Stephen J. Lyons – Page 3

Youngsters climb on the open spaces near the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park on 55th Street between Drexel and University avenues in 1966.

Op-ed: What a visit to my old South Side elementary school reminded me about dreams

January 28, 2022 at 11:26 a.m.

A man I'll call Henry Williams answers the buzzer at Bret Harte Elementary, my old grammar school in Hyde Park on Chicago's South Side. He cautiously opens the door and...

Boy Scouts carry a giant American flag as they march up Fifth Avenue during the Veterans Day parade on Nov. 11, 2021, in New York.

Op-ed: A love letter to our imperfect nation

December 31, 2021 at 5:00 a.m.

Dear America: I was born your scruffy Chicago boy running the alleys and vacant lots of the South Side. My neighborhood: Black, brown, white and Asian; gentiles, Jews and Muslims....

Op-ed: I’m teaching an 11-year-old how to get through life with the help of a trusty guitar

December 10, 2021 at 5:00 a.m.

Erik is 11 years old and lives in a bungalow in a small Illinois town. He's all skinned elbows and scabbed knees on a thin frame that hasn't reached 5...

The U.S. Capitol in Washington on Nov. 16, 2021.

Op-ed: An open letter to Congress from here in the Heartland

November 22, 2021 at 5:00 a.m.

Admit it: You think we are all fools. We watch you year after year, election cycle after election cycle, and what do we see? Crabs in a bucket that climb...

The original set of the 1989 Kevin Costner baseball movie "Field of Dreams" to the left of a new facility can be seen on Aug. 3, 2021, in Dyersville, Iowa. The White Sox will play the Yankees in Major League Baseball's Field of Dreams game on Aug. 12 in a major-league-sized facility built adjacent to the original movie set.

Op-ed: How White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson gave me back my Chicago swagger

August 27, 2021 at 12:52 p.m.

A few hours after White Sox All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson hit a game-winning walk-off homer into the night sky during a Field of Dreams game in Iowa, I tried to...

Oliver Henry, a firefighter with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, faces 110-degree heat while fighting a small wildfire near Mattawa, Washington, on June 30, 2021.

Op-ed: Climate change is no longer our future. It’s our present.

August 6, 2021 at 7:14 p.m.

Smoke rolled in about the time I took my 5-year-old grandkids to the splash pad. The air turned a yellowish color and I could feel my lungs fill. A flake...

An empty North LaSalle Street on the morning of New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 2021, in Chicago.

Op-ed: I confess: I’ve enjoyed the solitude of this pandemic year

March 12, 2021 at 9:43 a.m.

Our last trip out of our home state of Illinois was a year ago to northwest Arkansas, where my wife and I met four dear friends from Tennessee. On that...

"If it was a melancholy day, maybe a blue Monday with a busy workweek ahead, Mom might belt out Johnny Mathis' 'Misty'."

Op-ed: Singing to my hardworking, single mom on her birthday

February 5, 2021 at 1:35 p.m.

On my mother's birthday this year I will present her with the same gift she gave me: a song. Mom loves the old standards, the ones she would sing in...

Few voters could be seen voting at a polling place in Humble Park on Oct. 21, 2020, in Racine.

Commentary: To the ‘Undecideds’: What are you waiting for?

October 27, 2020 at 3:52 p.m.

With less than a week until Election Day, I keep hearing about the Undecideds. Undecided? Really? I mean the choice is so obvious. You have a wealthy, white 70-something candidate...

Commentary: From central Illinois: COVID-19 hasn’t swept my small town, but reopening too soon would be foolish

May 15, 2020 at 2:10 p.m.

The yellow tape that surrounds our playgrounds in Monticello, the small central Illinois town where I live, triggers memories of crime scenes I used to stumble across as a boy...

All Stories