December 22 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Anyone smelling like Jack Daniel's and Marlboros need not apply for the role of Santa Claus. That's not what fuels the man in red.
Santa doesn't have black-rimmed glasses and dark eyebrows. Nylon is for pantyhose and basketball nets, not beards. Wrapping black trash bags around your sneakers instead of using actual boots? Get real.
Being Christmas' master of ceremonies ain't easy. You have to curb your ego. You have to look the part. And what do you do when kids really do say the darndest things?
Santa pros say there's no room for hacks in the ho-ho-ho business.
"Most mall Santas don't have a clue about what's going on except snap, smile, snap, smile," said Phil Wenz, aka "Mr. Santa." "Anybody can do that. Why would Santa ask what your name is when he's been to your house for years? You have to get who this guy really is."
Wenz is a professional Santa Claus. It's his sole source of income year-round. He's learned enough in his 36 years of playing the part to separate the folly from the jolly.
These days Wenz spends much of his time working from his home in downstate Cissna Park as president of the Chicago Area Santas. The Santa-for-hire group works at many area malls and corporate parties. He and other professional Santas draw a clear line between quality Santas and guys just collecting a paycheck.
But there are some rifts among the pros about what constitutes quality. For instance, some say only Santas with real beards give an accurate portrayal.
"Dude, the beard is just like the belt and the boots," Wenz said. "Santa doesn't come from the outfit. There is only one Santa Claus. Who's ever in the costume at the time is the real deal. Santa comes from the heart."
Would-be Santas are quickly tested at malls, the North Pole's minor leagues. Failure there means never making it to the big time of private parties, nursing homes, children's hospitals and parades.
Chuck Geigner, a Lombard native, is an anomaly. His first Santa role is on the stage, starring in the Holiday Spectacular in downstate Bloomington. The part has the stress level of trading stocks on Wall Street. Flop and you break the hearts of hundreds of children.
The responsibility has taken its toll.
On Halloween, Geigner weighed 220 pounds. Now he's down to 211, the opposite direction for someone portraying the king of cookies and milk.
The responsibility hit him the first time he put on the suit. It was a publicity photo shoot for the Holiday Spectacular. After four days of taking Santa classes, Geigner put the costume on and stepped outside.
"All of a sudden there were horns honking and kids screaming, 'There's Santa!' " Geigner said. "When you put the suit on, you're Santa Claus. What does that mean? Well, it means a lot. I mean, tell me something bad about Santa. He's all that's good. Santa is the last best hope."
That means staying in character from the minute he shows up for rehearsal. After all, there are children co-starring with him in the Holiday Spectacular who really believe he is Santa.
"You have to go the whole nine yards," Geigner said. "You can't sneak into the corner and have a cigarette. You can't argue with your wife. It's an emotional high, but I come home completely wiped out."
The ability to make people smile just with your presence is hard to walk away from. St. Charles' most famous Santa, John Forni, has played Santa for 59 years straight.
The community has come to love him so much that it wouldn't let him retire a few years ago when his Santa suit was worn out. The community got together, bought him a new one and begged him to keep going.
Forni said next year will be his last year. He'll hang up his stocking for the last time at the age of 80.
Along with all the love and emotional highs come some tense moments. Just about every Santa has tales of woe when it comes to the things people want for Christmas.
Children trust Santa. So it's not unheard of for a little boy to ask Santa to make daddy stop hitting him, or talk mommy and daddy out of a divorce.
One year, Wenz put on his Santa suit and persona for an appearance at Children's Memorial Hospital. For the terminally ill, Santa's smile is one of their few joys. Maintaining a smile in the face of death is not something for the unprepared.
During his visit, a little girl, weak and dying of cancer, crawled up into Wenz's lap.
"Her only wish was that she didn't want to go into 'the box,' " Wenz said. "It dawned on me that she was talking about a casket. So I asked her what her idea of heaven was like. She told me, and I just said, 'Yes, sweetheart. That's exactly right.' "
Sometimes even the lighthearted requests are difficult.
Martin Chasen has photographed Santas at malls and parties for more than 20 years for SMC Photo Promotions in Deerfield. Every year, he puts on the suit at least once to stay in touch with what Santas deal with.
One year, that meant becoming Santa at a home for mentally disabled adults.
"This one woman sat on my lap, and we talked a little bit," Chasen said. "I eventually asked her, 'What would you like Santa to bring you this year?'
"She said, 'I want Santa to bring me a new man because Suzy stole my boyfriend.'
"Well, that's beyond the power of Santa."
So Chasen had to play the role of Dear Abby. He talked to her about the things she liked about her ex-boyfriend. Then he likened those to qualities in some of the other men at the home. The possibility of a new and better romance clicked.
"All of a sudden you could see it enlighten her," Chasen said.
Santas who can turn a bad situation like that around are a rarity. As such, they are in high demand and make good money.
Private gigs are where the cash is. Santas working a corporate party can get paid more than $50 an hour.
That's made for a pretty decent living for Wenz, who is in costume about 200 days a year.
His in-depth portrayal has put him in high-enough demand that he needs no other job. He lives off his Santa salary, using whatever he can to improve his suit and portrayal.
Wenz's Santa outfits are custom-made, costing $2,500 each. He uses real boots, a pricey yak hair beard and eyebrows and a $600 belt made with real gold and silver inlay over titanium.
But the glitz of the suit is not nearly as important as the quality of impromptu acting and the visit with the individual person, he said.
"Anybody can dress up like a clown, but not anybody can be Bozo," Wenz said. "You have to understand what makes this guy tick. You can only play Santa if you have the love in your heart."
Monday
Villages' leadership lacking in diversity
February 01 2004
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
By November 2002, Nick Teramani knew he was going to die.
Before it was too late, Teramani sat down with his friend Luis Mendez and said he wanted him to take his seat on the Prospect Heights City Council.
Mendez carried his friend's dying wish to the polls the following spring as a write-in candidate, and won. Barely.
By five votes, Mendez became a speck of pepper in a jar of salt. He is the only non-white city council member in the 19 suburbs that make up Northwest suburban Cook County.
The reasons are varied. Researchers and city officials say many minorities in the suburbs are struggling first-generation immigrants who don't have the time or money to get involved.
Others come here with an ingrained mistrust of government. Still others are frustrated by electoral systems that make it harder to elect minorities.
Yet advocates and community leaders who believe it's vital to get minority representation in municipal government are finding ways around the roadblocks - by creating a training ground on zoning boards, plan commissions and committees.
The issue is growing in proportion. Nearly 400,000 new immigrants came to the Chicago suburbs in the last decade, according to a Roosevelt University study. In Northwest suburban Cook County, that's resulted in twice as many Hispanics and Asians as there were in 1994, who now make up 20 percent of the population here.
Blacks haven't moved to the Northwest suburbs in large numbers. They represent 2 percent of the community.
"It's very awkward for us and these other government units to have the situation we have now where we don't have minority representation," said Hoffman Estates Mayor William McLeod, whose village is about 23 percent minority, Asian-American and Hispanic. "When you look at village boards, it's still 1975 in the Northwest suburbs."
But you can't elect minorities if they're not running for office.
Only two people of color ran for village boards or city councils in Northwest suburban elections in 2001 and 2003.
A cultural divide
Glenn Adams thought he'd made a breakthrough when several Hispanic residents who lived along Algonquin Road came to him, complaining about drivers speeding through their apartment complexes.
As the alderman of Rolling Meadows' heavily Hispanic 5th Ward, Adams explained they needed to come to a city council meeting and voice their concerns.
But this was also Adams' chance, he thought, to develop a conduit to the Hispanic community.
So he asked several residents from the apartments to meet with him to discuss problems in the area. They agreed. Adams hosted the meeting. No one came.
Adams shouldn't take it personally, says Victor Hernandez, president of the Association of Hispanic Municipal Officials. Lack of Hispanic involvement in government is deeply rooted, he said, not just here but in their native countries.
Most people with the time and resources to run for office are older, have college degrees and small families, which doesn't fit most first-generation immigrants, Hernandez said.
"The Hispanic constituencies are dealing with lower needs like paying the bills, making sure there's food on the table and keeping the lights on," Hernandez said.
Many also possess a general fear of government, he added. Many Hispanics have had bad experiences with police or government officials - both here and in their country of origin. Government becomes a necessary evil rather than something in which to participate.
That leads to few Hispanic role models in leadership roles.
Hanover Park Mayor Irv Bock, whose community is about 27 percent Hispanic, said he tries to persuade those he meets to get involved.
"I hear a lot of 'I don't have time. I have to work,'" Bock said. "No matter how much I say to somebody that (our government) is good ... they don't understand the concept of being active in the community."
Aside from economic and cultural issues, there are other barriers, said James Svara, a professor at North Carolina State University. Svara recently completed research on the diversity of America's city councils for the National League of Cities.
He found the percentage of minorities serving on city councils in America almost doubled from 1979 to 2001, from 7 percent to 13 percent. That lags well behind the minority growth rate.
Svara blames the gap partly on the suburban penchant for electing representatives "at-large," instead of the ward system used in large cities.
"To get your own members elected, you have to have allies," Svara said. "With at-large elections, the same majority can elect everybody."
In Rosemont, for example, one in three residents is Hispanic, yet the village board consists of seven Caucasians, all of whom live on the south side of town within about 200 feet of each other.
Village spokesman Gary Mack said Rosemont's leaders would be "delighted" to have direct representation from the Latino leaders of the community. But no one has stepped forward.
Instead, the village appointed Miguel Santiago, a former Chicago alderman, to be a liaison to its Hispanic community. Santiago said he maintains almost daily office hours at Rosemont village hall.
"Mayor (Don) Stephens wanted Hispanics to have a voice in city government," Santiago said. "It's very smart politics. The politicians who don't do it ultimately pay the price. I'm a Hispanic. I've suffered through, probably, the same things they've suffered."
But Hispanic residents won't see Santiago on the Rosemont village board anytime soon. Santiago can't run for office because he doesn't live in Rosemont.
Even where wards or districts are in use, such as in Des Plaines, Rolling Meadows, Prospect Heights and Palatine, the results are not all that different.
One in five people in Rolling Meadows is Hispanic and after the 2000 census, the city redrew the ward map, expanding the largely Hispanic 5th Ward by 4,000 people. Still, in 2003, Adams was the only candidate running.
Similarly, Des Plaines has no minorities on its city council despite a Hispanic population that now stands at 14 percent.
A few years ago, Palatine annexed land along Dundee and Rand roads heavily populated by minorities. The new territory was divided among three wards stretching almost the length of the whole village.
The northeast side of Palatine is represented by three Caucasians.
Planting the seeds
Some Northwest suburbs are slowly finding ways around the barriers.
Minority advocates are pinning their hopes on the children of immigrants, hoping they will cast aside their parents' fears as they learn civics and politics in school.
But that's the dream for the future. Local leaders say a more immediate solution is to bring minority residents into the system at the lower levels, by appointing them to boards, commissions and committees.
These are the breeding grounds for elected office, agrees McLeod, who said he finds good candidates, for instance, in the people who organize local block parties. School boards and township positions are much more sought after by minorities, attracting nearly 20 candidates in the past few years.
Miguel Fuentez is one such person. He sees his current seat on the Hanover Park Park District board as a launching pad to the village board.
In 2003, Fuentez ran for the park board, campaigning on the idea that the park district should appeal more to Hanover Park's Hispanic community. Fuentez lost the election, but when a seat on the park board opened up, he was appointed.
He believes Hanover Park needs his contribution. The village is 27 percent Hispanic; the village board is 100 percent white.
"The village is missing out," Fuentez said. "They're not hearing a whole side of town. With me, those people can talk to someone who understands them. "We've got to start somewhere. By keeping your opinions to yourself, nothing will change."
Mohinderjit Singh Saini isn't quite as ready to make the leap from Palatine's zoning board of appeals to the village board. Saini won his appointment after networking with village officials during planning for Palatine's 125th anniversary. He made enough of an impression to get on the zoning board when a spot opened.
"It's part of our civic duty to be involved in the community," Saini said. "Especially for us, the Indian community, it becomes more important to be visible because we do not have much representation."
Saini said he's lining up other Indian residents to volunteer when other government opportunities become available.
Professor Svara applauds the effort. City officials can't just wait for minorities to get voted into office, he said. They must provide opportunity. That includes advisory committees, direct outreach efforts and focus groups.
"The city staff needs to make their own effort to decide whether or not they're providing adequate opportunities for involvement," Svara said. "If nobody's showing up, then it's not working. You need to identify the leaders."
That's what Nick Teramani did in making Luis Mendez his heir apparent.
Mendez represents the city's mostly Hispanic 1st Ward. The ward system worked in his case. Prospect Heights, as a whole, is about 28 percent Hispanic.
Driven by a friend's dying wish, Mendez forced himself past the cultural barrier and the fear. Teramani, he says with feeling, was "a good man."
Now, Mendez is helping shape the future of an entire city.
"It's time-consuming, without much pay, but I don't mind at all," Mendez said. "I'm glad I'm here."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
By November 2002, Nick Teramani knew he was going to die.
Before it was too late, Teramani sat down with his friend Luis Mendez and said he wanted him to take his seat on the Prospect Heights City Council.
Mendez carried his friend's dying wish to the polls the following spring as a write-in candidate, and won. Barely.
By five votes, Mendez became a speck of pepper in a jar of salt. He is the only non-white city council member in the 19 suburbs that make up Northwest suburban Cook County.
The reasons are varied. Researchers and city officials say many minorities in the suburbs are struggling first-generation immigrants who don't have the time or money to get involved.
Others come here with an ingrained mistrust of government. Still others are frustrated by electoral systems that make it harder to elect minorities.
Yet advocates and community leaders who believe it's vital to get minority representation in municipal government are finding ways around the roadblocks - by creating a training ground on zoning boards, plan commissions and committees.
The issue is growing in proportion. Nearly 400,000 new immigrants came to the Chicago suburbs in the last decade, according to a Roosevelt University study. In Northwest suburban Cook County, that's resulted in twice as many Hispanics and Asians as there were in 1994, who now make up 20 percent of the population here.
Blacks haven't moved to the Northwest suburbs in large numbers. They represent 2 percent of the community.
