Bill McLean

You’re a sous-chef who gets to wear the big toque now that the restaurant’s James Beard Award-winning chef took a job overseas. Or you’re a longtime sub who gets to take over for a Golden Apple Award-winning high school teacher, who had suddenly retired. Or a Pulitzer Prize Award-winning journalist who sits next to you

Brad Bergman isn’t traveling, finally. He sits statue still on a February morning at a restaurant’s table in his native Wilmette. The 58-year old, who had visited the United States’ other 49 states before graduating from New Trier Township High School in 1984, retired from a career in finance at the age of 39—39!— and

A third grader sees his Tutoring Chicago tutor before the start of their weekly 90-minute session and turns into a mini Usain Bolt, just like that. The ecstatic youngster’s all-out sprint in a hallway precedes a bear hug that nearly ejects the tutor’s lungs. The mother of another tutee writes a note to Tutoring Chicago

Ever met Italian-born Lidia Lattanzi Ragusi, the 90-year-old woman who started volunteering at the Winnetka Thrift Shop around the time the movie Rocky hit the theaters in the mid-1970s? You should. The longtime Winnetkan is part treasure, part comedian, part storyteller extraordinaire, and all kinds of fun. She’s not as sharp as a tack; she’s