the pacing of a Nat King Cole ballad, there is space for dreams at the Crispus Attucks Theatre. The Attucks is the oldest African-American-operated theater in America. Opened in 1919, the red-brick palace …
Earth,Wind & Fire stand test of time
DAVE HOEKSTRA: Earth, Wind and Fire took its name from elemental qualities. And it was the elements of thunder, wind and and lightning that forced cancellation of the Chicago-born band’s June 21 concert at the Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island. The concert is scheduled for a re-do July 27.
Paul McCartney’s trip to Wrigley recalls Beatles’ ballpark blitz
Paul McCartney last appeared in a Chicago baseball stadium on Aug. 20, 1965. He was 23 years old. The wide-eyed Beatles bassist-guitarist played on a 25-by-25-foot plywood stage set up near second base at the old Comiskey Park.
Lucy the Elephant’s animal magnetism looms large
DAVE HOEKSTRA: Lucy the Elephant sits along the Atlantic Ocean just south of Atlantic City, N.J. She is America’s oldest roadside attraction. She was born in 1881 and has been a restaurant, cottage and saloon (closed by Prohibition).
Jimmy Buffett remembers time he hung with Chicago’s folk heroes
Like fireflies in a jar, the characters on the cover of Steve Goodman’s “Somebody Else’s Troubles” record were captured in the summer of 1972. It was always summer when Jimmy Buffett and Goodman got together.
Tomah, Wis., well served by ‘Mr. Ed’s’ supper club
DAVE HOEKSTRA: Mr. Ed’s Tee Pee Supper Club owner Allan “Ed” Thompson remembers sharing a lonely Thanksgiving dinner — made up of leftovers from the neighbors — with his German shepherd, Ace. It was 1992. Times were beyond tough.
Dave Matthews Band Caravan: biggest South Side event since ‘33
DAVE HOEKSTRA: The Dave Matthews Band Caravan is the biggest single South Side entertainment event since the 1933 World’s Fair. Nearly 30,000 music fans came out on Friday to the former site of U.S. Steel’s South Works for the show.
Lucy the Elephant’s animal magnetism looms large
DAVE HOEKSTRA: Lucy the Elephant sits along the Atlantic Ocean just south of Atlantic City, N.J. She is America’s oldest roadside attraction. She was born in 1881 and has been a restaurant, cottage and saloon (closed by Prohibition).
