Happy Birthday Ageless: Local blog celebrates first anniversary

On March 11, 2009, Ageless North Shore posted its first story….All cultures have their origin myths. The Mansi people of Siberia believed that two loons  dove to the bottom of primeval waters to retrieve a piece of the bottom and placed it on top of the water. From there the Earth grew.

Peggy loving the The Art Center in Highland Park

Ok, well that’s what it said in Wikipedia.

In this case, maybe it is only one loon.

We have since posted 286 interviews, reviews, guides to upcoming events, podcasts, videos, and observations about life in and around the North Shore and in and around middle age.

Here are some of our favorites:

On May 18, the Highland Park Library had a Turn Back the Clock Day. I learned about the Federal Writer’s Project. And the political struggle that occurred due to the state guides written by then unknown writers as John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel.

Turn Back the Clock Day to the 1930s!!!

The struggle…” between two visions of our country–between an idyllic version and the iconoclastic picture that went into the state guides–how that struggle played out in the effort to hold up a mirror to America.”

‘Twas ever thus….

Jewish girl from Glencoe slices Southern ham

July 30th…Comedy Writer turns Healer….Revenge of the Bioenergists. Featuring Steve Zacharias as the healer and Sharon Rosenzweig as the afflicted. Zacharias will be honored on March 13 by the Highland Park Historical Society and inducted into the newly formed Hall of Fame.

YHVH and Moses from The Comic Torah, available Fall, 2010

Sharon has featured prominently in our first year. We particularly enjoyed her piece, “July 4 Redux: The Only White Person in South Memphis”

And the saga of Sharon and hubby Aaron Freeman creating the Comic Torah.

Don, Snake, and Nina Carden

But wait there’s more. Sharon and Aaron took us to the circus in November. We saw Sharon’s talented daughter, Nina Carden performing fantastic aerial acrobatics and posing for pictures with a giant snake wrapped about her waist and shoulders.

At the lakefront

On August 28, we made it out to the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve. We said at the time:

The view from the trail head to the lake reminded a couple of their recent trip to Cape Cod. The deep blue of the lake and nearly cloudless sky; the wild flowers and prairie grasses transported us as well.

We have a cool photo stream on Flickr of our day by the lake. Very arty and very summery. Click here to remember summer.

In our post about the festival of Diwali celebrated last October, we published some lovely prose by our friend Sachin Waikar…A prince and would-be king. A beautiful princess. A lustful 10-headed demon. A flying monkey god. And thousands of tiny lights. And some wonderful (copyright free) Indian graphics.

Hanuman, the monkey god

A thousand pumpkins or more!

Highwood really rocked this year. The town put on festivals, art fairs, farmer’s markets, a “Parisian” style market and in October on a beautiful autumn night (and we didn’t have too many of those).. a thousand jack-o-lanterns  displayed on a three story high,  90-foot wide wall of scaffolding. This is the prelude to the 2010 Great Pumpkin Festival where Highwood goes for the record.

Michael Ebner has been another stellar contributor to Ageless North Shore. The preeminent historian who wrote Creating Chicago’s North Shore, A Suburban History gave a presentation in December on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Glencoe library. Click here for the article and podcast.

The Brotherhood Chorale

The MIC provided a winter highlight with their four part series “Paving the Way to America’s Cultural Identity.” We attended the first program “At the Core of Discovery: Lewis, Clark, and the Native American Encounter” and third program which featured the 150 voices of The Brotherhood Chorale of the Apostolic Church in a tribute to African American music and a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.

Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting (commenting is HUGE), subscribing to our newsletter, suggesting stories and even writing them.