"It's very awkward for us and these other government units to have the situation we have now where we don't have minority representation," said Hoffman Estates Mayor William McLeod, whose village is about 23 percent minority, Asian-American and Hispanic. "When you look at village boards, it's still 1975 in the Northwest suburbs."
But you can't elect minorities if they're not running for office.
Only two people of color ran for village boards or city councils in Northwest suburban elections in 2001 and 2003.
A cultural divide
Glenn Adams thought he'd made a breakthrough when several Hispanic residents who lived along Algonquin Road came to him, complaining about drivers speeding through their apartment complexes.
As the alderman of Rolling Meadows' heavily Hispanic 5th Ward, Adams explained they needed to come to a city council meeting and voice their concerns.
But this was also Adams' chance, he thought, to develop a conduit to the Hispanic community.
So he asked several residents from the apartments to meet with him to discuss problems in the area. They agreed. Adams hosted the meeting. No one came.
Adams shouldn't take it personally, says Victor Hernandez, president of the Association of Hispanic Municipal Officials. Lack of Hispanic involvement in government is deeply rooted, he said, not just here but in their native countries.
Most people with the time and resources to run for office are older, have college degrees and small families, which doesn't fit most first-generation immigrants, Hernandez said.
"The Hispanic constituencies are dealing with lower needs like paying the bills, making sure there's food on the table and keeping the lights on," Hernandez said.
Many also possess a general fear of government, he added. Many Hispanics have had bad experiences with police or government officials - both here and in their country of origin. Government becomes a necessary evil rather than something in which to participate.
That leads to few Hispanic role models in leadership roles.
Hanover Park Mayor Irv Bock, whose community is about 27 percent Hispanic, said he tries to persuade those he meets to get involved.
"I hear a lot of 'I don't have time. I have to work,'" Bock said. "No matter how much I say to somebody that (our government) is good ... they don't understand the concept of being active in the community."
Aside from economic and cultural issues, there are other barriers, said James Svara, a professor at North Carolina State University. Svara recently completed research on the diversity of America's city councils for the National League of Cities.
He found the percentage of minorities serving on city councils in America almost doubled from 1979 to 2001, from 7 percent to 13 percent. That lags well behind the minority growth rate.
Svara blames the gap partly on the suburban penchant for electing representatives "at-large," instead of the ward system used in large cities.
"To get your own members elected, you have to have allies," Svara said. "With at-large elections, the same majority can elect everybody."
In Rosemont, for example, one in three residents is Hispanic, yet the village board consists of seven Caucasians, all of whom live on the south side of town within about 200 feet of each other.
Village spokesman Gary Mack said Rosemont's leaders would be "delighted" to have direct representation from the Latino leaders of the community. But no one has stepped forward.
Instead, the village appointed Miguel Santiago, a former Chicago alderman, to be a liaison to its Hispanic community. Santiago said he maintains almost daily office hours at Rosemont village hall.
"Mayor (Don) Stephens wanted Hispanics to have a voice in city government," Santiago said. "It's very smart politics. The politicians who don't do it ultimately pay the price. I'm a Hispanic. I've suffered through, probably, the same things they've suffered."
But Hispanic residents won't see Santiago on the Rosemont village board anytime soon. Santiago can't run for office because he doesn't live in Rosemont.
Even where wards or districts are in use, such as in Des Plaines, Rolling Meadows, Prospect Heights and Palatine, the results are not all that different.
One in five people in Rolling Meadows is Hispanic and after the 2000 census, the city redrew the ward map, expanding the largely Hispanic 5th Ward by 4,000 people. Still, in 2003, Adams was the only candidate running.
Similarly, Des Plaines has no minorities on its city council despite a Hispanic population that now stands at 14 percent.
A few years ago, Palatine annexed land along Dundee and Rand roads heavily populated by minorities. The new territory was divided among three wards stretching almost the length of the whole village.
The northeast side of Palatine is represented by three Caucasians.
Planting the seeds
Some Northwest suburbs are slowly finding ways around the barriers.
Minority advocates are pinning their hopes on the children of immigrants, hoping they will cast aside their parents' fears as they learn civics and politics in school.
But that's the dream for the future. Local leaders say a more immediate solution is to bring minority residents into the system at the lower levels, by appointing them to boards, commissions and committees.
These are the breeding grounds for elected office, agrees McLeod, who said he finds good candidates, for instance, in the people who organize local block parties. School boards and township positions are much more sought after by minorities, attracting nearly 20 candidates in the past few years.
Miguel Fuentez is one such person. He sees his current seat on the Hanover Park Park District board as a launching pad to the village board.
In 2003, Fuentez ran for the park board, campaigning on the idea that the park district should appeal more to Hanover Park's Hispanic community. Fuentez lost the election, but when a seat on the park board opened up, he was appointed.
He believes Hanover Park needs his contribution. The village is 27 percent Hispanic; the village board is 100 percent white.
"The village is missing out," Fuentez said. "They're not hearing a whole side of town. With me, those people can talk to someone who understands them. "We've got to start somewhere. By keeping your opinions to yourself, nothing will change."
Mohinderjit Singh Saini isn't quite as ready to make the leap from Palatine's zoning board of appeals to the village board. Saini won his appointment after networking with village officials during planning for Palatine's 125th anniversary. He made enough of an impression to get on the zoning board when a spot opened.
"It's part of our civic duty to be involved in the community," Saini said. "Especially for us, the Indian community, it becomes more important to be visible because we do not have much representation."
Saini said he's lining up other Indian residents to volunteer when other government opportunities become available.
Professor Svara applauds the effort. City officials can't just wait for minorities to get voted into office, he said. They must provide opportunity. That includes advisory committees, direct outreach efforts and focus groups.
"The city staff needs to make their own effort to decide whether or not they're providing adequate opportunities for involvement," Svara said. "If nobody's showing up, then it's not working. You need to identify the leaders."
That's what Nick Teramani did in making Luis Mendez his heir apparent.
Mendez represents the city's mostly Hispanic 1st Ward. The ward system worked in his case. Prospect Heights, as a whole, is about 28 percent Hispanic.
Driven by a friend's dying wish, Mendez forced himself past the cultural barrier and the fear. Teramani, he says with feeling, was "a good man."
Now, Mendez is helping shape the future of an entire city.
"It's time-consuming, without much pay, but I don't mind at all," Mendez said. "I'm glad I'm here."
Tuesday
Ruling might keep state wine sales bottled up
May 25, 2005
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The fruit of Rudolph Valentino DiTommaso’s labor might never pass the lips of wine lovers as close to home as Indiana.
DiTommaso runs his own wine label, Valentino Vineyards in Long Grove, with grapes first planted 10 years ago.
Countless wine aficionados have never known DiTommaso’s vintage, nor those of more than 50 other small wineries in Illinois. Those wineries can’t ship wine directly to customers in roughly half the nation’s states, where wine import bans shut them out of the market.
Florida’s law would slap DiTommaso with a felony if he mailed a bottle to his father, who lives there.
But Florida and other states must rethink those bans in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision - a 5-4 ruling last week declaring interstate shipping bans unconstitutional in Michigan and New York.
Illinois wineries already have petitioned the federal courts to strike down Indiana’s direct shipping ban.
Their dream is for an open market that intoxicates their bottom lines. But states could just as easily dash those hopes into sour grapes by ending all direct shipping, closing the market even more.
At least one key concern for states is a fear that direct shipping of alcohol is yet another catalyst for underage drinking.
‘Low-level trade war’
States must treat in-state and out-of-state businesses the same, the court ruled.
“The current patchwork of laws - with some states banning direct shipments altogether, others doing so only for out-of-state wines and still others requiring reciprocity - is essentially the product of an ongoing, low-level trade war,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the prevailing opinion.
Only four states consume more wine than Illinois, according to the Illinois Grape Growers & Vintners Association. For local consumers, the ruling may open up the wine market across the country to a war where only the strongest grapes survive. Better quality wine at lower prices with more labels to choose from could be the outcome.
As many as 50 decisions must happen before that, as states must rewrite laws to reflect the court’s ruling.
Wine is a big-money business. Direct shipments of wine to consumers doubled from 1994 to 1999, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Direct shipping accounts for only 3 percent of all wine sales, but is worth $500 million a year.
The growth is not from the Beringers and Gallos of the world. It’s the little guys. There are more than 3,000 local wineries in the country now, three times the number 30 years ago, according to the National Association of American Wineries.
But wine wholesalers and distributors have consolidated, making it tough for wineries that don’t produce massive quantities of well-known products to make it to store shelves.
Prohibition-era roots
Distributors, who some small vineyards blame for squeezing them out, became part of the mix when Prohibition ended. States still wanted to regulate alcohol, so a three-tier system was born.
It injects a distributor between alcohol producers and retailers. That helped calm the retail pressure of selling as much alcohol as possible to maximize profits.
Local wineries say the system works only for the Robert Mondavis of the world.
For instance, Galena Cellars, which operates a store in Geneva, can’t pay distributors to ship their wine without charging an elite price.
Scott Lawlor, whose family owns Galena Cellars, said distributors and retailers each want such a large chunk of the pie that a $30 price tag would be the only way to turn a profit.
“In other words, I don’t make money in that circle,” he said.
A $30 bottle of wine is too pricey for most consumers, especially the burgeoning twentysomething market, he added.
Movies like the Oscar-winning “Sideways” and local wine shops are defusing the hoity-toity stigma, attracting younger customers, wineries say.
The Glunz Family Winery in Grayslake is benefiting from the youth movement, but not enough for distributors to carry their relatively few bottles of wine, General Manager Suzzie Glunz Holtgrieve said. Direct shipping is the best way to turn a profit for them. The difficulty is achieving visibility without a distributor.
“There must be a happy medium,” she said.
Illinois wineries must wait at least a little longer for that because the initial impact of the court’s ruling will be modest locally, Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman said.
Illinois has agreements with several other states allowing direct shipments of wine to consumers. The state is an open market, even for other states that don’t allow Illinois to ship in.
The Supreme Court revoked the choice to discriminate, but set in motion a host of other choices, said Jeff Modisett, a commercial litigation expert who worked to end the direct-shipping bans.
State legislatures must open the floodgates to direct shipping, or ban it for everyone, Modisett said.
Word is Michigan may be one of the states to kill all direct shipping, Modisett said.
“That to me is like throwing the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “It’s not clear to me what they are trying to protect by doing that.”
The answer is money and underage drinking.
Money and minors
States with bans argue it’s harder to ensure an out-of-state winery pays taxes on the wine it ships in.
The second concern is an outcry from substance abuse groups.
“When there is increased availability, there’s more of a chance youth will get alcohol,” said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. “The majority of people with alcohol dependence started before 21. This is definitely not going to help.”
The counter argument says 16-year-olds won’t wait a week for a bottle of wine to come in the mail when they can get their older brother to buy beer at the local 7-Eleven. Just put a label on the package and require an adult’s signature.
That doesn’t always happen, Moscato said. She’s aware of at least two tests where minors obtained alcohol by mail because the package wasn’t labeled or the delivery person didn’t ask for an ID.
“Do we want or expect to have FedEx and UPS start being bouncers and checking IDs when they drop off packages?” Moscato said. “Their job is not to prevent underage drinking.”
The Supreme Court said the evidence doesn’t support Moscato’s concerns. Local wineries don’t buy into the drunken-youths argument either. They fear a negative impact on their livelihoods.
“Huge,” “big” and “incredible” are all words used by local grape gurus to describe what a truly open wine market would mean for them. Word-of-mouth and Internet advertising will trickle into other states potentially causing more sales in new markets.
Potentially.
“I was excited about the ruling for one day, but then I sat back and thought that our state could now pass a law that could really hurt us,” said Galena Cellar’s Lawlor. “The ruling could help us, but it may put us back in the dark ages.”
Indeed, lawmakers say the wine trade across the country, is “up for grabs” now.
The Illinois Senate hosted hearings on the issue, under the leadership of Sen. Ira Silverstein, to forecast the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling. None of the parties that testified swayed Silverstein into thinking anything was wrong with Illinois’ current setup.
But Silverstein didn’t expect the court to rule anything unconstitutional.
His immediate concern is the potential of a lawsuit claiming Illinois’ special shipping arrangements with several states are unconstitutional.
Local winemakers fear distributors will either try to limit the amount of wine local wineries can ship, or close off all direct shipping in Illinois.
Fred Koehler, who owns Lynfred Winery in Roselle, said a total direct shipping ban or severe limits would be poison in his glass.
“It’d put us out of business,” Koehler said. “That’s how serious it is. Why does the state want to put up more challenges for businesses when we’re an industry that’s trying to grow? But that’s what we have to watch out for because distributors are trying to monopolize the industry.”
It’s a fine line between monopoly and protecting your business. Distributors will continue to fight for the supremacy of face-to-face sales.
DiTommaso makes many face-to-face sales at his winery. He also doesn’t have a problem with shipping wine with a label requiring an adult signature.
Until new laws are written, it’ll be business as usual for DiTommaso. He has his local regular customers. And he’ll still have tourists come in, fall in love with his wine and return home with a few precious bottles because they can’t order any more by mail.
But one day, DiTommaso said he believes that will all change.
“As time goes on, and more wine customers and wineries put the pressure on, more states will open up. This isn’t a done deal yet.”
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The fruit of Rudolph Valentino DiTommaso’s labor might never pass the lips of wine lovers as close to home as Indiana.
DiTommaso runs his own wine label, Valentino Vineyards in Long Grove, with grapes first planted 10 years ago.
Countless wine aficionados have never known DiTommaso’s vintage, nor those of more than 50 other small wineries in Illinois. Those wineries can’t ship wine directly to customers in roughly half the nation’s states, where wine import bans shut them out of the market.
Florida’s law would slap DiTommaso with a felony if he mailed a bottle to his father, who lives there.
But Florida and other states must rethink those bans in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision - a 5-4 ruling last week declaring interstate shipping bans unconstitutional in Michigan and New York.
Illinois wineries already have petitioned the federal courts to strike down Indiana’s direct shipping ban.
Their dream is for an open market that intoxicates their bottom lines. But states could just as easily dash those hopes into sour grapes by ending all direct shipping, closing the market even more.
At least one key concern for states is a fear that direct shipping of alcohol is yet another catalyst for underage drinking.
‘Low-level trade war’
States must treat in-state and out-of-state businesses the same, the court ruled.
