September/October 2018 Newsletter
Don’t forget to visit our website at rifca.net
Bruce Squillante - Newsletter Editor
Bruce Squillante - Newsletter Editor
July 4, 2018 Celebration
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River Forest Community Estate Sale
by Bruce Squillante
On August 10-11, we had a wildly successful Community Estate Sale that attracted tons of people to the Clubhouse to take in the bargains and great items for sale. But that is getting a little ahead of ourselves. In the weeks leading up to the sale, Bruce and Julie Squillante (and children) were hard at work preparing the Clubhouse and the items that would be sold. The office chairs were cleaned. Julie sanded down several end tables, then stained or painted them to look almost new. In the case of the dining table with tile top, Julie and Bruce first had to remove the caulk between the tiles. Julie sanded the top, then replaced the caulk with much nicer looking grout. After repainting the legs and restaining the top, the table looks new again. The Squillante children help set up the tables and organized the items for the proper flow of products. They then put over 350 record albums in alphabetical order for ease of viewing by our guests.
A successful estate sale would not be possible without a team effort. During the sale Henry Burden, Robin Evans, Rich Abraham, and Dick Kennedy helped with the flow of guests and at checkout. During the slow times each day, Bruce and Julie would listen to the many stories of River Forest history or current events affecting us. The time went by quickly and that helped make for a fun time for all.
Candidly, there was some skepticism about having an estate sale during the summer. Surely the lower crowd numbers would affect our success. However, Bruce and Julie looked at the challenge in a different light. There was so much in the Clubhouse to sell that any money we brought in would be a bonus for RIFCA and open space for more donations. Storage room A remains packed to the ceiling and we are sure to have another ginormous and successful Rummage sale in November.
So what kinds of items did we have at the estate sale and what sold. We sold half of the remaining professional chairs Bruce brought from his old office. The last remaining file cabinet also sold. Every stapler, letter opener, and most magnets we put out for sale were gone the first day. We also sold many other chairs, household items, and appliances. Sadly the tile top dining table Julie spent so much time on did not sell, but it is a beautiful piece someone will purchase at the Rummage sale if not sooner.
Our final tally was just over $1,300. That’s not too bad considering that we did not sell any clothes, jewelry, baked goods, lamps, or major pieces of furniture. If you stopped by to purchase any items….thank you. There are still a lot of items in the lanai for sale.
Of course, the Rummage sale in November awaits.
A successful estate sale would not be possible without a team effort. During the sale Henry Burden, Robin Evans, Rich Abraham, and Dick Kennedy helped with the flow of guests and at checkout. During the slow times each day, Bruce and Julie would listen to the many stories of River Forest history or current events affecting us. The time went by quickly and that helped make for a fun time for all.
Candidly, there was some skepticism about having an estate sale during the summer. Surely the lower crowd numbers would affect our success. However, Bruce and Julie looked at the challenge in a different light. There was so much in the Clubhouse to sell that any money we brought in would be a bonus for RIFCA and open space for more donations. Storage room A remains packed to the ceiling and we are sure to have another ginormous and successful Rummage sale in November.
So what kinds of items did we have at the estate sale and what sold. We sold half of the remaining professional chairs Bruce brought from his old office. The last remaining file cabinet also sold. Every stapler, letter opener, and most magnets we put out for sale were gone the first day. We also sold many other chairs, household items, and appliances. Sadly the tile top dining table Julie spent so much time on did not sell, but it is a beautiful piece someone will purchase at the Rummage sale if not sooner.
Our final tally was just over $1,300. That’s not too bad considering that we did not sell any clothes, jewelry, baked goods, lamps, or major pieces of furniture. If you stopped by to purchase any items….thank you. There are still a lot of items in the lanai for sale.
Of course, the Rummage sale in November awaits.
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How I Learned to Eat Almost Anything and To Impress the Girls
by Gene Hamilton
by Gene Hamilton
A few days ago, I was sitting in front of my flat-screen TV, watching Netflix and eating an avocado. My breakfast, coffee cup was almost empty. I sat back wondering how did this happen? Where are the Cheerios and toast with marmalade?
Like most of us, my diet began with whole milk, unpasteurized, warm and available on demand; tasty but monotonous. When I grew from a chubby, cooing baby to a toddler my parents thought it was time to introduce me to new fare. They placed me in a wooden, hand-me-down highchair, mostly for their protection and to help control where the spilt milk and spent food landed. My diet included Gerber’s rice cereal and meal sized jars of mashed potatoes with peas, mashed pears with peaches, and eventually, mashed potatoes with liver.
They observed several guidelines: If it came in a jar, it was probably OK; if it was mashed, it was OK; and if it contained extra iron, i.e. liver, it was “good for me.” My parents or grandparents would feed me till the food started flowing backwards or the tell-tale aroma of outflow on the other end alerted them that it was “time to stop.” Someone would volunteer, “I think it is your turn to change him.” By eighteen months, I was eating table food of many kinds. My mother was the daughter of a grocer. And everyone knows that the grocer’s family eats the food that goes unsold, that is overripe or is “on the turn.” This was long before “best by dates.” I learned at an early age food is still edible even though it will not sell. A soft, black banana goes into banana bread and a loaf of bread, that has a little mold around the edges, is trimmed and baked into bread pudding.
