Entrepreneurs and ILGIF

Last week’s Treasurer’s Note unleashed a lot of pride in Illinois’ history of innovations, and readers were quick to let me know about their favorites.           Several of them, I was aware of. A few of them were new to me.           Thank you for enlightening me! Now I’d like to enlighten our readers by picking out a baker’s dozen of great Illinois innovations. We didn’t have space for them all. Hopefully, highlighting these inventions will help you learn something you didn’t…

I distinctly remember the fear I felt when my aunt and uncle dropped me off on Yale’s campus 35 years ago this fall. I had never visited the school and didn’t know anyone.  As I met people, I realized there weren’t many people like me there. I grew up the son of a Teamsters truck driver in a small farming town of about 800. My parents hadn’t gone to college. My grandparents hadn’t even attended high school after dropping out in junior high to work on the farm.  I wasn’t the only…

For people who know I have twins, a common question I get asked is: “Are the twins letting you sleep at night?” Max and Theo have been good sleepers for some time now. They let Erica and me get a good night’s sleep most nights. What they don’t let us do is rest any minute they are awake. These boys have a lot of energy. They are always moving but don’t yet understand the risks associated with many of their actions. There is an awful lot of following them around…

I recently read a description of an outhouse: A small building a hundred feet from your house that’s a hundred feet too far in the winter, and a hundred feet too close in the summer. This reminded me of a conversation I had with Dad a few years ago. I grew up with indoor plumbing. Every friend I knew had indoor plumbing. My father did not until he was about 8. Before then, he had to use an outhouse and bed pans. This shocked me. Although I knew indoor plumbing…