We can fault the father of the Highland Park shooting suspect, but I doubt we will convict him

& the Picayune Sentinel celebrates 100 weeks of provocative argle-bargle

8-10-2023 (issue No. 100)

This is the 100th consecutive weekly issue of the Picayune Sentinel, and, as always, I’m grateful to all the readers and especially to paying subscribers for making this post-Tribune venture modestly sustainable. I hope to keep going and keep growing, though I may now from time to time heed Johanna’s stern admonition to take a week off once in a while.

This week

• Are the sins of the father in Highland Park really a crime? I don’t think so

• Last week’s winning tweets

• Me oh my-o, a great election result in Ohio

• Ich bin ein Pat Quinner

• News and Views

• Remembering the Cha Cha Slide on “SNL”

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• On the gratuitous grandparent watch — Wagging my finger yet again

• Mary Schmich — Bonne storage

• “The Mincing Rascals” preview

• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists

• Tune of the Week — Scads of reader nominees!

Are the sins of the father really a crime?

Robert Crimo Jr. is charged with seven counts of reckless conduct, one for each person shot to death at Highland Park’s 2022 July 4 parade, allegedly by Robert Crimo III, his son.

In December 2019, when the son was 19, the father helped him buy the firearm allegedly used in the parade shootings by signing an affidavit that allowed the son to get a state of Illinois firearm owner’s identification card, though he was not yet 21. The father attested to his son’s veracity in answering “no” to the following questions on the FOID application form:

• Have you ever been convicted of a felony under the laws of this or any other jurisdiction?

• In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?

• Are you addicted to narcotics?

• Are you intellectually or developmentally disabled?

• Are you currently the subject of an existing order of protection or no contact / no stalking order?

• Within the previous year have you failed a drug test for a drug for which you did not have a prescription?

• Within the past year have you used or been addicted to any controlled substance or narcotics in violation of state or federal law?

• Are you a medical marijuana patient registry card holder?

• Within the past five years, have you been a patient in a mental institution or any part of a medical facility for the treatment of mental illness?

• Within the past 5 years, have you been convicted of a battery, assault, aggravated assault, violation of an order of protection, or a substantially similar offense in which a firearm was used or possessed?

• Have you ever been convicted of domestic battery (felony or misdemeanor), aggravated domestic battery or a substantially similar offense?

• Have you ever been adjudicated a delinquent minor for the commission of an offense that, if committed by an adult, would be a felony?

• Have you ever been adjudicated by a court as a mental defective or ordered by a court or other authorized entity to an in-patient or out-patient mental health (facility)?

• Are you an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States under the laws of the United States?

• Have you been admitted to the United States under a non-immigrant visa of the Immigration Nationality Act?

• Have you ever renounced your citizenship as a citizen of the United States?

• Have you ever been discharged from the armed forces under dishonorable conditions?

• Are you a fugitive from justice?

Though the son was known to have made threats to harm himself and others, the “no” answers may have been technically true, as the father’s defense team has maintained. But it’s certainly fair to conclude from what we’ve heard of the son’s troubling behavior that it was an act of gross irresponsibility for the father to help him obtain deadly weapons.

However, the son was a little more than two months shy of his 22nd birthday when he allegedly opened fire from a rooftop on the parade route, meaning that he no longer needed anyone’s say-so to buy guns.

We can hold the father morally responsible for acts of commission and omission that allegedly resulted in a horrific tragedy. But did the father’s legal responsibility for helping his troubled minor child buy guns expire on that child’s 21st birthday?

The indictment against the father refers only to “reckless conduct” in 2019 by helping the son buy a gun “he was not otherwise allowed to obtain … at a time when said defendant was aware that Robert Crimo III had expressed violent ideations.”

State law says:

A person commits reckless conduct when he or she, by any means lawful or unlawful, recklessly performs an act or acts that: 1) cause bodily harm to or endanger the safety of another person; or (2) cause great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement to another person.