“The current patchwork of laws - with some states banning direct shipments altogether, others doing so only for out-of-state wines and still others requiring reciprocity - is essentially the product of an ongoing, low-level trade war,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the prevailing opinion.
Only four states consume more wine than Illinois, according to the Illinois Grape Growers & Vintners Association. For local consumers, the ruling may open up the wine market across the country to a war where only the strongest grapes survive. Better quality wine at lower prices with more labels to choose from could be the outcome.
As many as 50 decisions must happen before that, as states must rewrite laws to reflect the court’s ruling.
Wine is a big-money business. Direct shipments of wine to consumers doubled from 1994 to 1999, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Direct shipping accounts for only 3 percent of all wine sales, but is worth $500 million a year.
The growth is not from the Beringers and Gallos of the world. It’s the little guys. There are more than 3,000 local wineries in the country now, three times the number 30 years ago, according to the National Association of American Wineries.
But wine wholesalers and distributors have consolidated, making it tough for wineries that don’t produce massive quantities of well-known products to make it to store shelves.
Prohibition-era roots
Distributors, who some small vineyards blame for squeezing them out, became part of the mix when Prohibition ended. States still wanted to regulate alcohol, so a three-tier system was born.
It injects a distributor between alcohol producers and retailers. That helped calm the retail pressure of selling as much alcohol as possible to maximize profits.
Local wineries say the system works only for the Robert Mondavis of the world.
For instance, Galena Cellars, which operates a store in Geneva, can’t pay distributors to ship their wine without charging an elite price.
Scott Lawlor, whose family owns Galena Cellars, said distributors and retailers each want such a large chunk of the pie that a $30 price tag would be the only way to turn a profit.
“In other words, I don’t make money in that circle,” he said.
A $30 bottle of wine is too pricey for most consumers, especially the burgeoning twentysomething market, he added.
Movies like the Oscar-winning “Sideways” and local wine shops are defusing the hoity-toity stigma, attracting younger customers, wineries say.
The Glunz Family Winery in Grayslake is benefiting from the youth movement, but not enough for distributors to carry their relatively few bottles of wine, General Manager Suzzie Glunz Holtgrieve said. Direct shipping is the best way to turn a profit for them. The difficulty is achieving visibility without a distributor.
“There must be a happy medium,” she said.
Illinois wineries must wait at least a little longer for that because the initial impact of the court’s ruling will be modest locally, Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman said.
Illinois has agreements with several other states allowing direct shipments of wine to consumers. The state is an open market, even for other states that don’t allow Illinois to ship in.
The Supreme Court revoked the choice to discriminate, but set in motion a host of other choices, said Jeff Modisett, a commercial litigation expert who worked to end the direct-shipping bans.
State legislatures must open the floodgates to direct shipping, or ban it for everyone, Modisett said.
Word is Michigan may be one of the states to kill all direct shipping, Modisett said.
“That to me is like throwing the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “It’s not clear to me what they are trying to protect by doing that.”
The answer is money and underage drinking.
Money and minors
States with bans argue it’s harder to ensure an out-of-state winery pays taxes on the wine it ships in.
The second concern is an outcry from substance abuse groups.
“When there is increased availability, there’s more of a chance youth will get alcohol,” said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. “The majority of people with alcohol dependence started before 21. This is definitely not going to help.”
The counter argument says 16-year-olds won’t wait a week for a bottle of wine to come in the mail when they can get their older brother to buy beer at the local 7-Eleven. Just put a label on the package and require an adult’s signature.
That doesn’t always happen, Moscato said. She’s aware of at least two tests where minors obtained alcohol by mail because the package wasn’t labeled or the delivery person didn’t ask for an ID.
“Do we want or expect to have FedEx and UPS start being bouncers and checking IDs when they drop off packages?” Moscato said. “Their job is not to prevent underage drinking.”
The Supreme Court said the evidence doesn’t support Moscato’s concerns. Local wineries don’t buy into the drunken-youths argument either. They fear a negative impact on their livelihoods.
“Huge,” “big” and “incredible” are all words used by local grape gurus to describe what a truly open wine market would mean for them. Word-of-mouth and Internet advertising will trickle into other states potentially causing more sales in new markets.
Potentially.
“I was excited about the ruling for one day, but then I sat back and thought that our state could now pass a law that could really hurt us,” said Galena Cellar’s Lawlor. “The ruling could help us, but it may put us back in the dark ages.”
Indeed, lawmakers say the wine trade across the country, is “up for grabs” now.
The Illinois Senate hosted hearings on the issue, under the leadership of Sen. Ira Silverstein, to forecast the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling. None of the parties that testified swayed Silverstein into thinking anything was wrong with Illinois’ current setup.
But Silverstein didn’t expect the court to rule anything unconstitutional.
His immediate concern is the potential of a lawsuit claiming Illinois’ special shipping arrangements with several states are unconstitutional.
Local winemakers fear distributors will either try to limit the amount of wine local wineries can ship, or close off all direct shipping in Illinois.
Fred Koehler, who owns Lynfred Winery in Roselle, said a total direct shipping ban or severe limits would be poison in his glass.
“It’d put us out of business,” Koehler said. “That’s how serious it is. Why does the state want to put up more challenges for businesses when we’re an industry that’s trying to grow? But that’s what we have to watch out for because distributors are trying to monopolize the industry.”
It’s a fine line between monopoly and protecting your business. Distributors will continue to fight for the supremacy of face-to-face sales.
DiTommaso makes many face-to-face sales at his winery. He also doesn’t have a problem with shipping wine with a label requiring an adult signature.
Until new laws are written, it’ll be business as usual for DiTommaso. He has his local regular customers. And he’ll still have tourists come in, fall in love with his wine and return home with a few precious bottles because they can’t order any more by mail.
But one day, DiTommaso said he believes that will all change.
“As time goes on, and more wine customers and wineries put the pressure on, more states will open up. This isn’t a done deal yet.”
21 It's the law. But is it fair?
July 17, 2005
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
If the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was a person, it would likely be headed out to a local bar tonight to celebrate.
Today is the 21st birthday of the law enacted by President Ronald Reagan that tied the drinking age to federal transportation dollars. States that didn't set their minimum purchase age at 21 lost their federal road money.
The idea was to help put the brakes on drunken driving deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds - those most likely to be in alcohol-related accidents.
Twenty-one years later, government agencies and substance abuse groups say the law has played a key role in saving thousands of lives. But youth rights groups, armed with studies from sympathetic college professors, tell a different tale of self-destruction brought on by a discriminatory law.
Why 21?
As the United States continues to send young people overseas to fight wars, some lawmakers are beginning to show signs of bending to the argument of "old enough to die for the country, old enough to drink."
Wisconsin is considering lowering the drinking age for military personnel. Vermont Gov. James Douglas has voiced support for lowering its drinking age to 18 if it passes the state legislature.
If either change happens, it'll be the first sign America is learning from a longstanding failure, Arlington Heights native Brad White believes.
A senior at the University of Missouri-Columbia, White is a former staff member of the National Youth Rights Association.
"I don't think our kids can learn responsibility by just giving them alcohol and saying 'OK, be responsible' when they hit 21," White said. "You don't hand a kid a car at 16 and tell them to go drive. You have to teach them."
Driving is a key component of the issue, with statistics cited on both sides to show the law has been both a success and a failure.
From 1993 to 2003, nearly 60,000 drivers under 21 in Illinois were arrested for driving with some amount of alcohol in their blood systems, according to the secretary of state's office. Drivers under 21 are still the single largest group involved in alcohol-related deaths.
That only counts the number of people who were caught.
"It does point to a problem with underage drinking," said Brad Fralick, adviser to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White on DUI issues. "No one is disputing that underage drinking is going on. But no matter which end you're looking at, the law has certainly been a success."
The proof of success is in the 1,000 lives the drinking age has saved every year, said Susan McKinney, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Illinois, where the drinking age was made 21 in 1980.
MADD and other like-minded groups also cite numbers that show fewer young people are drinking now than in the mid-1980s. And while drunken driving deaths for the under-21 set still occur, they are happening less frequently than when 18-year-olds could buy alcohol.
Susan Wishnetsky is the secretary of Chicago-based Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions and believes those numbers are a product of selective memory.
"They single out particular age groups and particular periods of time that make their case and ignore others," she said. "What they don't mention is that the decrease in drunk driving has covered all age groups and accidents."
Seat belts, air bags, safe-driver courses and alcohol education programs are all factors contributing to lower numbers over the years. So spotlighting the age increase as the sole reason simply isn't fair, she said.
The argument comes down to civil rights versus human health.
The main support for why the drinking age is 21 versus 18 or any other age is medical research. The human brain doesn't stop developing until the early 20s. Drinking regularly before then can kill brain cells that never come back, said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association.
"It wasn't an arbitrary number by any stretch of the imagination," she said.
Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, refutes that notion.
"Almost every other society and country around the planet has a lower drinking age than the U.S.," he said. "If the entire rest of the world is drinking before 21, and realistically, most Americans are as well, then all of us are brain-damaged."
Forbidden fruit
The 21 law has also created another problem seen more broadly during the age of Prohibition, said Ruth Engs, a professor of applied sciences at Indiana University.
"The bottom line is the 21-year-old purchase law has caused more problems related to alcohol abuse than it has prevented," she said.
Engs points to the forbidden fruit syndrome, which, she said, "has caused young adults to rebel against something they feel they are entitled to. If they can die for their country, vote, get married, sign contracts, why shouldn't they be allowed to drink?"
In Illinois, 18-year-olds can also buy cigarettes, get a hunting license and own an assault weapon. The criminalization of drinking under 21 compared to those other rights is exactly why people under 21 end up in the hospital for trying to down 21 shots on their 21st birthdays, Wishnetsky said. It's also why some youths binge-drink in secret before they turn 21.
"If you're going to commit crimes, you're not going to do it moderately," she said. "They figure they're already criminals, so they might as well behave like them. It's also a matter of opportunity. If it's more difficult to obtain alcohol, then once you get some, you have to take advantage of it to the fullest."
Brewing change
Few groups, if any, seem to advocate raising the voting or driving age to 21. The only solution to make the drinking law fair, youth rights groups say, is to lower or eliminate the age restrictions - and then trust parents and teens to make responsible choices in controlled situations.
In other words, don't allow 12-year-olds to buy a six-pack on the way home from middle school, but do allow a beer at home with Mom and Dad. At the college level, allow drinking in local bars and university-sponsored events, but no kegs in dorm rooms.
Achieving a lower drinking age, whatever the parameters, is not without a price tag.
Lowering the purchase age in Illinois, or any other state, means forfeiting federal transportation dollars. For Illinois, that would have cut a nearly $64 million hole in the state's purse in 2004.
That chunk of cash represents an abuse of federal power in the eyes of Bill Olson, executive vice president of the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois.
"The biggest thing here from our standpoint is that this is the law of the land, and the federal government passed legislation that blackmailed the states into doing this," he said. "It's a controversy that's really beyond us as an alcohol beverage industry. It's for policy makers to decide."
Policy makers will continue to be pushed from both sides. Youth rights groups will watch Wisconsin and Vermont to begin a chain reaction of change.
"If alcohol is bad, and I believe that it is, then alcohol is bad for all people," Koroknay-Palicz said. "We believe alcohol is a problem and a vice, but the reason that we're in on this issue is equality. You can't single out young people. It's not fair."
Meanwhile, MADD and substance abuse groups will continue to chip away at the ways youths circumvent the age law.
Bars are the next frontier, said Moscato, of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. Far too many college town bars allow admission at 18, all but guaranteeing such customers will drink illegally once inside, she said. Keeping 21 the minimum purchase age is key to attacking addiction problems and giving parents a basis to push responsibility with their children and show them alcohol isn't necessary to have a good time.
"Maybe the 21 law isn't fair, but I don't know that I'm in the business of being fair when it comes to saving lives," Moscato said. "I'm not the fair queen. So I'm sorry if it's not fair, but it's right."
GRAPHIC: Key dates in drinking age laws
Jan. 1, 1980: Illinois establishes 21 as the minimum drinking age.
July 17, 1984: President Reagan signs National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which cuts off highway funds for states that don't set 21 as minimum drinking age.
Sept. 12, 1986: New state law revokes all driving privileges for a year or until driver turns 21, whichever is longer, for any person under 21 convicted of a second DUI.
Jan. 1, 1994: New state law suspends driving privileges for one year for drivers under age 21 caught illegally transporting alcohol. Driving privileges are revoked on the second offense.
Jan. 1, 1995: Illinois institutes "Use It & Lose It" law. Drivers under 21 caught with even a trace of alcohol in their systems lose their driving privileges.
Jan. 1, 2003: Local liquor commissioners ordered to report to the Secretary of State any conviction of a person under age 21 who buys, accepts, possesses or consumes alcohol. A violation results in a one-year suspension or revocation of driving privileges.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Other alcohol-related offenses
- Providing alcohol to a person under 21
- Parents or guardians allowing underage consumption of alcohol
- Hotel/motel employees renting rooms to someone under 21 and knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there
- A person 21 or older paying for a hotel room or facility knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there by underage individuals
Penalties: All of above are considered Class A misdemeanors with possible imprisonment for up to 1 year and fines of $500-$2,500. In addition, people over 21 paying for the hotel/motel room are liable for injuries or property damage caused by underage drinkers.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Underage drinking
- Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice for youths.
- Alcohol kills more young people than all other illicit drugs combined.
- In 2003, 2,283 people ages 15-20 were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes, accounting for 36 percent of all traffic fatalities.
- All states prohibit possession and purchase of alcohol by those under 21, but 14 states allow consumption.
- Nearly 10 million drinkers in the United States are between the ages of 12 and 20.
Sources: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
If the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was a person, it would likely be headed out to a local bar tonight to celebrate.
Today is the 21st birthday of the law enacted by President Ronald Reagan that tied the drinking age to federal transportation dollars. States that didn't set their minimum purchase age at 21 lost their federal road money.
The idea was to help put the brakes on drunken driving deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds - those most likely to be in alcohol-related accidents.
Twenty-one years later, government agencies and substance abuse groups say the law has played a key role in saving thousands of lives. But youth rights groups, armed with studies from sympathetic college professors, tell a different tale of self-destruction brought on by a discriminatory law.
Why 21?
As the United States continues to send young people overseas to fight wars, some lawmakers are beginning to show signs of bending to the argument of "old enough to die for the country, old enough to drink."