Meal time rules were clear and, if misunderstood, were repeated. “Finish everything on your plate. If you take it, you eat it. And you must eat a little of everything. You might like it.” I remember the occasional rebellion of my brothers and sisters. After we had cleared the table and washed the dishes, my brother Jack would remain the sole resident of the dining room table. He would be moving the peas around with his spoon, hoping that they would magically disappear. Usually with the passing of an hour, they did, but not by magic.
But, even I had trouble with some foods; among them baked Butternut Squash, too hard to separate the flesh from the skin with a spoon, and spinach, it tasted yukky and sometimes it was too sandy for my taste. But I soldiered on because spinach was good for me, “it contained a lot of iron” and it would put “hair on my chest.” During my high school years, I was responsible for making my lunch. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were easy to make, but eventually they became boring.
It was during high school, that I started to develop a reputation that I could eat almost anything. My sandwiches were combinations of the unusual. My friends would ask, “What do you have today?” I’d open my lunch box and show them a toasted peanut butter sandwich with a ring of pineapple instead of jelly, or a container of watermelon topped with ketchup. My culinary antics became a game of having the most outlandish and unimagined lunch. It was preparation for what was to come.
I was introduced to “foreign food” because my mom liked Chinese dishes. On special occasions, we would go out for egg-foo-young, chop suey, and leche nuts. When my Japanese college roommate took me to his uncle’s restaurant on Chicago Avenue, I learned how to eat with chop sticks. I saw a pan of suki-yaki boiling before me and I saw him break a raw egg into a bowl of hot steaming rice and I watched as he mixed the meat and vegetable from the boiling water with his, now, partially cooked egg on rice and I did the same. Not so bad.
At the age of twenty-five, in nineteen sixty-seven, I met the cutest resident at Cook County Hospital. Her name was Sumiko Ts’kamura. It was our second date and, if I passed, there might be a third. We were going to a Chinese restaurant of her choosing. She had preordered our food and, when we arrived, she was greeted like Dolly returning to Maxime’s. After she poured our tea, the waiter placed a platter of a whole, steamed fish with black bean sauce between us. Everything was there except the scales and the guts. This was a new game for me. Sumi knew the rules, I didn’t.
With a practiced hand, she used her chopsticks to separate the meat from the bones, then gave me the first portion. Before long, it was my turn to do the same for her. I was not as skillful, but I passed the chopstick test. Finally, all that remained was the bones and the head. I thought we were finished, but it was not so. She used her chopsticks and plucked out the eye. “Gene, would you like the eye?” I thought, “Oh My God, what do I do now?” I felt like a defendant before the prosecutor, “What did you know? When did you know it? And what did you do about it?” I did not know what hung in the balance, but I knew it made a difference. I gave a considered and deferential answer. I said, “Sumi, I think you will enjoy it more.” The answer was accurate and honest. Later, I learned that I passed the eyeball test and that I impressed the girl. Within sixteen months, we would be married.
I have since learned to accept the eyeball with grace, to enjoy the sweet taste of the muscles surrounding it and to place the inedible, marble-like lens back in my napkin. I have impressed my Japanese hosts as well.
A week ago, I went to our new Lidl grocery store and put three bags of black cherries in my cart. I saw one of the produce girls working at a refrigerated case and went over to ask her about another variety of cherries. Instead of being dark red, they were pink and orange. I asked, “Do you know where these come from?” About eighteen years old, she replied, “Oh no. I don’t know anything about cherries. I’ve never eaten a cherry.” I thought, “How could that be? How sad.” I reached into my cart and plucked out a sweet, dark cherry from one of the bags. I handed it to her. Then she asked, “Does it have a pit?” I said, “Yes.” She put it half-way into her mouth and took a bite, smiled, and after a moment said, “It tastes good.” Then she ate the rest of it. The words from my past come back to me. “Try it, you might like it. You have to eat a little bit of everything.”
Like most of us, my diet began with whole milk, unpasteurized, warm and available on demand; tasty but monotonous. When I grew from a chubby, cooing baby to a toddler my parents thought it was time to introduce me to new fare. They placed me in a wooden, hand-me-down highchair, mostly for their protection and to help control where the spilt milk and spent food landed. My diet included Gerber’s rice cereal and meal sized jars of mashed potatoes with peas, mashed pears with peaches, and eventually, mashed potatoes with liver.
They observed several guidelines: If it came in a jar, it was probably OK; if it was mashed, it was OK; and if it contained extra iron, i.e. liver, it was “good for me.” My parents or grandparents would feed me till the food started flowing backwards or the tell-tale aroma of outflow on the other end alerted them that it was “time to stop.” Someone would volunteer, “I think it is your turn to change him.” By eighteen months, I was eating table food of many kinds. My mother was the daughter of a grocer. And everyone knows that the grocer’s family eats the food that goes unsold, that is overripe or is “on the turn.” This was long before “best by dates.” I learned at an early age food is still edible even though it will not sell. A soft, black banana goes into banana bread and a loaf of bread, that has a little mold around the edges, is trimmed and baked into bread pudding.