The frequently-asked-questions portion of the Illinois State Police website on the FOID card says an applicant is ineligible if his or her “mental condition is of such a nature that it poses a clear and present danger to the applicant, or any other person or the community,” but this logical, if somewhat vague, restriction that arguably described the son does not appear on the FOID application forms.

When would the father’s responsibility have expired? More than two and a half years elapsed from the time the son got his FOID card and the massacre. What if it had been just shy of the 10 years for which FOID cards are valid?

The key word in the statute looks as though it’s going to be “cause.” Did the father’s assist in the purchase of firearms — lawful or unlawful, reckless or considered — cause the July 4, 2022, tragedy in any meaningful respect given that the son no longer needed that assist to buy guns?

Count me among those who are furious and fearful about the carnage inflicted by guns and the easy access to them by people who obviously shouldn’t have them. Count me among those who have contempt for the father who helped his child buy a weapon of mass destruction.

But count me as skeptical that current law will allow the serious charges against the father to stick given that the son was an adult when he allegedly murdered seven people.

Lake County Judge George Strickland said Monday he would rule in three weeks on defense motions to dismiss charges against the father.

Last week’s winning tweets

It's been six months since I joined the gym and no progress. I'm going there in person tomorrow to see what's really going on. — @_CakeBawse

I also posted a bonus dad-tweets poll featuring excruciating wordplay. That winner was:

I switched all the labels on my wife’s spice rack. I’m not in trouble yet, but the thyme is cumin — @gran_jury

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

Me oh my-o, a great election result in Ohio

As you probably know by now, Ohio voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly repudiated a ballot initiative put forward by Republicans to raise the threshold for amending the state’s constitution. By a 57% to 43% margin, they rejected a proposal that was widely seen as an effort to block the enshrinement in the state constitution of abortion rights in a vote this fall.

And the result has been widely and, I think, correctly seen as yet another sign that moderate voters are rejecting the extreme anti-abortion rights laws that Republican lawmakers are hastening to enact in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to regulate the controversial practice. In Ohio, abortion is now banned by law after cardiac activity can be detected — at around six week of gestation, before some women even know they’re pregnant.

The Associated Press:

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, six states have had elections regarding reproductive rights. In every election — including in conservative states like Kansas — voters have supported abortion rights.

In Kansas, 59% voted to preserve abortion rights protections, while in Michigan 57% favored an amendment that put protections in the state constitution.

Polls in Ohio show similarly strong support for the abortion rights referendum that will be on the November ballot, signaling a potential wipeout around the country for Republicans in 2024 if the party doesn’t moderate its stance on abortion.

Polling over the years shows that strong majorities of the population favor abortion rights in most circumstances when women seek abortions, which is to say nearly always in the first 12 weeks of gestation. At the same time, majorities also favor some limits on the procedure.

As one who thinks the abortion decision should always be made by patients and is not the business of legislators, I’m thrilled.

But as one who is wary of swings in public sentiment and a believer that constitutions ought to contain more durable principles than statute books, I can’t say I’m thrilled in general about the idea that a simple majority vote is sufficient to change a constitution.

Tuesday night, Gov. J.B. Pritzker tweeted that the landslide in Ohio was “a massive win for democracy” and said “we must fight like hell” in support of the fall referendum in support of putting an abortion right guarantee in the Ohio constitution — a guarantee that theoretically could then be revoked by a majority vote if the winds of public opinion shift.

Well, asked a reporter at Pritzker’s news conference Wednesday, wouldn’t it be a “win for democracy” if Illinois allowed voters a similar say in amending the state’s constitution? It’s a difficult, byzantine and highly limited process for citizens to get an amendment on the ballot here, and enacting it requires a supermajority vote.

Capitol Fax reported that, after a long bit of homina-homina, Pritzker said:

You’re asking about whether Illinois should change. We have a 60% threshold here. We’ve had amendments pass and fail in Illinois. And I think I wouldn’t change what we’re doing here in Illinois. I’m just saying what you saw last night was really about choice. That’s all it was. And you also heard Republicans who are backing that, saying last night that they intend to bring their referendum back, to make it hard for people to change the constitution. Maybe they will. But by that time, Ohio would have put into its constitution a restoration of a woman’s right to choose.