Wisconsin is considering lowering the drinking age for military personnel. Vermont Gov. James Douglas has voiced support for lowering its drinking age to 18 if it passes the state legislature.
If either change happens, it'll be the first sign America is learning from a longstanding failure, Arlington Heights native Brad White believes.
A senior at the University of Missouri-Columbia, White is a former staff member of the National Youth Rights Association.
"I don't think our kids can learn responsibility by just giving them alcohol and saying 'OK, be responsible' when they hit 21," White said. "You don't hand a kid a car at 16 and tell them to go drive. You have to teach them."
Driving is a key component of the issue, with statistics cited on both sides to show the law has been both a success and a failure.
From 1993 to 2003, nearly 60,000 drivers under 21 in Illinois were arrested for driving with some amount of alcohol in their blood systems, according to the secretary of state's office. Drivers under 21 are still the single largest group involved in alcohol-related deaths.
That only counts the number of people who were caught.
"It does point to a problem with underage drinking," said Brad Fralick, adviser to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White on DUI issues. "No one is disputing that underage drinking is going on. But no matter which end you're looking at, the law has certainly been a success."
The proof of success is in the 1,000 lives the drinking age has saved every year, said Susan McKinney, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Illinois, where the drinking age was made 21 in 1980.
MADD and other like-minded groups also cite numbers that show fewer young people are drinking now than in the mid-1980s. And while drunken driving deaths for the under-21 set still occur, they are happening less frequently than when 18-year-olds could buy alcohol.
Susan Wishnetsky is the secretary of Chicago-based Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions and believes those numbers are a product of selective memory.
"They single out particular age groups and particular periods of time that make their case and ignore others," she said. "What they don't mention is that the decrease in drunk driving has covered all age groups and accidents."
Seat belts, air bags, safe-driver courses and alcohol education programs are all factors contributing to lower numbers over the years. So spotlighting the age increase as the sole reason simply isn't fair, she said.
The argument comes down to civil rights versus human health.
The main support for why the drinking age is 21 versus 18 or any other age is medical research. The human brain doesn't stop developing until the early 20s. Drinking regularly before then can kill brain cells that never come back, said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association.
"It wasn't an arbitrary number by any stretch of the imagination," she said.
Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, refutes that notion.
"Almost every other society and country around the planet has a lower drinking age than the U.S.," he said. "If the entire rest of the world is drinking before 21, and realistically, most Americans are as well, then all of us are brain-damaged."
Forbidden fruit
The 21 law has also created another problem seen more broadly during the age of Prohibition, said Ruth Engs, a professor of applied sciences at Indiana University.
"The bottom line is the 21-year-old purchase law has caused more problems related to alcohol abuse than it has prevented," she said.
Engs points to the forbidden fruit syndrome, which, she said, "has caused young adults to rebel against something they feel they are entitled to. If they can die for their country, vote, get married, sign contracts, why shouldn't they be allowed to drink?"
In Illinois, 18-year-olds can also buy cigarettes, get a hunting license and own an assault weapon. The criminalization of drinking under 21 compared to those other rights is exactly why people under 21 end up in the hospital for trying to down 21 shots on their 21st birthdays, Wishnetsky said. It's also why some youths binge-drink in secret before they turn 21.
"If you're going to commit crimes, you're not going to do it moderately," she said. "They figure they're already criminals, so they might as well behave like them. It's also a matter of opportunity. If it's more difficult to obtain alcohol, then once you get some, you have to take advantage of it to the fullest."
Brewing change
Few groups, if any, seem to advocate raising the voting or driving age to 21. The only solution to make the drinking law fair, youth rights groups say, is to lower or eliminate the age restrictions - and then trust parents and teens to make responsible choices in controlled situations.
In other words, don't allow 12-year-olds to buy a six-pack on the way home from middle school, but do allow a beer at home with Mom and Dad. At the college level, allow drinking in local bars and university-sponsored events, but no kegs in dorm rooms.
Achieving a lower drinking age, whatever the parameters, is not without a price tag.
Lowering the purchase age in Illinois, or any other state, means forfeiting federal transportation dollars. For Illinois, that would have cut a nearly $64 million hole in the state's purse in 2004.
That chunk of cash represents an abuse of federal power in the eyes of Bill Olson, executive vice president of the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois.
"The biggest thing here from our standpoint is that this is the law of the land, and the federal government passed legislation that blackmailed the states into doing this," he said. "It's a controversy that's really beyond us as an alcohol beverage industry. It's for policy makers to decide."
Policy makers will continue to be pushed from both sides. Youth rights groups will watch Wisconsin and Vermont to begin a chain reaction of change.
"If alcohol is bad, and I believe that it is, then alcohol is bad for all people," Koroknay-Palicz said. "We believe alcohol is a problem and a vice, but the reason that we're in on this issue is equality. You can't single out young people. It's not fair."
Meanwhile, MADD and substance abuse groups will continue to chip away at the ways youths circumvent the age law.
Bars are the next frontier, said Moscato, of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. Far too many college town bars allow admission at 18, all but guaranteeing such customers will drink illegally once inside, she said. Keeping 21 the minimum purchase age is key to attacking addiction problems and giving parents a basis to push responsibility with their children and show them alcohol isn't necessary to have a good time.
"Maybe the 21 law isn't fair, but I don't know that I'm in the business of being fair when it comes to saving lives," Moscato said. "I'm not the fair queen. So I'm sorry if it's not fair, but it's right."
GRAPHIC: Key dates in drinking age laws
Jan. 1, 1980: Illinois establishes 21 as the minimum drinking age.
July 17, 1984: President Reagan signs National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which cuts off highway funds for states that don't set 21 as minimum drinking age.
Sept. 12, 1986: New state law revokes all driving privileges for a year or until driver turns 21, whichever is longer, for any person under 21 convicted of a second DUI.
Jan. 1, 1994: New state law suspends driving privileges for one year for drivers under age 21 caught illegally transporting alcohol. Driving privileges are revoked on the second offense.
Jan. 1, 1995: Illinois institutes "Use It & Lose It" law. Drivers under 21 caught with even a trace of alcohol in their systems lose their driving privileges.
Jan. 1, 2003: Local liquor commissioners ordered to report to the Secretary of State any conviction of a person under age 21 who buys, accepts, possesses or consumes alcohol. A violation results in a one-year suspension or revocation of driving privileges.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Other alcohol-related offenses
- Providing alcohol to a person under 21
- Parents or guardians allowing underage consumption of alcohol
- Hotel/motel employees renting rooms to someone under 21 and knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there
- A person 21 or older paying for a hotel room or facility knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there by underage individuals
Penalties: All of above are considered Class A misdemeanors with possible imprisonment for up to 1 year and fines of $500-$2,500. In addition, people over 21 paying for the hotel/motel room are liable for injuries or property damage caused by underage drinkers.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Underage drinking
- Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice for youths.
- Alcohol kills more young people than all other illicit drugs combined.
- In 2003, 2,283 people ages 15-20 were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes, accounting for 36 percent of all traffic fatalities.
- All states prohibit possession and purchase of alcohol by those under 21, but 14 states allow consumption.
- Nearly 10 million drinkers in the United States are between the ages of 12 and 20.
Sources: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
(Part 4 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
August 13 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
With a not-guilty plea on Tuesday, Sonia Galindo set in motion a trial she hopes will justify her actions in the hearts of her boys, if not in eyes of the law.
Galindo is accused of abducting her two sons, Bryan and Sean, and fleeing to Mexico in violation of a custody decree. She is charged with two counts of felony child abduction.
For two years she was an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants out for her arrest. With her Mexican citizenship, a right also transferred to her sons, she remained beyond the grasp of U.S. law enforcement. In April, with promises of leniency, Galindo brought her sons back to the United States.
She's regretted it ever since.
According to Galindo, leniency comes with the price of selling out her sons. She said authorities pitched two years of supervision and 200 hours of community service in exchange for her guilty plea and a statement saying she fabricated charges of abuse against their father, Don Anderson. She would also have to admit that she took the boys against their will and rat out the people who helped her escape the country.
The price is simply too high, she said, and she intends to reject the deal.
"My boys didn't lie, and I didn't lie either," Galindo said while choking through tears in a phone interview. "I'm not going to lie now. I'm not going to pin something on my sons. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail."
Galindo, 48, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Those charges stem from a series of incidents starting with the divorce of Galindo and Anderson in 1996. The couple initially shared custody of the boys, but court documents show Galindo didn't live up to her end of the deal.
Bryan and Sean missed appointments, school and church. Fed up by the violations of the divorce decree, Anderson took Galindo back to court and won sole custody.
That's when Galindo filed charges against Anderson, alleging that he physically abused Bryan and Sean. But Galindo's changing accounts of the abuse combined with what police describe as "spoon-fed" testimony from Bryan that his father beat him on several occasions made authorities suspicious. The stories never matched, and there was never any physical evidence, according to police. The court dismissed all the charges against Anderson.
In defeat, Galindo took the boys on her visitation weekend and bolted across the border.
Galindo stands by her abuse allegations.
"If he had been a good father, I never would have taken them out of the country," Galindo said. "The reason I took them was because they were going to kill themselves. They were going to throw themselves in front of a train.
"I know taking them out of the country was wrong," she said. "I just felt like I needed to do it. My boys are alive today because of me. The boys know why I did it."
Anderson said Galindo's outcry is a ploy for public sympathy with no basis in fact.
He said that when the boys returned from Mexico in April, they were in poor health. They lacked basic immunizations, dental care and were so distraught they were taking anti-depressants. Visits to the doctor and dentist corrected the health issues, and they are no longer taking medication.
Now, Anderson reports, Bryan and Sean are in summer school to get a head start on their fall classes.
Bryan, 13, will enter eighth grade at Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103. Anderson said Bryan has found a love for language and hopes to study French, Spanish and Italian. Sean, 15, will be a sophomore at Stevenson High School, having earned high B's in biology over the summer.
Galindo is barred from any contact with Anderson or her sons.. It's a brutal reality for her as she awaits the outcome of her case while living with her sister in Vernon Hills, barely a mile from where Anderson lives with the boys. Future contact will depend largely on the outcome of her trial.
Galindo said she fears for her sons' safety but doesn't think Anderson would hurt them while the case is in the spotlight.
Anderson said he refuses to get into a slander competition with Galindo. He just wants it all to be over.
That process begins Sept. 22, with the start of Galindo's trial. First, she'll have a status hearing on Sept. 10.
Galindo is already convinced she'll go to prison. She said law officers and Anderson duped her into coming back to the United States with false promises. She said she wasn't given an attorney or read her rights when initially taken into custody by the FBI and Buffalo Grove police.
Galindo has little money and said the public defense attorneys appointed to her have shown little interest in her case. With help from her family, she has now hired her own attorney, Steven Messner of Wilmette. Galindo still isn't convinced she'll receive adequate representation at the trial.
Messner said he was unaware of Galindo's comments to the press, but he was still investigating the facts of the case.
"I think the facts go further than what's apparent," Messner said, but would not elaborate.
Buffalo Grove police did not return phone requests for interviews Tuesday.
Galindo said she's not concerned about the consequences of her public comments or how people perceive her. She said she's ready to face whatever happens as long as she can hold onto the possibility that someday, Bryan and Sean will be back in her life.
"I know what I am," Galindo said. "I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes, but I'm a good mother. I don't want my sons to ever think I used them to bargain with. I know someday, when they're older, they'll come back to me."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
With a not-guilty plea on Tuesday, Sonia Galindo set in motion a trial she hopes will justify her actions in the hearts of her boys, if not in eyes of the law.
Galindo is accused of abducting her two sons, Bryan and Sean, and fleeing to Mexico in violation of a custody decree. She is charged with two counts of felony child abduction.
For two years she was an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants out for her arrest. With her Mexican citizenship, a right also transferred to her sons, she remained beyond the grasp of U.S. law enforcement. In April, with promises of leniency, Galindo brought her sons back to the United States.
She's regretted it ever since.
According to Galindo, leniency comes with the price of selling out her sons. She said authorities pitched two years of supervision and 200 hours of community service in exchange for her guilty plea and a statement saying she fabricated charges of abuse against their father, Don Anderson. She would also have to admit that she took the boys against their will and rat out the people who helped her escape the country.
The price is simply too high, she said, and she intends to reject the deal.
"My boys didn't lie, and I didn't lie either," Galindo said while choking through tears in a phone interview. "I'm not going to lie now. I'm not going to pin something on my sons. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail."
Galindo, 48, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Those charges stem from a series of incidents starting with the divorce of Galindo and Anderson in 1996. The couple initially shared custody of the boys, but court documents show Galindo didn't live up to her end of the deal.
Bryan and Sean missed appointments, school and church. Fed up by the violations of the divorce decree, Anderson took Galindo back to court and won sole custody.
That's when Galindo filed charges against Anderson, alleging that he physically abused Bryan and Sean. But Galindo's changing accounts of the abuse combined with what police describe as "spoon-fed" testimony from Bryan that his father beat him on several occasions made authorities suspicious. The stories never matched, and there was never any physical evidence, according to police. The court dismissed all the charges against Anderson.
In defeat, Galindo took the boys on her visitation weekend and bolted across the border.
Galindo stands by her abuse allegations.
"If he had been a good father, I never would have taken them out of the country," Galindo said. "The reason I took them was because they were going to kill themselves. They were going to throw themselves in front of a train.
"I know taking them out of the country was wrong," she said. "I just felt like I needed to do it. My boys are alive today because of me. The boys know why I did it."
Anderson said Galindo's outcry is a ploy for public sympathy with no basis in fact.
He said that when the boys returned from Mexico in April, they were in poor health. They lacked basic immunizations, dental care and were so distraught they were taking anti-depressants. Visits to the doctor and dentist corrected the health issues, and they are no longer taking medication.
Now, Anderson reports, Bryan and Sean are in summer school to get a head start on their fall classes.
Bryan, 13, will enter eighth grade at Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103. Anderson said Bryan has found a love for language and hopes to study French, Spanish and Italian. Sean, 15, will be a sophomore at Stevenson High School, having earned high B's in biology over the summer.
Galindo is barred from any contact with Anderson or her sons.. It's a brutal reality for her as she awaits the outcome of her case while living with her sister in Vernon Hills, barely a mile from where Anderson lives with the boys. Future contact will depend largely on the outcome of her trial.