Meal time rules were clear and, if misunderstood, were repeated. “Finish everything on your plate. If you take it, you eat it. And you must eat a little of everything. You might like it.” I remember the occasional rebellion of my brothers and sisters. After we had cleared the table and washed the dishes, my brother Jack would remain the sole resident of the dining room table. He would be moving the peas around with his spoon, hoping that they would magically disappear. Usually with the passing of an hour, they did, but not by magic.
But, even I had trouble with some foods; among them baked Butternut Squash, too hard to separate the flesh from the skin with a spoon, and spinach, it tasted yukky and sometimes it was too sandy for my taste. But I soldiered on because spinach was good for me, “it contained a lot of iron” and it would put “hair on my chest.” During my high school years, I was responsible for making my lunch. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were easy to make, but eventually they became boring.
It was during high school, that I started to develop a reputation that I could eat almost anything. My sandwiches were combinations of the unusual. My friends would ask, “What do you have today?” I’d open my lunch box and show them a toasted peanut butter sandwich with a ring of pineapple instead of jelly, or a container of watermelon topped with ketchup. My culinary antics became a game of having the most outlandish and unimagined lunch. It was preparation for what was to come.
I was introduced to “foreign food” because my mom liked Chinese dishes. On special occasions, we would go out for egg-foo-young, chop suey, and leche nuts. When my Japanese college roommate took me to his uncle’s restaurant on Chicago Avenue, I learned how to eat with chop sticks. I saw a pan of suki-yaki boiling before me and I saw him break a raw egg into a bowl of hot steaming rice and I watched as he mixed the meat and vegetable from the boiling water with his, now, partially cooked egg on rice and I did the same. Not so bad.
At the age of twenty-five, in nineteen sixty-seven, I met the cutest resident at Cook County Hospital. Her name was Sumiko Ts’kamura. It was our second date and, if I passed, there might be a third. We were going to a Chinese restaurant of her choosing. She had preordered our food and, when we arrived, she was greeted like Dolly returning to Maxime’s. After she poured our tea, the waiter placed a platter of a whole, steamed fish with black bean sauce between us. Everything was there except the scales and the guts. This was a new game for me. Sumi knew the rules, I didn’t.
With a practiced hand, she used her chopsticks to separate the meat from the bones, then gave me the first portion. Before long, it was my turn to do the same for her. I was not as skillful, but I passed the chopstick test. Finally, all that remained was the bones and the head. I thought we were finished, but it was not so. She used her chopsticks and plucked out the eye. “Gene, would you like the eye?” I thought, “Oh My God, what do I do now?” I felt like a defendant before the prosecutor, “What did you know? When did you know it? And what did you do about it?” I did not know what hung in the balance, but I knew it made a difference. I gave a considered and deferential answer. I said, “Sumi, I think you will enjoy it more.” The answer was accurate and honest. Later, I learned that I passed the eyeball test and that I impressed the girl. Within sixteen months, we would be married.
I have since learned to accept the eyeball with grace, to enjoy the sweet taste of the muscles surrounding it and to place the inedible, marble-like lens back in my napkin. I have impressed my Japanese hosts as well.
A week ago, I went to our new Lidl grocery store and put three bags of black cherries in my cart. I saw one of the produce girls working at a refrigerated case and went over to ask her about another variety of cherries. Instead of being dark red, they were pink and orange. I asked, “Do you know where these come from?” About eighteen years old, she replied, “Oh no. I don’t know anything about cherries. I’ve never eaten a cherry.” I thought, “How could that be? How sad.” I reached into my cart and plucked out a sweet, dark cherry from one of the bags. I handed it to her. Then she asked, “Does it have a pit?” I said, “Yes.” She put it half-way into her mouth and took a bite, smiled, and after a moment said, “It tastes good.” Then she ate the rest of it. The words from my past come back to me. “Try it, you might like it. You have to eat a little bit of everything.”
Board Meeting
October 1
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Potlucks
October 6
December 1
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Snowbirds Dinner
October 27
Thanksgiving
November 22
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Rummage Sale
November 9-10
Donations to the Ronald McDonald House - Pop Tabs
Please save the pop tabs from your cans of soda/beer. Dick Kennedy collects them to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. If you let him know when you have a bag full, he will come and pick them up.
According to the Ronald McDonald House website, Advantage Metals buys the tabs at market rate and then makes a charitable contribution on top of that. Last year the pop tab program brought in $20,000. They even had a Pop Tab Pandemonium day earlier this year.
Contact Dick Kennedy to pick up your pop tabs.
According to the Ronald McDonald House website, Advantage Metals buys the tabs at market rate and then makes a charitable contribution on top of that. Last year the pop tab program brought in $20,000. They even had a Pop Tab Pandemonium day earlier this year.
Contact Dick Kennedy to pick up your pop tabs.
