Author: Jon Gauger

If you live beyond the reach of a Portillo's restaurant, I pity you.  Not just for your lack of access to their unequaled Italian beef sandwiches, but also for your dwarfed understanding of what a chocolate cake really can be. I accept (even anticipate) your skepticism.  But be assured my chocolate cake claim is far from exaggerated.  Just check the buzz online. So there we were, at our local Portillo's, sharing pieces of this fabulous fabled cake with our daughter and son-in-law and their three children.  Their eldest had just received her three-year Sparky Awana award and we were celebrating–big…

Of course you've heard about Auschwitz.  The complex was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime, which included three main camps. There, 1.1 million people were murdered.  But it's rare to meet a survivor.   Raise a salute to one Fritzie Fritzshall. Just 13 years old when she arrived at Auschwitz – Birkenau, her train car was so overcrowded, half its occupants were dead on arrival—including her own grandfather.   “A Jewish man in a striped uniform was forced to clear out the train car as quickly as possible,” Fritzie remembers.  “He asked me how old I was…

It's one thing to read about the holocaust in a book. Quite another to read it in the face of a survivor.  At the Illinois Holocaust Museum, (ilholocaustmuseum.org), I sat across from Fritzie Fritzshall who lived in the former Czechoslovakia.  After the Nazis occupied her town, Fritzie and her mother and two brothers were forced into a ghetto, and ultimately deported to Auschwitz.  She was just 13.   Jammed into a railroad car, there was standing room only.  One tiny window offered far too little ventilation for the more than 100 people crammed inside.  With agonizing detail, Fritzie described the…

Consider the Panama Canal—a modern marvel. It took 75,000 workers 12 years to dig 10 miles to create the Panama Canal, the water gates that join the Atlantic and the Pacific.    Although the locks are a generous 110 feet wide, the largest of the vessels that pass through, called Panamax, have just one foot to spare on either side!  So there are plans for expansion underway.   Good thing, because every year, between 12,000 and 15,000 ships go through the Panama Canal! But here's the stat that blows my mind.  A boat traveling from New York to San Francisco that travels through…

He said, “Ask God to open doors for you to walk through with your unsaved loved ones.” Dr. Jim Coakley had no idea of the adventure his wise counsel was about to help unleash. For years, now, we have been praying for a small list of people who need to come to Christ: neighbors, friends, relatives.  My commitment is to keep praying for these lost people until I die–or they die.   No kidding.  But since we started praying the prayer Jim recommended—that God would open up doors of opportunity–life has revved into high gear. Example A For years, we have…

It's one of those moments that make being a grandparent so grand.  At a community circus, my wife handed two-year old Lucy a wad of cotton candy.  The tot stared at it, then wrapped her pudgy fist around the pink tuft and—of all things–brushed it against her skin!  Back and forth she rubbed the soft pink cottony thing into her cheeks.  Looking down, my wife saw what was going on and urged Lucy to eat the sugary treat.  Popping it into her mouth, Lucy registered an expression that validated her new delight with cotton candy's real purpose—it's supposed to be…

Searching for a living illustration of grace?  I would not normally recommend you climb aboard a Metra passenger train hauling self-absorbed commuters from the suburbs into Chicago.  But my friend, Jack, stumbled upon a refreshing scene on the train. Jack, who has a knack for colliding with the unusual, was comfortably plopped into his seat aboard train #14 as it chugged eastbound toward a 6:44am arrival in the Windy City.  The car was already full, yet there were still more scheduled stops ahead.  “So this guy is sitting there reading his Bible,” Jack tells me (Jack notices because Bible readers…

As the wrangler pried open the 250 pound alligator's mouth, I was creeped out by the sight of so many teeth.  But that sensation paled compared to the visceral sound of its jaws snapping shut. Imagine slamming an empty gallon-sized can as hard as you can on a cement driveway.  That's sort of the sound we heard at the Everglades Holiday Park in South Florida.  Scientists tell us a human being can munch on a steak exerting between 150 and 200 pounds of pressure per square inch.  Animals such as hyenas, lions and tigers bite with a force of around…

The twin props of the air boat screamed as the wind whipped our hair violently.  I cannot say how fast our aluminum hull sliced through the Everglades channel.  I can only tell you it felt fast.  As if adrenaline hadn’t already kicked in, Captain “Swampy Jay” from the Everglades Holiday Park somehow shoved our boat sideways into a dense pile of thick vegetation.  My wife and I half expected a thunderous impact, as the clump of greenery had all the appearance of something no boat could expect to plow through without destruction.  Turns out, it wasn't harmful.  Among other things, we…

The odds say we should never have met him. But we did. My son and I were trying to leave the Chicago Auto Show and find the bus exit that would take us to the train station…and home. But which exit?  We weren’t sure.   So we asked a trio of Chicago Police officers. Ironically, one of them I’d met before.  He was the officer who ticketed me two years previously for a railroad crossing violation.   I recall him being very polite and most respectful.  Yet, the law required him to ticket me. After paying the fine and doing community service,…