Galindo said she fears for her sons' safety but doesn't think Anderson would hurt them while the case is in the spotlight.
Anderson said he refuses to get into a slander competition with Galindo. He just wants it all to be over.
That process begins Sept. 22, with the start of Galindo's trial. First, she'll have a status hearing on Sept. 10.
Galindo is already convinced she'll go to prison. She said law officers and Anderson duped her into coming back to the United States with false promises. She said she wasn't given an attorney or read her rights when initially taken into custody by the FBI and Buffalo Grove police.
Galindo has little money and said the public defense attorneys appointed to her have shown little interest in her case. With help from her family, she has now hired her own attorney, Steven Messner of Wilmette. Galindo still isn't convinced she'll receive adequate representation at the trial.
Messner said he was unaware of Galindo's comments to the press, but he was still investigating the facts of the case.
"I think the facts go further than what's apparent," Messner said, but would not elaborate.
Buffalo Grove police did not return phone requests for interviews Tuesday.
Galindo said she's not concerned about the consequences of her public comments or how people perceive her. She said she's ready to face whatever happens as long as she can hold onto the possibility that someday, Bryan and Sean will be back in her life.
"I know what I am," Galindo said. "I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes, but I'm a good mother. I don't want my sons to ever think I used them to bargain with. I know someday, when they're older, they'll come back to me."
(Part 3 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
April 25 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The worst nightmare for all parents is to have their children stolen from them and not be able to do anything about it. Every thought, every dream that follows is about getting them back.
On Thursday night, Don Anderson's nightmare ended and all the dreams became reality. His sons were back home in Vernon Hills.
"It just shows if you keep plugging along and pray and have faith, the system does work," Anderson tearfully said earlier Thursday. "Right now, they start life all over again and I get to do what I do best. Being a dad, that's what I do best in life."
Bryan was 10 and Sean was 12 when they were kidnapped by their mother, Sonia Galindo, and taken to Mexico.
The kidnapping followed a calamitous divorce in 1996. Galindo and Anderson initially shared custody, but Galindo couldn't live up to her end of the agreement. The boys missed appointments, school and church, and her violations of the divorce decree stockpiled. The courts eventually awarded Anderson sole custody, citing Galindo's documented history of poor parenting skills and erratic behavior.
That's when authorities say Galindo began an intricate slander campaign against Anderson, going so far as to file false abuse charges against him. Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony from Bryan, and all the charges were dropped. In defeat, Galindo kidnapped the boys and bolted to Mexico.
With the Mexican government viewing them as citizens because of Galindo's dual-citizen status, it seemed like Anderson would never get his boys back. Only 4 percent of U.S. children abducted and taken to Mexico ever return.
After 2 1/2 years and more than $200,000 of Anderson's money spent for private investigators and legal translations, and endless lobbying of foreign governments and negotiating through police and the FBI, Galindo surrendered to agents at 1 p.m. Thursday at O'Hare International Airport.
Police had agreed to lobby the courts for no jail time in exchange for Galindo's return. She faced four felony warrants for the abduction.
Now may be the beginning of a happy ending.
Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, will have to go through a court process in order to see her sons again. Prosecutors will push for psychiatric counseling and supervised visitation. In the meantime, she'll live with family in Vernon Hills while out on bond.
Buffalo Grove police also will decide whether to go after the people who helped Galindo kidnap the boys and assist her while she was in Mexico.
As for the boys, now 13 and 14, their road back is longest of all. A recent conversation the boys had with their father revealed some negative feelings for him. Psychologists say they and their father must work through any falsehoods Galindo fed them while they were away. Beyond that, they have to get to know their father all over again.
Anderson said he's ready for the challenge.
He's spent the past few days shopping for all the things they love like snacks, ice cream and Fruity Pebbles. He set up the trampoline in the yard again. Their rooms are ready. The basement he converted into a recreation room specifically for their return will finally be used.
All the photos of the good times they had are on the walls. Family and old friends from their days at Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are on standby for when Bryan and Sean are ready to see them.
Anderson wants the boys to be able to see their mother again when she's ready and the boys fully understand what happened to them.
It will take a lot of counseling and quality time with their father before that understanding develops.
"It's been such a horrific two and a half years," Anderson said before meeting up with his sons again. "When I see them, I'm just going to want to hug them. I realize I might not get that right away. They might call me names. They might scream and yell, but that's OK. When they walk in that door, I'm here for them.
"I've got my sights set on tomorrow, the next day and six months from now," he continued. "I'm dealing with the heat of the day now, but I know it's going to be a beautiful night."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The worst nightmare for all parents is to have their children stolen from them and not be able to do anything about it. Every thought, every dream that follows is about getting them back.
On Thursday night, Don Anderson's nightmare ended and all the dreams became reality. His sons were back home in Vernon Hills.
"It just shows if you keep plugging along and pray and have faith, the system does work," Anderson tearfully said earlier Thursday. "Right now, they start life all over again and I get to do what I do best. Being a dad, that's what I do best in life."
Bryan was 10 and Sean was 12 when they were kidnapped by their mother, Sonia Galindo, and taken to Mexico.
The kidnapping followed a calamitous divorce in 1996. Galindo and Anderson initially shared custody, but Galindo couldn't live up to her end of the agreement. The boys missed appointments, school and church, and her violations of the divorce decree stockpiled. The courts eventually awarded Anderson sole custody, citing Galindo's documented history of poor parenting skills and erratic behavior.
That's when authorities say Galindo began an intricate slander campaign against Anderson, going so far as to file false abuse charges against him. Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony from Bryan, and all the charges were dropped. In defeat, Galindo kidnapped the boys and bolted to Mexico.
With the Mexican government viewing them as citizens because of Galindo's dual-citizen status, it seemed like Anderson would never get his boys back. Only 4 percent of U.S. children abducted and taken to Mexico ever return.
After 2 1/2 years and more than $200,000 of Anderson's money spent for private investigators and legal translations, and endless lobbying of foreign governments and negotiating through police and the FBI, Galindo surrendered to agents at 1 p.m. Thursday at O'Hare International Airport.
Police had agreed to lobby the courts for no jail time in exchange for Galindo's return. She faced four felony warrants for the abduction.
Now may be the beginning of a happy ending.
Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, will have to go through a court process in order to see her sons again. Prosecutors will push for psychiatric counseling and supervised visitation. In the meantime, she'll live with family in Vernon Hills while out on bond.
Buffalo Grove police also will decide whether to go after the people who helped Galindo kidnap the boys and assist her while she was in Mexico.
As for the boys, now 13 and 14, their road back is longest of all. A recent conversation the boys had with their father revealed some negative feelings for him. Psychologists say they and their father must work through any falsehoods Galindo fed them while they were away. Beyond that, they have to get to know their father all over again.
Anderson said he's ready for the challenge.
He's spent the past few days shopping for all the things they love like snacks, ice cream and Fruity Pebbles. He set up the trampoline in the yard again. Their rooms are ready. The basement he converted into a recreation room specifically for their return will finally be used.
All the photos of the good times they had are on the walls. Family and old friends from their days at Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are on standby for when Bryan and Sean are ready to see them.
Anderson wants the boys to be able to see their mother again when she's ready and the boys fully understand what happened to them.
It will take a lot of counseling and quality time with their father before that understanding develops.
"It's been such a horrific two and a half years," Anderson said before meeting up with his sons again. "When I see them, I'm just going to want to hug them. I realize I might not get that right away. They might call me names. They might scream and yell, but that's OK. When they walk in that door, I'm here for them.
"I've got my sights set on tomorrow, the next day and six months from now," he continued. "I'm dealing with the heat of the day now, but I know it's going to be a beautiful night."
(Part 2 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
April 06 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
After two years of living with no more than memories of his missing children, Don Anderson finally received a taste of all he's prayed for. Yet even the pleasure of hearing his sons' voices came with pain.
On the heels of a Daily Herald report about Anderson's quest for his kidnapped boys, he received two phone calls from the woman who took them. Anderson said his ex-wife Sonia Galindo called from Mexico to tell him she made a mistake in taking Bryan and Sean. She wants to come back to the United States with the boys.
The former students in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are now 13 and 14 years old. They were 10 and 12 when Galindo kidnapped them.
It's everything Anderson wants and works for, a dream come true. Perhaps too good to be true.
To come back, Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, wants all charges against her dropped. She faces four felony warrants as an FBI fugitive. She also wants her job as a teacher in the Chicago Public School system back. To cap it off, she wants money from Anderson to make the return trip.
"It was a two-sided feeling hearing from her," Anderson said. "There is a consideration that she'll make a deal and we'll get them back. But at the same time, it's psychological warfare going on. I think her dealing is really a scam."
If it is, Anderson and police handling the case said it won't be the first time she's duped those around her.
Galindo didn't have legal or even joint custody of the boys when she abducted them. To even get near them, she filed charges against Anderson, claiming he had abused Sean and Bryan at his Vernon Hills home. Courts dismissed all the charges and police believe those charges were lies Galindo developed with help from at least two people with intimate knowledge of the law and its loopholes.
Police now are building a case against those two individuals and hope to bring charges soon.
As far as Galindo, Buffalo Grove Police Officer John Heidersheidt said the goal is to get her communicating and work out a way to have Sean and Bryan returned to the United States.
Heidersheidt said he wants to make the transition as painless as possible for Galindo and the boys to come back. That's why he'll push for her to stay out of jail if she returns.
"We don't want to create a negative impact on the children," he said. "We want to bring her back to the United States and help her get her life back in order so her children can have a normal life. You can't have that with mom in jail."
The last contact with Galindo was several weeks ago. As of that conversation, police halted investigations against her accomplices in the kidnapping because they believed the goal of bringing her and the boys back was near. Charges against those accomplices would not be necessary if Sonia and the boys returned voluntarily, Heidersheidt said.
Now that Galindo is back in hiding, the march toward prosecuting the accomplices will continue.
"It's incredibly frustrating," Heidersheidt said. "Her outright refusal to talk is certainly not looking very positive in her light.
"These warrants will never go away," he continued. "They will be there when the boys are 18 and can go and do whatever they want. Authorities will catch up to her sooner or later, with or without the boys. If she doesn't turn herself in and law enforcement finds her, there's going to be nothing but a bad outcome for her and a bad impact on those boys."
Police encourage local people with information on Bryan and Sean's whereabouts to come forward with information.
Anderson remains hopeful he'll see Bryan and Sean again.
"The setting they are in is almost like hostages," Anderson said. "Talking to them was great, but it was also horrible. At least they heard my voice and they know that I love them and miss them."
How to help ...
If you have information on the Anderson case contact:
Buffalo Grove police officer John Heidersheidt at (847) 459-2560.
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
After two years of living with no more than memories of his missing children, Don Anderson finally received a taste of all he's prayed for. Yet even the pleasure of hearing his sons' voices came with pain.
On the heels of a Daily Herald report about Anderson's quest for his kidnapped boys, he received two phone calls from the woman who took them. Anderson said his ex-wife Sonia Galindo called from Mexico to tell him she made a mistake in taking Bryan and Sean. She wants to come back to the United States with the boys.
The former students in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are now 13 and 14 years old. They were 10 and 12 when Galindo kidnapped them.
It's everything Anderson wants and works for, a dream come true. Perhaps too good to be true.
To come back, Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, wants all charges against her dropped. She faces four felony warrants as an FBI fugitive. She also wants her job as a teacher in the Chicago Public School system back. To cap it off, she wants money from Anderson to make the return trip.
"It was a two-sided feeling hearing from her," Anderson said. "There is a consideration that she'll make a deal and we'll get them back. But at the same time, it's psychological warfare going on. I think her dealing is really a scam."
If it is, Anderson and police handling the case said it won't be the first time she's duped those around her.
Galindo didn't have legal or even joint custody of the boys when she abducted them. To even get near them, she filed charges against Anderson, claiming he had abused Sean and Bryan at his Vernon Hills home. Courts dismissed all the charges and police believe those charges were lies Galindo developed with help from at least two people with intimate knowledge of the law and its loopholes.
Police now are building a case against those two individuals and hope to bring charges soon.
As far as Galindo, Buffalo Grove Police Officer John Heidersheidt said the goal is to get her communicating and work out a way to have Sean and Bryan returned to the United States.
Heidersheidt said he wants to make the transition as painless as possible for Galindo and the boys to come back. That's why he'll push for her to stay out of jail if she returns.
"We don't want to create a negative impact on the children," he said. "We want to bring her back to the United States and help her get her life back in order so her children can have a normal life. You can't have that with mom in jail."
The last contact with Galindo was several weeks ago. As of that conversation, police halted investigations against her accomplices in the kidnapping because they believed the goal of bringing her and the boys back was near. Charges against those accomplices would not be necessary if Sonia and the boys returned voluntarily, Heidersheidt said.
Now that Galindo is back in hiding, the march toward prosecuting the accomplices will continue.
"It's incredibly frustrating," Heidersheidt said. "Her outright refusal to talk is certainly not looking very positive in her light.
"These warrants will never go away," he continued. "They will be there when the boys are 18 and can go and do whatever they want. Authorities will catch up to her sooner or later, with or without the boys. If she doesn't turn herself in and law enforcement finds her, there's going to be nothing but a bad outcome for her and a bad impact on those boys."
Police encourage local people with information on Bryan and Sean's whereabouts to come forward with information.
Anderson remains hopeful he'll see Bryan and Sean again.
"The setting they are in is almost like hostages," Anderson said. "Talking to them was great, but it was also horrible. At least they heard my voice and they know that I love them and miss them."
How to help ...
If you have information on the Anderson case contact:
Buffalo Grove police officer John Heidersheidt at (847) 459-2560.
(Part 1 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
February 10 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Cold sweat soaks Don Anderson's sheets. Then the nightly dream of lost time and uncertainty jars him awake. Anderson's heart pounds as his mind revisits the same torturous possibilities as yesterday and all the days before and still winds up with the same non-answers.
It's 4 a.m. Time to find his children.
His life is wrought with coping and hoping, seeking and finding just enough to torment and prolong.
"You can't talk to your kids," Anderson said of the not knowing. "You can't see them. You don't even know what they look like. You hang on to all their stuff, hoping they're going to be back, but you don't know."
