Thanks for visiting Tuxedo Junction today. I hope you have enjoyed yourself and will return again and again. Please tell your friends and relatives about our big band web site.

I am a writer and a lifelong big band fan from Chicago.

I lived in the Old Town neighborhood from 1964 until 1986, settling there after a year of graduate school at Stanford. Two miles due north of downtown Chicago (the Loop), Old Town in the mid-1960's was a place with plenty of young people, cheap apartments, bars, restaurants, and night clubs. I worked at one of them, Big John's, from late 1964 until it closed in September 1966. Big John's was a legendary Chicago blues club that proved pivotal in the careers of young white musicians such as Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites, Corky Siegel, Jim Schwall, Barry Goldberg, and Steve Miller. Big John's also featured black blues bands from the south side such as Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Little Walter, and, from the west side, Howlin' Wolf. I loved working at Big John's and living in Old Town, which remained my home for most of the next 22 years.

Kennelly Square My fomer home: (1974-1976) and (1980-1986) The Second City is a block south.

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Old Town is across the street from the southwestern edge of beautiful Lincoln Park and only a short walk from North Avenue Beach. The "B" indicates Kennelly Square and the "A" marks the Old Town Ale House -- normally a short walk but at 4 AM on a Saturday morning in January when the wind chill factor is 60 to 80 below zero, the walk seemed to take forever!

After Big John's closed, I began working as a writer, which I continue to do to this day. Some years have been prosperpous, others have not. But I love writing and I am happy I stuck with it. Over the years, I have written for trade magazines, consumer magazines, newspapers, big and small corporations, public relations firms -- and, best of all, for my own enjoyment!

For personal reasons, I moved to Southern California in 1986, settling in Los Angeles in 1990. In 2003, I returned to Chicago for a week, and that was not enough time. In 2004, I returned for a weekend to attend the 50th reunion of my eighth grade class. Both trips were wonderful experiences, reacquainting me with Berwyn, the western suburb where I was born and raised, and some of the wonderful people I knew there long ago. I even had a chance to visit the house where I grew up!

While I was in Chicago in 2003, I realized that as much as I still love Chicago, it hasn't been my home for a long time. I have now spent a third of my life in Los Angeles, and it is my home today. But until I finally returned to Chicago, I had a deep, ever-present yearning for Chicago.

That yearning disappeared after I returned to Los Angeles. I realized how happy I was to return to my roommate and my cat, and I saw how happy they were to see me. I still love Chicago. I still think Chicago is the greatest city in the world. But Los Angeles is my home today. I guess that unless you have moved from a place where you spent a good part of your life to a new place, you might find it hard to understand what I have been saying.

Whether in Chicago or in Los Angeles, my love of big band music has been a constant, something that goes back to my Berwyn home in the 1940's and 1950's, and something that has lasted all of these years. If you want to know more about how my passion has evolved, read my articles, "Yesterday's Gardenias" and "A Tale of Two Collectors."

I retired in September 2001 and immediately enrolled at the Venice Skills Center to study web design. It is located in Venice about two miles from my home, only a short ride on my old, one-speed Sears bike. I rode my bike to and from school every morning for the next nine months. My class met from 8 AM until noon, M-F.

The Venice Skills Center is a vocational school operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Built in the late 1960's, the Venice Skills Center offers a variety of computer classes, including Microsoft Office applications, web design, and graphic design; computer repair, and classes leading to a high school diploma, working as a dental assistant, using sign language; and a variety of other subjects. Students range in age from teens to senior citizens. The trailer classrooms and the other old classrooms built 40 years ago were replaced in 2007 by new buildings. The Venice Skills Center is a good place to learn.

I am also an alumnus of Northwestern University (June 1963), where two of my English teachers encouraged me to become a writer -- and made it crystal clear that I still had a great deal to learn! Forty-five years later, I am still writing, learning a little more every day. In the mid-1970's, I earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago (June 1976). Both universities will always have a warm place in my heart.

The Internet has given me another vehicle for writing. Launching Tuxedo Junction in October 2000 and other web sites and blogs since then has kept me fairly busy. I truly enjoy working on and writing for all of them. You can see some of my writings right here, right now!

What do I look like today? Here's a recent web cam photo:

George Spink - May 28, 2008

Enjoy your visit to Tuxedo Junction!

Cordially,

George Spink
Los Angeles
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