Translation: The higher threshold for amendments is good if I like what’s in the constitution, but bad if I favor the proposed amendment.

Ich bin ein Pat Quinner

Former Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has long been a champion of so-called direct democracy in which citizens have the power to petition for a vote on virtually any change in the state constitution. Now, citizen-initiated amendments are constitutionally limited "to structural and procedural subjects contained" in Article IV, the one that deals with the legislature.

The reason for this limit is to prevent Illinois from becoming a state in which legislative questions — about taxes, marijuana, gay marriage, abortion, pensions, gerrymandering, term limits and so on — were routinely left up to voters who might be stirred up by momentary passions or heavily influenced by massive advertising campaigns from interest groups. Best to leave such matters to the elected lawmakers, the thinking went.

I basically subscribed to that idea for a long time. But in my disillusionment about the outsized influence of organized, well-funded interest groups in Springfield and the power of party leaders to squelch reasonable, popular initiatives in the service of their various masters, I’m coming around.

If Pritzker meant what he said when exulting about “democracy” in Ohio, he’d get behind an effort to make it at least a little easier to let Illinois voters weigh in on big questions.

But if he meant what he said when pressed on the matter — “I wouldn’t change what we’re doing here in Illinois” — then he won’t.

Translation: He won’t.

News & Views

News: Randy Garrett, a citizen sleuth whose encyclopedic knowledge aided all of us who sought justice for Jeanine Nicarico, died July 31 at 64.

View: Garrett’s commitment to finding the truth in one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in Illinois history was as useful as it was astounding. In 1985, he was an aspiring author in his late 20s working nights as a campus security guard in Downers Grove and found himself deeply troubled by newspaper accounts detailing the prosecution's flimsy case against three defendants charged with the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.

In his spare time and as he stood sentry and made his rounds, Garrett read up on and thought about the case to the point of obsession — an obsession familiar to just about everyone who had studied the tragic, troubling story with its scores of characters, its twists, dark alleys, intrigues, surprises, implausibilities and disappointments.

And like most disinterested investigators pulled into this vortex, Garrett came away convinced that a huge and sinister injustice had been done to the men convicted in that first trial, Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez.

Then, with the aim of writing a book on the case, he began amassing files of official documents, reading old trial testimony, attending hearings and getting to know personally many of the principal figures in the case. After Brian Dugan was arrested later that year for a strikingly similar murder and began offering a conditional confession to having alone abducted and killed Jeanine, Garrett mounted a one-man, citizen's investigation of Dugan, his past, his friends and his patterns of behavior.

When the Illinois State Police entered the case, the commander of the task force said he briefly considered Garrett a suspect because he knew so much about the crime. He checked him out, though, and found what defense attorneys, journalists and other investigators had long acknowledged: that the shy, methodical Garrett was simply the world's foremost authority on the byzantine tale surrounding the Nicarico murder and prosecutions.

Garrett's exhaustive written abstracts on Dugan became key texts for those getting up to speed on the case — including me when I began writing columns on it in the 1990s — and for every assertion, he could supply official documentation from out of a dozen file boxes kept at his home.

As new trials, appeals and more trials came along, he settled into a role as consultant and savant, one with a unique grasp of the interplay of personalities and facts. He was the man to whom Cruz's and Hernandez's legal advocates would often refer journalists for information and context and with whom they themselves would confer — as Cruz's legal team did often during his 1995 trial.

He was the guy I would call when I needed to track down some obscure but important fact, one of the building blocks that led to freedom for Cruz and Hernandez and an acknowledgement by the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office that Dugan and Dugan alone had killed Jeanine now more than 40 years ago.

Garrett did end up co-writing a book on the Nicarico case — “Victims of Justice” — with Sun-Times reporter Thomas Frisbie. But it is just part of his amazing legacy.

News: The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has without explanation dropped charges against a former Chicago police officer accused of brutalizing a woman walking her dog on the lakefront.