They were 10 and 12 the last time he saw them, at their Vernon Hills home. Now Bryan and Sean are 13 and 14. He's spent $200,000 and at least four hours a day over the course of those missed birthdays trying to bring them home. Anderson has spent more than a year traipsing through Mexico and the halls of Congress, yet Bryan and Sean remain ghosts to him. But they didn't disappear on their own.
This is what happens when your children are stolen.
Divorce, disappearance
After a divorce in 1996, Anderson and his ex-wife, Sonia Galindo, shared custody of Sean and Bryan. But Galindo, who had moved to Buffalo Grove, couldn't live up to her end of the bargain. The boys missed appointments, school and church. Her violations of a divorce deal stockpiled, resulting in court-appointed mediation. Both the mediator and a conciliator recommended Anderson receive sole custody of the children because of Galindo's behavior problems and lack of parenting skills.
By 1999, Anderson had sole custody of the boys in Vernon Hills. Galindo had visitation with child support obligations.
The war began.
Police and Anderson believe that's when Galindo decided Sean and Bryan would be with her no matter what.
"She started to blame me because the kids weren't with her," Anderson said. "It didn't look good for her image. People thought something was wrong with her, and she didn't want anybody to think something was wrong. Without the kids, she was nobody. I was threatening that piece of her."
On the last day of Sean and Bryan's 2000 summer vacation from Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View, Anderson waited for a return that never came. Just a few months before, police accused Galindo of taking Sean and Bryan out of the state during Anderson's designated custody time and without his permission.
Anderson thought Galindo had snatched them again. Until the police called.
Galindo had filed police reports saying Anderson physically and sexually abused Bryan. The report alone necessitated an investigation, and Galindo secured an order of protection against Anderson to keep him from Sean and Bryan.
Police said the charges against Anderson quickly unraveled through lack of evidence. Anderson said Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony against Anderson from Bryan.
Anderson received visitation while the investigation continued. But police say Galindo took the boys and bolted to Mexico. Galindo is now an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants. Police say evidence shows she fabricated the abuse allegations.
A parent's nightmare
It's a similar story for thousands of parents in the United States each year. Various reports estimate the number of cases of parents abducting children from other parents in the United States ranges from 200 a day to 350,000 a year. In many of those, children are taken to foreign countries.
For those children, Mexico is often a black hole destination. More abducted children are taken to Mexico than any other country, according to a 2001 compliance report on the Hague Convention. The 1980 convention set in place international rules to follow in abduction cases. Nearly 25 years later, Mexico lacks full compliance.
The report shows the State Department taking as many as 36 separate actions to get a child back from Mexico to no avail.
Stuart Patt, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said getting a child back depends mainly on the foreign country's receptiveness to the United States' view that a child living there was abducted.
"Ultimately, it's going to be the determination of that country's officials and courts as to what's going to happen," Patt said.
Guillermo Galarza of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that reality can be a nightmare for desperate parents.
While 70 percent of Mexican children abducted to the United States are returned, only 3 to 4 percent of U.S. kids come back from Mexico, he said. Asked about that imbalance, Patt said the Mexican government is improving, but "there's still some work to do."
Working under the Hague Convention can be slow and frustrating in Mexico, said the National Center's Galarza.
Nothing Anderson has in place in the United States will necessarily help him. He has the added burden of Galindo's dual-nationality, a status conveyed to his sons by birth.
"To the Mexican government, these kids are from Mexico," Galarza said. "The custody decree doesn't mean anything in Mexico. It doesn't mean a nickel."
The Hague Convention itself can be an obstacle. For instance, the fact that criminal charges await Galindo in the United States can be a deterrent because the Mexican government might view her imprisonment as an emotional harm against Sean and Bryan.
Not only that, but as soon as the boys logged a full year in Mexico, returning them to America became a judge's discretionary matter, rather than an automatic. Foreign courts often believe a year spent in a new place creates ties that can be traumatic to undo for a child.
Police say abducting parents, including Galindo, often file a special appeal in Mexico called an "amparo" when a Hague order to return a child to the United States is issued. The appeal claims a violation of constitutional rights that must be examined, often dragging the case beyond the year time frame for automatic return of a child to the United States.
With all these roadblocks, cases that should only take a couple weeks to resolve in a perfect situation can take years.
That's when some parents lose patience and try to re-abduct their children from the original snatcher.
"We don't recommend parents do that," Galarza said. "You're breaking the laws in that other country. Not only that, there's the emotion of being abducted again. Usually the abducting parent has told the children many things about the other parent to create hatred. When a child has been told that their dad is evil and all of a sudden he takes them, that's very traumatic."
All that's left: memories
Don Anderson understands that trauma. He has some of his own.
Bryan and Sean's clothes, toys and rooms are untouched. He's converted his Vernon Hills basement into a teen recreation room for the boys. There will be something waiting to receive them when his sons return. If they return.
Anderson's children have never contacted him. Are they unable to? Have they been brainwashed? Do they hate him? Do they think he hates them?
It's a daily question roulette Anderson plays. He's done everything the laws and guidelines say he should do to bring his children back. No results.
Because the boys are believed to have been taken from Galindo's Buffalo Grove home, that town's police are in charge of the investigation. Even with 19 years on the force, Buffalo Grove officer John Heidersheidt said he's never had a case quite like Anderson's.
Galindo's family living in the area won't tell Heidersheidt anything. Her sister doesn't respond to interview requests. There is no local funding for Heidersheidt to follow leads in Texas. Now, he's not even sure where Galindo and the kids are.
"It's real tough," Heidersheidt said. "They could have changed their names, gotten false identification. She's basically kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. We need information desperately."
Anderson lives for that information. When he's angry, he builds information packets for congressmen. Basketball gives him an outlet for his aggression. He allows himself a set amount of time, no more than 15 minutes a day, to cry.
Anderson's mindset is even open to Galindo remaining in his sons' lives. All just to have them in his life rather than haunting it.
"If she comes back, I won't prosecute her," he said. "She's their mother. What she did was really wrong, illegal, horrible, but it's up to her to get help. It's not up to me to punish her. I just want to get the kids back so they can live a happy and healthy life."
If you have information on the Anderson case, call:
- Buffalo Grove Police Department: (847) 459-2560
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (877) 446-2632
- Buffalo Grove Police Department: (847) 459-2560
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (877) 446-2632
Monday
(Health/Education feature) Living, learning with autism
Sunday January 23 2005
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Jordan Brunett showed all the qualities of an extraordinary mind at a young age.
At 3, he could name the U.S. presidents in chronological order. He knew all the planets in the solar system. He could count in Spanish.
Yet his mother, Rhonda, sensed there was something not quite right about her son. She had trouble getting his attention. He wouldn't play with other kids. He would sit with a pile of blocks in front of him, swinging each one from ear to ear for hours.
The Carol Stream mom shed many tears of frustration before discovering the cause of her son's behavior. The diagnosis came at a preschool screening just before his third birthday.
Jordan, now 12, is autistic.
After getting over the initial bewilderment, Brunett's next step was figuring out how her son could best be educated.
On a larger level, it's the same struggle schools in Illinois are facing as they see the number of autistic students grow yearly.
According to the state board of education, there are about 7,000 autistic children in Illinois schools, up from 2,305 seven years ago. The same trend can be seen in local school systems.
In Palatine Township Elementary District 15, for instance, the autistic population has doubled in the last five years to about 80 students. Lombard Elementary District 44 has gone from seven to 16 autistic children in a similar time. In Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, growing numbers of autistic children prompted the administration to look at adding a class just for them to augment intensive services already provided.
While experts and lay people alike debate why, educators are working to secure the training and money to meet the demand and the special needs of autistic children.
Jordan Brunett was lucky. His early diagnosis began a process that resulted in an individualized learning plan.
"The school knew what to do," Rhonda Brunett said. "They had that knowledge, but I didn't know anything. So I started to educate myself."
One of the challenges of educating autistic children is that each is different. The syndrome is a lifelong disability that can involve trouble with learning abstract concepts, communication problems, emotional meltdowns when a routine is changed and social isolation.
At Jordan's school, Elsie Johnson in Hanover Park, special education teacher Angelina Summers first came upon autism by chance. While studying to be a mainstream teacher, she had no training in autism until her first student-teaching job.
"I saw a kid who clearly wasn't like the others," she said. "I asked the teacher, and she said, 'Oh, that's autism.' I was like, 'What is that?'"
Now Summers has a class of nine early childhood special-needs students, some of whom are autistic. The current growth of autism has her preparing for up to three more students next year.
Summers' classroom is decorated in brightly colored ABCs and 1-2-3s. Without the students, it's indistinguishable from a "regular" classroom. Yet the class instruction is noticeably different.
Summers doesn't stand in front of the room lecturing to students in desks. Mostly, she sits at a little table with one student at a time while her five aides work with the other kids.
Autistic children can be over-stimulated by large groups and are sometimes uncomfortable sitting near others. For some, a light touch can feel like a slap. A hug can be smothering. A slight flicker of a light can entrance.
In Summers' class, each activity has a picture associated with it to help guide students through the day. Visual aids are nearly a necessity.
"If I were to go a whole day with some kids and not use a single picture, it would be a rough day for some of them," she said.
Meltdown Control
Some people unfamiliar with autism may associate the disorder only with what's known as the meltdown. That might occur when an autistic child is pushed too hard too fast, and the mind becomes jumbled.
"Everyone has warning signs," Summers said. "If you choose to ignore those little sparks, you're going to have a big fire on your hands. If you keep pushing, eventually you'll see the kid with their head on the table not doing anything."
It's not because autistic students are disobedient. Their minds just don't work the same way as other children's.
Despite the challenges, it's not uncommon for autistic children to be placed in regular classes, often with aides.
Others can't function in regular classes. For instance, about 40 percent of children with autism don't speak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These are smart kids," Summers said. "I treat them like normal kids because, in my mind, they are. You can't completely define a child by their difficult moments."
Just defining a child as autistic can be a struggle. Meeting the needs of high-functioning autistic children can be particularly tricky because their learning is very similar to "regular" students, but their social behaviors are different.
Teachers often sit on the front line in spotting such disorders, since autism can easily be confused with behavior problems. Teachers who aren't trained to spot the disorder can make the same mistake.
Wendy Williams remembers teachers having little patience when her son started school.
"I actually had a teacher come up to me and say he was annoying, and if I didn't do anything ... he was never going to amount to anything," the Wheaton mother said.
Like Jordan, Williams' son displayed talents early, walking at 9 1/2 months, reading on his own at 3. His thirst for knowledge was such that she had him in four different preschool programs to keep him busy.
"I thought the kid was a genius," Williams said.
But odd behavior was there, too. He was afraid to walk barefoot on grass. Loud noises caused extreme trauma. He wouldn't play with other kids.
At 6, he was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and placed on medication, to which he had a severe reaction. Eventually, tests confirmed what Williams' own research led her to believe: Her son, now 9, had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
"I always thought something was missing because everything the doctors were doing was not working," she said.
Suburban educators are working to prevent repeats of Williams' story while also cringing about past students written off or misdiagnosed.
Disorder old and new
Autism was first described in the 1940s, according to the Autism Society of America. But many educators are only becoming familiar with it as autistic students come into their schools in larger numbers.
"At least now we're recognizing it as a disability," said Naperville Unit District 203's Kitty Murphy, assistant superintendent for special education. "Hindsight is 20/20, but we try not to look back. We try to look forward."
Looking forward is going to look a lot like the recent past, she said. The district doesn't have a full count, but Murphy said it's had about 40 more autistic kids enroll every year since the 2000-01 school year.
That isn't uncommon.
Elgin Area School District U-46's autism numbers have grown to 140 children, large enough for the district to host a weeklong summer training session for staff to have hands-on training with autistic kids. The training is so popular, U-46 plans to extend it to two weeks next summer.
Likewise, District 203 has reorganized staff to provide a regular, in-class immersion for autistic children in the morning. In the afternoon, they go to another building for social skills and language training. The district even created a parent support group because so many parents wanted answers and information about the condition.
Yet despite such advancements, Illinois Autism Project Director Kathy Gould contends that many school systems in the state are still not fully prepared for autistic students.
"I get phone calls every day from parents who say, 'My child is going to school every day, and no one is trained to help him,'" she said. "Teachers and administrators will call and say, 'OK, we've got two kids with autism coming in, and we don't know what to do.' "
Gould's group, based in La Grange, provides intensive training and assistance to schools trying to educate students with autism and other developmental disorders.
To date, only about 11 percent of Illinois districts have received the training, and that puts Illinois behind the curve, Gould said.
Many states have provided autism training for 30 years. Illinois has offered it for only seven because state funding for disabled kids is low and the special education community hasn't created a lobbying effort powerful enough to change that, she said.
In East Maine Elementary District 63 in Des Plaines, there are 24 autistic students - a 50-percent increase in two years. Special Education Director Brad Voehringer said the district is finding the staff and materials to meet the growing need, but money is scarce.
"Special education has never been fully funded," he said. "We have a lot of students with significant needs, and to provide for them we have to have the resources to do that. We're doing it now, but we have to take money out of other programs' pockets to put it into special education."
Beyond that, Gould contends that local universities typically don't offer classes to specifically train future teachers to deal with autistic kids.
"They're just not prepared for the kids," she said. "It's a shame that it's not required training because it's essentially the fastest-growing disability in Illinois."
But the rules of the game are changing. Certification of special education teachers has been revamped since a lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools over the segregation of disabled students. Before the lawsuit, special ed teachers were certified in a specific area to work with a specific disability. Now, they must have a general certification that enables them to work with all types of disabilities, said Illinois State University Assistant Professor Julia Stoner.
ISU reworked its entire special education curriculum to meet the changes, and the first graduates with the new certification are just now entering the work force. Another 700 current students will follow. Yet, even in the current curriculum, there's no course that focuses purely on autism unless a student goes to graduate school. Mainstream classroom teachers have one special ed introductory course that touches on autism.
But ISU is responding in other ways to reach teachers already out in the field. ISU runs a center that focuses on developing technology to help special education students. It has also opened the Autism Spectrum Institute, which is working with the Illinois Autism Project to provide materials, a reference library and training in autism.
"I don't care what area of teaching you're in, you have to try to keep yourself up-to-date," Stoner said. "We're trying to provide those opportunities because there is definitely a need out there."
The Illinois State Board of Education is tapping into that need with a pilot program it's kicking off this month.
