The city of Gary has announced that all vacant buildings will be used to sell fireworks. Some will operate through July 4 while others will remain open year-round. In other news, neighboring Hobart says its opening a new fireworks store on Route 30 inside one of its existing fireworks stores. “Hoosiers were calling for this,” said Hobart spokesman Dan Trillo. The Indiana General Assembly just convened an emergency session where it will allow all liquor stores, closed on Sundays by law, to be open on Sunday strictly to sell fireworks. “No Miller Lite for you, but feel free to purchase Cherry Bombs, Roman Candles and shells,” state Sen. Randolph Gerry said. Indiana is embracing itself as the Fireworks State. Back to Gary, the city…
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Spider can often be seen working on cars in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. That’s when we don’t take our vehicles to his homestead in Indiana, near a cornfield, where three or four non-operational vehicles sit in the driveway. They’d probably be in his garage but he has a lot of junk in there. Engine blocks, three riding lawnmowers (one that works), a motorcycle with no gas tank or seat, and various scraps of metal and car parts. There are several posters on the wall featuring women wearing bikinis and high heels (I never understood that look). There’s also a Sex and The City poster (TV show version) and on one shelf what Spider calls “a Japanese motorcycle helmet.” Spider has been mentioned once…
“Mind nobody’s business and keep the noise down when you throw an immigrant social” Mr Chang owned a Chicago-area trailer park and was a close acquaintance of the mom of my friend Johnny. During our senior year of high school Mr. Chang let Johnny and our other friend, Kingston, rent a trailer to live in. This wasn’t like one of those John Hughes movies where all the cool kids partied at rich North Shore homes, but for us it was a big deal. We had a place. To party. To drink. To sex. I remember going with Johnny and Kingston to meet Mr. Chang. Although he had an office and his own trailer at the park where my friends were renting, we met Mr.…
The Dodgy 