View: I don’t know enough about the incident shown in the disturbing video accompanying this story to know whether this decision was sensible or as dubious and weird as the decision to drop charges against hoaxster Jussie Smollett. But I do know that I’m heartily sick of Kim Foxx’s office offering up meaningless pablum when cases disappear:

“After consultation with the victim and her attorney, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office (CCSAO) will not be proceeding with the criminal charges against former CPD Officer Bruce Dyker.”

Nothing in such bland demurrals give us confidence in her judgment or reasoning. Just a pat on the head and a never-you-mind. She’s not running for reelection, so what does she care what we think anyway, right?

Alex Rodriguez

News: Tribune Editorial Board member Alex Rodriguez is returning to the Sun-Times to head up the politics and government team.

View: Rodriguez is a wonderful writer and clever thinker who has been a huge asset to the Tribune as a foreign correspondent, editor and editorial writer since he left the Sun-Times in 2000 (he also worked a four-year stint covering Pakistan for the Los Angeles Times). The paper will miss him, and the Sun-Times, where he starts Aug. 21, is lucky to get him.

News: The Sun-Times refused to print columnist Neil Steinberg’s line, “We have to support (President Joe Biden for re-election). … (He) will never become a traitor and a demagogue. Which is not something I can say about Donald Trump.”

View: Such cowardice is unbecoming a newspaper that aspires to greatness. Steinberg explained his editors’ decision in a column headlined “What I can’t say anymore.”

Last year, the Sun-Times was scooped up and is now an affiliate of Chicago Public Media. They are a 501(c)3 charity and now so are we. Because of that, the paper legally is not supposed to endorse political candidates. As with any rule, there is disagreement over what it actually means.

Some — such as myself — believe the restriction is limited to actual official endorsements, to editorials that begin, “The Sun-Times endorses Joe Shlabotnik for alderperson of the First Ward because, being already wealthy, he won’t steal as much as is usual ...”

Others — my bosses — have an even more vigilant view and believe that merely telling readers to support or oppose a particular candidate, whether or not it’s an official endorsement, could threaten our charitable status.

I’m not a fan of institutional media endorsements. They’re presumptuous and are an attempt by the already powerful — publishers and executives — to wield even more power and influence. Plus, endorsements tend to confuse readers who assume that staff journalists share the views of their editorial boards.

But individual writers and broadcasters arguing their opinions — on public policy, political candidates or any other subject — is a vital function of media, and the Sun-Times ought to rise from this pitiful, tremulous crouch and dare the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on the publication of writers with strong opinions.

If the IRS acts to take away the nonprofit status of the Sun-Times because Steinberg comes out and says explicitly something that his writing has been implying for years — that Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president — then it’s going to have to go after scores of local churches where the pastors have stood shoulder to shoulder with candidates, and publishers might as well shelve the whole idea of publishing opinions that might be read as a call to support one candidate over another.

Another reason the Sun-Times needs to test this rule is that more and more newspapers are going to go the nonprofit route, and if philanthropically supported outlets muzzle themselves in an abundance of caution ,they’ll be doing their audience a disservice.

The classic ‘Cha Cha Slide’ sketch

The death Monday of “Cha Cha Slide” creator Willie Perry Jr. — a Chicago musical artist better known as DJ Casper — recalled this 2019 “Saturday Night Live” sketch: “Now pull out your church fan!”

Land of Linkin’

• “Texas Campus Conservatives are Expanding Their Crusade to Silence Leftists and Critics,” and “Biden Is a Ford Democrat” by Steve Chapman in The UnPopulist.

• In “Of Course The Sea Lion Is Right,” Jesse Singal dissects the term “sealioning” beyond Merriam-Webster’s definition, of the term as referring to “the disingenuous action by a commenter of making an ostensible effort to engage in sincere and serious civil debate, usually by asking persistent questions of the other commenter.”

• There’s a trove of videos here and here from this year’s Clifftop — formally known as the Appalachian String Band Music Festival. A highlight reel from the massive West Virginia gathering is here.

• “These Christian Nationalists Want to Stone Adulterers to Death” sounds like an overheated headline, but Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson shows it’s just a fact.