The program, run with the Autism Training Center in West Virginia, places a consultant with a family who has an autistic child and with the child's school. Through training, assessment and consultation, a long-term learning plan is developed for the student.
Fewer than 50 participants - far beneath the demand - will be selected for the pilot program, said state board spokeswoman Becky Watts. When the state board announced the program, "the phones just went crazy," Watts said. "It wasn't just schools, but parents saying, 'I want my child to be part of this pilot project.' It speaks to me of the need that is out there in the state."
The state board is currently setting its funding priorities to present to lawmakers. Watts said the increase in autism will be a consideration.
No easy answer why
Perhaps the only thing harder to find than funding is an explanation for why a child has autism or why the numbers are growing.
"If you read the research, it's all over the place," said District 15's Deb Zech, director of student services. "There's speculation on everything from environmental causes to genetics and just issues with the brain. And, perhaps we're just better at identifying the disorder."
In Jordan Brunett's case, his mother's growing understanding of autism has helped her get over thoughts like, "God, what are you doing to me?" Instead, her concern is, "What can I do for Jordan?"
That attitude has helped him grow into an all-star in Carol Stream's youth baseball program. He's honed his bowling skills enough to earn him a spot on a travel team. And, he has the friends his mother always dreamed he'd have.
"Kids like to be around him," Rhonda Brunett said. "They respect him, but that didn't come easy. That was with perseverance. Everything turned out right for him."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Jordan Brunett showed all the qualities of an extraordinary mind at a young age.
At 3, he could name the U.S. presidents in chronological order. He knew all the planets in the solar system. He could count in Spanish.
Yet his mother, Rhonda, sensed there was something not quite right about her son. She had trouble getting his attention. He wouldn't play with other kids. He would sit with a pile of blocks in front of him, swinging each one from ear to ear for hours.
The Carol Stream mom shed many tears of frustration before discovering the cause of her son's behavior. The diagnosis came at a preschool screening just before his third birthday.
Jordan, now 12, is autistic.
After getting over the initial bewilderment, Brunett's next step was figuring out how her son could best be educated.
On a larger level, it's the same struggle schools in Illinois are facing as they see the number of autistic students grow yearly.
According to the state board of education, there are about 7,000 autistic children in Illinois schools, up from 2,305 seven years ago. The same trend can be seen in local school systems.
In Palatine Township Elementary District 15, for instance, the autistic population has doubled in the last five years to about 80 students. Lombard Elementary District 44 has gone from seven to 16 autistic children in a similar time. In Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, growing numbers of autistic children prompted the administration to look at adding a class just for them to augment intensive services already provided.
While experts and lay people alike debate why, educators are working to secure the training and money to meet the demand and the special needs of autistic children.
Jordan Brunett was lucky. His early diagnosis began a process that resulted in an individualized learning plan.
"The school knew what to do," Rhonda Brunett said. "They had that knowledge, but I didn't know anything. So I started to educate myself."
One of the challenges of educating autistic children is that each is different. The syndrome is a lifelong disability that can involve trouble with learning abstract concepts, communication problems, emotional meltdowns when a routine is changed and social isolation.
At Jordan's school, Elsie Johnson in Hanover Park, special education teacher Angelina Summers first came upon autism by chance. While studying to be a mainstream teacher, she had no training in autism until her first student-teaching job.
"I saw a kid who clearly wasn't like the others," she said. "I asked the teacher, and she said, 'Oh, that's autism.' I was like, 'What is that?'"
Now Summers has a class of nine early childhood special-needs students, some of whom are autistic. The current growth of autism has her preparing for up to three more students next year.
Summers' classroom is decorated in brightly colored ABCs and 1-2-3s. Without the students, it's indistinguishable from a "regular" classroom. Yet the class instruction is noticeably different.
Summers doesn't stand in front of the room lecturing to students in desks. Mostly, she sits at a little table with one student at a time while her five aides work with the other kids.
Autistic children can be over-stimulated by large groups and are sometimes uncomfortable sitting near others. For some, a light touch can feel like a slap. A hug can be smothering. A slight flicker of a light can entrance.
In Summers' class, each activity has a picture associated with it to help guide students through the day. Visual aids are nearly a necessity.
"If I were to go a whole day with some kids and not use a single picture, it would be a rough day for some of them," she said.
Meltdown Control
Some people unfamiliar with autism may associate the disorder only with what's known as the meltdown. That might occur when an autistic child is pushed too hard too fast, and the mind becomes jumbled.
"Everyone has warning signs," Summers said. "If you choose to ignore those little sparks, you're going to have a big fire on your hands. If you keep pushing, eventually you'll see the kid with their head on the table not doing anything."
It's not because autistic students are disobedient. Their minds just don't work the same way as other children's.
Despite the challenges, it's not uncommon for autistic children to be placed in regular classes, often with aides.
Others can't function in regular classes. For instance, about 40 percent of children with autism don't speak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These are smart kids," Summers said. "I treat them like normal kids because, in my mind, they are. You can't completely define a child by their difficult moments."
Just defining a child as autistic can be a struggle. Meeting the needs of high-functioning autistic children can be particularly tricky because their learning is very similar to "regular" students, but their social behaviors are different.
Teachers often sit on the front line in spotting such disorders, since autism can easily be confused with behavior problems. Teachers who aren't trained to spot the disorder can make the same mistake.
Wendy Williams remembers teachers having little patience when her son started school.
"I actually had a teacher come up to me and say he was annoying, and if I didn't do anything ... he was never going to amount to anything," the Wheaton mother said.
Like Jordan, Williams' son displayed talents early, walking at 9 1/2 months, reading on his own at 3. His thirst for knowledge was such that she had him in four different preschool programs to keep him busy.
"I thought the kid was a genius," Williams said.
But odd behavior was there, too. He was afraid to walk barefoot on grass. Loud noises caused extreme trauma. He wouldn't play with other kids.
At 6, he was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and placed on medication, to which he had a severe reaction. Eventually, tests confirmed what Williams' own research led her to believe: Her son, now 9, had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
"I always thought something was missing because everything the doctors were doing was not working," she said.
Suburban educators are working to prevent repeats of Williams' story while also cringing about past students written off or misdiagnosed.
Disorder old and new
Autism was first described in the 1940s, according to the Autism Society of America. But many educators are only becoming familiar with it as autistic students come into their schools in larger numbers.
"At least now we're recognizing it as a disability," said Naperville Unit District 203's Kitty Murphy, assistant superintendent for special education. "Hindsight is 20/20, but we try not to look back. We try to look forward."
Looking forward is going to look a lot like the recent past, she said. The district doesn't have a full count, but Murphy said it's had about 40 more autistic kids enroll every year since the 2000-01 school year.
That isn't uncommon.
Elgin Area School District U-46's autism numbers have grown to 140 children, large enough for the district to host a weeklong summer training session for staff to have hands-on training with autistic kids. The training is so popular, U-46 plans to extend it to two weeks next summer.
Likewise, District 203 has reorganized staff to provide a regular, in-class immersion for autistic children in the morning. In the afternoon, they go to another building for social skills and language training. The district even created a parent support group because so many parents wanted answers and information about the condition.
Yet despite such advancements, Illinois Autism Project Director Kathy Gould contends that many school systems in the state are still not fully prepared for autistic students.
"I get phone calls every day from parents who say, 'My child is going to school every day, and no one is trained to help him,'" she said. "Teachers and administrators will call and say, 'OK, we've got two kids with autism coming in, and we don't know what to do.' "
Gould's group, based in La Grange, provides intensive training and assistance to schools trying to educate students with autism and other developmental disorders.
To date, only about 11 percent of Illinois districts have received the training, and that puts Illinois behind the curve, Gould said.
Many states have provided autism training for 30 years. Illinois has offered it for only seven because state funding for disabled kids is low and the special education community hasn't created a lobbying effort powerful enough to change that, she said.
In East Maine Elementary District 63 in Des Plaines, there are 24 autistic students - a 50-percent increase in two years. Special Education Director Brad Voehringer said the district is finding the staff and materials to meet the growing need, but money is scarce.
"Special education has never been fully funded," he said. "We have a lot of students with significant needs, and to provide for them we have to have the resources to do that. We're doing it now, but we have to take money out of other programs' pockets to put it into special education."
Beyond that, Gould contends that local universities typically don't offer classes to specifically train future teachers to deal with autistic kids.
"They're just not prepared for the kids," she said. "It's a shame that it's not required training because it's essentially the fastest-growing disability in Illinois."
But the rules of the game are changing. Certification of special education teachers has been revamped since a lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools over the segregation of disabled students. Before the lawsuit, special ed teachers were certified in a specific area to work with a specific disability. Now, they must have a general certification that enables them to work with all types of disabilities, said Illinois State University Assistant Professor Julia Stoner.
ISU reworked its entire special education curriculum to meet the changes, and the first graduates with the new certification are just now entering the work force. Another 700 current students will follow. Yet, even in the current curriculum, there's no course that focuses purely on autism unless a student goes to graduate school. Mainstream classroom teachers have one special ed introductory course that touches on autism.
But ISU is responding in other ways to reach teachers already out in the field. ISU runs a center that focuses on developing technology to help special education students. It has also opened the Autism Spectrum Institute, which is working with the Illinois Autism Project to provide materials, a reference library and training in autism.
"I don't care what area of teaching you're in, you have to try to keep yourself up-to-date," Stoner said. "We're trying to provide those opportunities because there is definitely a need out there."
The Illinois State Board of Education is tapping into that need with a pilot program it's kicking off this month.
The program, run with the Autism Training Center in West Virginia, places a consultant with a family who has an autistic child and with the child's school. Through training, assessment and consultation, a long-term learning plan is developed for the student.
Fewer than 50 participants - far beneath the demand - will be selected for the pilot program, said state board spokeswoman Becky Watts. When the state board announced the program, "the phones just went crazy," Watts said. "It wasn't just schools, but parents saying, 'I want my child to be part of this pilot project.' It speaks to me of the need that is out there in the state."
The state board is currently setting its funding priorities to present to lawmakers. Watts said the increase in autism will be a consideration.
No easy answer why
Perhaps the only thing harder to find than funding is an explanation for why a child has autism or why the numbers are growing.
"If you read the research, it's all over the place," said District 15's Deb Zech, director of student services. "There's speculation on everything from environmental causes to genetics and just issues with the brain. And, perhaps we're just better at identifying the disorder."
In Jordan Brunett's case, his mother's growing understanding of autism has helped her get over thoughts like, "God, what are you doing to me?" Instead, her concern is, "What can I do for Jordan?"
That attitude has helped him grow into an all-star in Carol Stream's youth baseball program. He's honed his bowling skills enough to earn him a spot on a travel team. And, he has the friends his mother always dreamed he'd have.
"Kids like to be around him," Rhonda Brunett said. "They respect him, but that didn't come easy. That was with perseverance. Everything turned out right for him."
(Part 4 of 4-part series) 'Engine 55 has a friend for life'
Tuesday September 03 2002
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On looks alone, Joe Cantafio is an unlikely hero.
No cape trails him as he limps through the streets of New York. With knees that should belong to a retired linebacker instead of a stockbroker, it's Cantafio who is often trailing the pack when the firefighters walk Manhattan.
"Wait, where's Joe?" They quizzically stop and look around.
Cantafio's knees aren't made for walking with guys in such good shape. But when he's in New York, he's on his feet at least seven hours a day.
So his pals only smile and razz him while they wait patiently at the stoplight for him to catch up.
Cantafio, a Barrington resident and Oak Park native, is nearing the end of his yearlong concert tour to raise money for the families of Engine Co. 55's lost men.
The Let Freedom Sing tour is inching up on about 100 performances, many of them a machine-like four hours in length. Some are played with his band Jade; others with just his guitar and an old fire boot for donations.
Through it all he has made Engine 55 the Chicago suburbs' most popular Sept. 11 charity, collecting tens of thousands of dollars here that he gives directly to the firehouse for the families.
* * *
Cantafio spends a lot of time on the road, shuffling his daughters to family members supportive of his cause. He worries about not being there enough for his four girls, but when he plays locally they are his best roadies.
Stocks are now little more than an activity he squeezes in between half-hour naps. He sleeps in 10-minute cab rides. He has no time for it.
"You know what I mean, Joe?" asks John Olivero, wrapping up a thought while driving Cantafio to a nightly show.
Cantafio's closed eyes gaze up at the dome light, arms folded on his chest. A snore is his only reply. Olivero smiles and shuts up. Later, on a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, Cantafio dozes off on a bench. The other guys grin and leave him alone.
"I've figured out that I need five hours of sleep to get my voice right for a show," Cantafio says of the catnaps. "It doesn't matter how I get it as long as it's five hours total."
When he isn't singing or sleeping, he's planning, mapping out shows, scheduling venues. He keeps all his contacts in an orange book. It's the closest thing he has to a secretary.
But why all this for people he never met, faces he'd never seen and a city 900 miles away?
It began with fury.
The morning of Sept. 11, Cantafio sat in front of his television and watched the planes hammer the twin towers of the World Trade Center. First one, then the other, and again, and again, and again as the replays looped throughout the day. Cantafio's fists tightened, his teeth clenched. He was transfixed, horrified and, in the end, changed.
During Desert Storm, he was a big talker, watching the war from his couch and bad mouthing the Iraqis.
"I'd come home from work and tell the kids, 'Let's watch the war,' " Cantafio recalls.
Not this time. This time the war hit too close to home. His firm did business with Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices and work staff were all but eliminated in the holocaust. He had acquaintances at Mainstay Funds. He was working on a deal with a Korean bank and a German bank, both in the World Trade Center. All pulverized and gone.
Firefighters buzzed around the scene, directing people out of the towers in waves, ascending to the hell fires of the upper floors even as the steel continued to weaken. Screaming people ran out. Firemen raced to get in. It was inspirational.
Cantafio has firefighters in his family - cousins, his brother-in-law, a nephew. They weren't in New York, but he was never prouder to have them in his bloodline.
Those competing emotions battled for release, and in a catharsis Cantafio turned to the medium he knew best - music. Cantafio has played the guitar ever since he learned the six strings from Sister Mary Rose at St. Catherine of Siena School in Oak Park.
