“Bob Greene is on assignment.”
Yes, a string ensemble. I knew we’d be in for a treat once Bob finally let go his white-knuckle grip on Richard and ventured back into the world, like a frightened rabbit poking its head outside its hole after a storm. But nothing prepared me for the insipidness of Bob’s first post-Richard column, “It’s the best thing I can do” (June 26).
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Still, I suppose anything is better than Bob’s endless flagpole sitting over Baby Richard. Bob’s goodbye column to Richard, “The questions that will some day come” (June 25), is done with all the understatement of the death scene from Tristan und Isolde. Bob actually thanks “the patience” of his editors for enduring his string of Richard columns. The final column (O, were it true!) appears cribbed from the last scene of Casablanca. The justices from the Illinois Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court, Bob declares, will toss and turn late at night, plagued by haunting questions. “And they can be assured that those questions will come to them–maybe not right away, maybe not now, but some day, perhaps as they lie awake in the middle of the night.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Jeff Heller.