• “The Rental Car Industry Is Shifting Gears” is an optimistic take by Luke Winkie in Slate about “the single most maddening, inefficient element of America’s travel infrastructure.”

• Correspondence with readers and the visual tweets poll can be found in Tuesday’s issue of Picayune Plus.

• The Picayune Sentinel preview: Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square where — no surprise — the latest indictment of Donald Trump has taken center stage.

■ “Does Donald Trump want to go to jail?” If he doesn’t, The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes asks, “why has he spent … days baiting, insulting and threatening the judge, the jury pool and potential witnesses?”

■ Columnist and ex-U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance suggests that Trump is indeed trying to push Judge Tanya Chutkan into putting him in custody.

■ The Intercept: One of Trump’s lawyers, “the man with no pants,” is the indictment’s star.

■ Columnist Robert Reich speculates on Trump’s plan to avoid jail.

■ Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri (gift link to you, courtesy of Square) projects how the arraignment played out in Trump’s head.

■ Popular Information: A federal judge appointed by Trump has ordered Southwest Airlines attorneys to get “training” from an extremist anti-abortion group.

■ “Behold co-conspirator No. 1.” Sykes analyzes damning audio tapes of “the man the former president of the United States enlisted as one of his chief advisers/confederates/co-conspirators in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” Rudy Giuliani—transcripts of which have been filed in a sexual abuse lawsuit against him.

■ The plaintiff—Giuliani’s former aide—says he forced her to perform sex acts and work in the nude.

■ “Thousands … may be denied the opportunity to take AP Psychology.” Popular Information: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has duped journalists into reporting that a dispute over whether students can receive what the American Psychological Association has called “fundamental” lessons on gender orientation has been resolved.

■ The Onion: “DeSantis Announces He Will Live As Slave For One Year To Prove It Not Bad.”

■ A bill outlawing gun ads aimed at children is set to become the law in Illinois with approval from Gov. Pritzker, whom MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow calls “pugnacious.”

■ “If he doesn’t figure out this words-convey-meaning business, it’s going to be a very long four years.” Columnist Neil Steinberg takes Mayor Johnson to dictionary school over a statement that Steinberg says “was a slow pitch down the middle to Fraternal Order of Police head John Catanzara.”

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

On the gratuitous grandparent watch

Writers, editors! Enough already with the unnecessary inclusion of the fact that a person has had a child who, in turn, has also had a child. This tells us nothing about the person, but is meant to invoke stereotypes of nurturing sweetness, gentleness, perhaps a bit of innocent feebleness.

Photo by Mary Schmich

Mary Schmich: Bonne storage

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is her most recent offering:

Let us now praise Bonne Maman jars and Talenti tubs, the most versatile and beloved containers ever made.

I make this sweeping statement because, I swear, everywhere I go, there they are, empty of their original marmalade (Bonne Maman) and gelato (Talenti mint chocolate chip is an irresistible sin) and turned to new uses.

For nuts and nails. Raisins and buttons. Paper clips, vinaigrette, toothbrushes, you name it.

I went to visit a friend in Savannah. Talenti tub after Talenti tub, repurposed.

I went to a friend’s in Michigan. Old Bonne Maman jars used for everything.

I have more than I can use because they’re too nice to throw out.

Who else is out there? You are not alone. This is your chance to bear witness to a trend you probably didn’t even know was a trend. — Mary Schmich

Note — Mary and I will once again be hosting the Songs of Good Cheer winter holiday singalong programs at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Tickets are not yet on sale, but the dates are set — Thursday, Dec. 7 through Sunday, Dec. 10. Mark your calendars and follow the Picayune Sentinel for updates.

Minced Words

Carrie Shepherd of Axios joined “The Mincing Rascals” podcast panel for part of the show this week to discuss carjacking and her first visit to the Chicago Pedway. She said little has evidently changed since 2018 when I described it as “an ugly labyrinth — a thicket of confusing signs, dead ends and frustrating choices.” Her visit was part of a Chicago-themed “never have I ever” series at Axios. A brilliant idea to which I contributed never have I ever been to a Blackhawks game. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear what Austin Berg and host John Williams contributed and what they had to say about the Highland Park case and Ohio referendum that I discussed above.