In 1973 at Oak Park River Forest High School, Cantafio put together his first band. They scored a gig playing '50s tunes for a "flashback day." Soon other schools had the band performing throwback sock-hops. The Jade 50s were born.
The band went on tour nationally with "Dick Clark's Good Ol' Rock and Roll Show" and "Wolfman Jack's Rockin' Oldies Show" for the bulk of Cantafio's 20s. Those were the good old days.
Fast forward to 2001. Cantafio gave up the road years ago and built a decent career in finance, rising to be vice president at Chicago's One Financial Center. He has custody of his four daughters and a nice house in Barrington.
Following Sept. 11, he went a little nuts. First, he tried to join the Army. At 47, that was no go.
So, searching for good feelings again, his guitar was a natural crutch. Only this time, he played songs like "Dust in the Wind" and "In My Life" instead of '50s tunes.
His shoulders relaxed. His red face returned to a natural tone. The tears dried up and his mind started working.
The first tentative shows brought in $10 a pop and were played to as few as seven people.
"Is this an audience or an oil painting?" he dead-panned to his smaller, quieter crowds.
But a show here, a show there, and a tour was started.
It needed direction. Cantafio called the New York Fire Department where he was directed to www.fdny.org and a list of 343 dead firefighters and their pictures. He printed them all out, tears tumbling down his cheeks as he looked into their faces.
The names went into a hat. He picked one: Chris Mozzillo, Engine Co. 55. The men of Engine 55 would get the money he raised.
He wrote letters to Engine 55, explaining his plan. For a while there was no response. Then, finally, an e-mail came from Olivero.
"We all are very excited and impressed with what you are doing for the families of our fallen brothers," Olivero wrote.
It was the beginning of a bond that would carry Cantafio through his mission. But no e-mail or phone call could hammer home the deep emotion behind Cantafio's efforts. He had to go to New York. The firefighters needed help. They had been duped by various charity efforts and only prayed Cantafio was real.
To seal the deal, Cantafio brought the firefighters to Chicago so they could see his shows firsthand. By then, he was organized. His shows were packed. In March, he even had Engine 55 men marching with President Bush in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade. Thrilled, afterward Cantafio called his mom.
"Did you see me shake hands with the president?" he demanded.
During Fourth of July celebrations from Bartlett to Barrington to Naperville, Engine 55 men were the guests of honor. There was no doubt that Chicago loved and admired the courage of New York's bravest. It was time to take the show to New York.
At Cantafio's shows at neighborhood pubs in New York, the firefighters are at ease. He doesn't raise much money, but in New York, it's not entirely about raising money.
The firefighters hit the stage and sing along on "American Pie," the nightly show stopper. They huddle around, arms on each other's shoulders, and scream into the microphone.
Cantafio makes a nightly lyric substitute at the end:
"And the three men I admire most - Charlie Ferris, Olivero and Bobby Yost - they took the last train headed for the coast. The day the music died."
The names are those of three living Engine 55 firefighters. He rotates the lyrics among the men, but his admiration is genuine. They are his heroes.
The guys do Elvis and Mick Jagger impersonations while Joe sings. Hips gyrating, peacock struts. At one show a visiting fireman from Pennsylvania surfs the table during a Beach Boys tune. They toss back beers and dance. They are at ease.
So is Cantafio. The sweat beads on his forehead. He plays from a back corner of the bar, dimly lit and partially obscured by tables and poles.
He doesn't drink alcohol. Water quenches his thirst but his gulps are always followed with an "Ahhhhh ... Budweiser," or whatever beer is on tap to help sales.
Behind the music, Cantafio is a counselor. During a ride to another show, Paul Quinn, the only surviving member of the engine's original response team to the World Trade Center, confides in him. Quinn is alive because one man always has to stay with the truck. On Sept. 11, that was him.
He dove under the rig when the South Tower came down. Rescue workers later found him wandering and covered in dust, unable to remember how he got there. Dazed but alive. When the North Tower came down 29 minutes later it buried the rig 40 feet underground.
Quinn has spent months dealing with the confusion and guilt and grief.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" he asks Cantafio. His friend shakes is head.
"No. Whatever's going on in your head, God bless you," Cantafio responds.
That night, Quinn sits front row and smiles. By the end of the night, he's calling out requests and singing solos. Crazy doesn't look like this.
Cantafio is an angry man. His cries for revenge are frequently sprinkled into monologues with his audiences.
Tuning his guitar for the next song, he launches another volley.
"You know, I think we should nuke the whole country over into glass," he says of the war in Afghanistan. "Then we can put all the survivors and war prisoners to work grinding it up into sand again."
When he visits ground zero, the veins in his neck and forehead become visible. He grips the fence tighter and shakes his curly head.
He hugs a complete stranger, Mary Ann Carne, who lost dozens of friends at WTC and now comes to the site once a month to grieve. She lets it all out in deep sobs and trembling tears.
There is another woman, nearly frantic, who scrunches her face and cries. She is from Boston and is guilt-ridden because some of the jets used by the terrorists took off from her city. Her arms wave as if blindly searching for something to embrace. Cantafio reaches out.
* * *
Come fall, the tour will be officially over. It must be, from exhaustion if nothing else. Cantafio's four daughters, Kim, Laura, Jennifer and Danielle, need his good Samaritan example, but they also need him at home.
If terror strikes again, Joe will play again. If any of the grieving families of Chris Mozzillo, Bobby Lane, Lt. Peter Freund, Stephen Russell and Faustino Apostal need someone to talk to, his number is on speed dial. And, if the firefighters of New York ever need a hand, they have a new brother.
"I think I have a friend for life," said John Olivero. "Engine 55 has a friend for life. So does New York."
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On looks alone, Joe Cantafio is an unlikely hero.
No cape trails him as he limps through the streets of New York. With knees that should belong to a retired linebacker instead of a stockbroker, it's Cantafio who is often trailing the pack when the firefighters walk Manhattan.
"Wait, where's Joe?" They quizzically stop and look around.
Cantafio's knees aren't made for walking with guys in such good shape. But when he's in New York, he's on his feet at least seven hours a day.
So his pals only smile and razz him while they wait patiently at the stoplight for him to catch up.
Cantafio, a Barrington resident and Oak Park native, is nearing the end of his yearlong concert tour to raise money for the families of Engine Co. 55's lost men.
The Let Freedom Sing tour is inching up on about 100 performances, many of them a machine-like four hours in length. Some are played with his band Jade; others with just his guitar and an old fire boot for donations.
Through it all he has made Engine 55 the Chicago suburbs' most popular Sept. 11 charity, collecting tens of thousands of dollars here that he gives directly to the firehouse for the families.
* * *
Cantafio spends a lot of time on the road, shuffling his daughters to family members supportive of his cause. He worries about not being there enough for his four girls, but when he plays locally they are his best roadies.
Stocks are now little more than an activity he squeezes in between half-hour naps. He sleeps in 10-minute cab rides. He has no time for it.
"You know what I mean, Joe?" asks John Olivero, wrapping up a thought while driving Cantafio to a nightly show.
Cantafio's closed eyes gaze up at the dome light, arms folded on his chest. A snore is his only reply. Olivero smiles and shuts up. Later, on a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, Cantafio dozes off on a bench. The other guys grin and leave him alone.
"I've figured out that I need five hours of sleep to get my voice right for a show," Cantafio says of the catnaps. "It doesn't matter how I get it as long as it's five hours total."
When he isn't singing or sleeping, he's planning, mapping out shows, scheduling venues. He keeps all his contacts in an orange book. It's the closest thing he has to a secretary.
But why all this for people he never met, faces he'd never seen and a city 900 miles away?
It began with fury.
The morning of Sept. 11, Cantafio sat in front of his television and watched the planes hammer the twin towers of the World Trade Center. First one, then the other, and again, and again, and again as the replays looped throughout the day. Cantafio's fists tightened, his teeth clenched. He was transfixed, horrified and, in the end, changed.
During Desert Storm, he was a big talker, watching the war from his couch and bad mouthing the Iraqis.
"I'd come home from work and tell the kids, 'Let's watch the war,' " Cantafio recalls.
Not this time. This time the war hit too close to home. His firm did business with Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices and work staff were all but eliminated in the holocaust. He had acquaintances at Mainstay Funds. He was working on a deal with a Korean bank and a German bank, both in the World Trade Center. All pulverized and gone.
Firefighters buzzed around the scene, directing people out of the towers in waves, ascending to the hell fires of the upper floors even as the steel continued to weaken. Screaming people ran out. Firemen raced to get in. It was inspirational.
Cantafio has firefighters in his family - cousins, his brother-in-law, a nephew. They weren't in New York, but he was never prouder to have them in his bloodline.
Those competing emotions battled for release, and in a catharsis Cantafio turned to the medium he knew best - music. Cantafio has played the guitar ever since he learned the six strings from Sister Mary Rose at St. Catherine of Siena School in Oak Park.
In 1973 at Oak Park River Forest High School, Cantafio put together his first band. They scored a gig playing '50s tunes for a "flashback day." Soon other schools had the band performing throwback sock-hops. The Jade 50s were born.
The band went on tour nationally with "Dick Clark's Good Ol' Rock and Roll Show" and "Wolfman Jack's Rockin' Oldies Show" for the bulk of Cantafio's 20s. Those were the good old days.
Fast forward to 2001. Cantafio gave up the road years ago and built a decent career in finance, rising to be vice president at Chicago's One Financial Center. He has custody of his four daughters and a nice house in Barrington.
Following Sept. 11, he went a little nuts. First, he tried to join the Army. At 47, that was no go.
So, searching for good feelings again, his guitar was a natural crutch. Only this time, he played songs like "Dust in the Wind" and "In My Life" instead of '50s tunes.
His shoulders relaxed. His red face returned to a natural tone. The tears dried up and his mind started working.
The first tentative shows brought in $10 a pop and were played to as few as seven people.
"Is this an audience or an oil painting?" he dead-panned to his smaller, quieter crowds.
But a show here, a show there, and a tour was started.
It needed direction. Cantafio called the New York Fire Department where he was directed to www.fdny.org and a list of 343 dead firefighters and their pictures. He printed them all out, tears tumbling down his cheeks as he looked into their faces.
The names went into a hat. He picked one: Chris Mozzillo, Engine Co. 55. The men of Engine 55 would get the money he raised.
He wrote letters to Engine 55, explaining his plan. For a while there was no response. Then, finally, an e-mail came from Olivero.
"We all are very excited and impressed with what you are doing for the families of our fallen brothers," Olivero wrote.
It was the beginning of a bond that would carry Cantafio through his mission. But no e-mail or phone call could hammer home the deep emotion behind Cantafio's efforts. He had to go to New York. The firefighters needed help. They had been duped by various charity efforts and only prayed Cantafio was real.
To seal the deal, Cantafio brought the firefighters to Chicago so they could see his shows firsthand. By then, he was organized. His shows were packed. In March, he even had Engine 55 men marching with President Bush in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade. Thrilled, afterward Cantafio called his mom.
"Did you see me shake hands with the president?" he demanded.
During Fourth of July celebrations from Bartlett to Barrington to Naperville, Engine 55 men were the guests of honor. There was no doubt that Chicago loved and admired the courage of New York's bravest. It was time to take the show to New York.
At Cantafio's shows at neighborhood pubs in New York, the firefighters are at ease. He doesn't raise much money, but in New York, it's not entirely about raising money.
The firefighters hit the stage and sing along on "American Pie," the nightly show stopper. They huddle around, arms on each other's shoulders, and scream into the microphone.
Cantafio makes a nightly lyric substitute at the end:
"And the three men I admire most - Charlie Ferris, Olivero and Bobby Yost - they took the last train headed for the coast. The day the music died."
The names are those of three living Engine 55 firefighters. He rotates the lyrics among the men, but his admiration is genuine. They are his heroes.
The guys do Elvis and Mick Jagger impersonations while Joe sings. Hips gyrating, peacock struts. At one show a visiting fireman from Pennsylvania surfs the table during a Beach Boys tune. They toss back beers and dance. They are at ease.
So is Cantafio. The sweat beads on his forehead. He plays from a back corner of the bar, dimly lit and partially obscured by tables and poles.
He doesn't drink alcohol. Water quenches his thirst but his gulps are always followed with an "Ahhhhh ... Budweiser," or whatever beer is on tap to help sales.
Behind the music, Cantafio is a counselor. During a ride to another show, Paul Quinn, the only surviving member of the engine's original response team to the World Trade Center, confides in him. Quinn is alive because one man always has to stay with the truck. On Sept. 11, that was him.
He dove under the rig when the South Tower came down. Rescue workers later found him wandering and covered in dust, unable to remember how he got there. Dazed but alive. When the North Tower came down 29 minutes later it buried the rig 40 feet underground.
Quinn has spent months dealing with the confusion and guilt and grief.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" he asks Cantafio. His friend shakes is head.
"No. Whatever's going on in your head, God bless you," Cantafio responds.
That night, Quinn sits front row and smiles. By the end of the night, he's calling out requests and singing solos. Crazy doesn't look like this.
Cantafio is an angry man. His cries for revenge are frequently sprinkled into monologues with his audiences.
Tuning his guitar for the next song, he launches another volley.
"You know, I think we should nuke the whole country over into glass," he says of the war in Afghanistan. "Then we can put all the survivors and war prisoners to work grinding it up into sand again."
When he visits ground zero, the veins in his neck and forehead become visible. He grips the fence tighter and shakes his curly head.
He hugs a complete stranger, Mary Ann Carne, who lost dozens of friends at WTC and now comes to the site once a month to grieve. She lets it all out in deep sobs and trembling tears.
There is another woman, nearly frantic, who scrunches her face and cries. She is from Boston and is guilt-ridden because some of the jets used by the terrorists took off from her city. Her arms wave as if blindly searching for something to embrace. Cantafio reaches out.
* * *
Come fall, the tour will be officially over. It must be, from exhaustion if nothing else. Cantafio's four daughters, Kim, Laura, Jennifer and Danielle, need his good Samaritan example, but they also need him at home.
If terror strikes again, Joe will play again. If any of the grieving families of Chris Mozzillo, Bobby Lane, Lt. Peter Freund, Stephen Russell and Faustino Apostal need someone to talk to, his number is on speed dial. And, if the firefighters of New York ever need a hand, they have a new brother.
"I think I have a friend for life," said John Olivero. "Engine 55 has a friend for life. So does New York."
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
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