In the pre-roll video you can learn what life-changing event once made John cry like a baby.

Mark your calendars for the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 19, when it looks as though we’ll have a live taping at one of the Second City stages. Watch this space.

John and I will be on the Sainte Genevieve sternwheel riverboat Saturday evening for the 7-9 p.m. cruise from Ottawa down the picturesque riverside by Starved Rock State Park. Entertainment will be provided by the River Valley Rangers bluegrass band featuring ace fiddler Ben Zorn. Join us!

Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• I hate situations in which a man is overboard. So stressful. — @camerobradford

• "Watery" is never a positive description, even when you're describing water. — @AnneHatfieldVO

• It’s only a family vacation if you think “We’re never doing this again” at least once. — @mommajessiec

• It was my turn to pick a team building activity on Zoom so I typed hide-and-seek in the chat and left the meeting. — @Rotten_Wendy

• Most midlife crises are lifelong crises that you finally have time for. — @MooseAllain

• Time estimates: “Give me one sec” = Within the hour. “I’ll be one minute” = An hour or two. “I’m on it” = Maybe today. "In a bit" = Sometime this week. “It’s on my list” = Perhaps this month. "Leave it with me" = Possibly never.  “If I have time” = Never. — @SoVeryBritish

• Non-parents be like: I would simply instruct the toddler to do something he doesn’t want to do, and he would obey. — @sarahradz_

• Due to limited freezer space, Jeffery Dahmer had tough decisions about which parts to keep. Cooler heads prevailed. — @neenertothe3

• Middle names are like, OK, what if we gave this baby a second, worse name that’s a little bit of a secret ? — @_chase_____

• Of course failure is an option. In fact, it's the most likely option.— @IamJackBoot

Yes, the Dahmer tweet is in dreadful taste. You didn’t laugh because you’re a better person than I am. Don’t @ me, as they say. And no, I will not give up on the occasional use of Cameron Bradford’s ultra-dry quips, voter indifference notwithstanding.

Vote here and check the current results in the poll. For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Tunes of the Week

For the 100th issue of the PS this week, I asked readers to submit the one song they’d like to play for everyone out of all the songs out there. Here, in alphabetical order by nominator, are the nominees. Quite a few were new to me and I recommend giving each a listen:

Maureen Baird — “Bachata En Fukuoka”

Ann Boland  — “Cat People”

Susan Buchanan — “I Am a Patriot”

Susan Butchko — “Grandpa Was a Carpenter”

Charlie Buttrey — “I Know You By Heart”

Kathleen Daly — “Brandy”

Joe Dempsey — “The Weight”

Rob Geiger — “Life is Sweet”

Life is Sweet by Mike Leigh

Martin Horn — “I’ll Never Find Another You”

Dan Knight — “Beaumont Rag”

Mark  Komissarouk — “We Need Changes”

Craig Kraus — “I Drink Beer”

Carol Krol — “September”

Ann Lamas — “Blues Power”

Marie Martinek — “Challenger Memorial”

Jack Mason — “The Dutchman”

Lynne Taylor — “Cowboy in the Jungle”

Paula Uscian — “If We Were Vampires”

Tim Roznowski — “The Ballad of Elizabeth Dark”

Teresa Savino — “On a Day Like Today”

Frederick Slate — “Love at the Five and Dime”

Gillean Wilsak — “Hallelujah”

Jane Workhoven — “Mail Order Annie”

Peter Zackrison — “The Dock of the Bay”

Thanks to all who contributed. I’ll do this again sometime because I enjoyed the listening so much.

Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!

The Picayune Sentinel is a reader-supported publication. Browse and search all 99 back issues as well as the Picayune Plus bonus issues here. Simply subscribe to receive new posts each Thursday. To support my work, receive bonus issues on Tuesdays and join the zesty commenting community, become a paid subscriber. Thanks for reading!

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