McHenry County Blog

In 1982, I was running for State Comptroller, probably to test my hypothesis that one could not win a office above State Senator without selling one’s soul. (Needless to say, I lost. To incumbent Roland Burris, no less. Soul still intact.)

My wife Robin was pregnant with our daughter Alexandra.

Speeches were scheduled in the Chicago area so I could get back for the birth.

As the due date approached, first I told audiences that Alexandra was expected on Lincoln’s Birthday. I think that was in Oak Park.

That came and went.

Next, we aimed for Valentine’s Day. Was it Lyons’ Township?

Nothing happened that day either.

My memory is a little fuzzy at this point.

My wife was going into labor.

So it was home and off to the hospital.

I remember driving her through the toll booth and wondering if we would be on time.

But I also remember being at former House Speaker Bob Blair’s downtown hotel fund raiser in his candidacy for State Treasurer and getting a message to come forthwith.

The baby was not turned head down, so the next day a Caesarian was decided upon.

Since I had not taken the Caesarian course. I couldn’t be in the delivery room.

So, there I was sitting in a little room along a hall. Reading a book, of course.

I thought that this was a typical Dagwood delivery where the father was clueless while a momentous event was taking place nearby.

With Robin in recovery, Robin’s parents and I went into some room and held the precious gift from God.

We took turns holding the little creature, her head no larger than my fist.

Then, it was off to the nursery for Baby Alexandra.

Governor Jim Thompson, for whom Robin was a youth organizer who became his campaign photographer (“What is that clicking around me knees?”) sent Alexandra a Teddy Bear for which she thanked him in person during the McHenry County Republican Play Day about a year and a half later, Robin told me. (I was in Springfield during session weeks working as transportation adivsor to then-House Speaker George Ryan. The RTA went away as a political issue that year.)

I remember when some hospital employee came in with the Birth Certificate. Strangely, it did not have a space for both the mother’s and father’s signature. I got the privilege of signing it.

We went to the nearby apartment which Robin’s parents, Herb and Millicent Geist, had been kind enough to have set us up in temporarily.

That second-floor efficiency had 1950′s white kitchen cabinets.

I remember going to sleep with Alexandra on my chest.

More here.

Today is my daughter Alexandra’s 29th birthday.

Her second, in 1983, was the last I was able to celebrate with her.

I gave her the bentwood rocking horse that you see here.

You can see she is holding her beloved Annie, which her mother Robin made for her. (There were two regular Raggedy Annies so Alexandra would not be without one while the washing machine removed the saliva from sucking on one of her arms, a smaller Punk Rock Annie with flyaway hair and, later, a larger Annie.)

That was the day Alexandra learned about death.

It must have been a lot warmer than today because a big housefly with lots of bronze on it was flying about the room at 955 Lake Road, where Robin had moved to live with her parents as the divorce proceedings continued.

I swatted it.

Alexandra looked at its still body incredulously.

“It’s dead,” I told her.

That was a concept she clearly did not understand.

I found a “singing” birthday card for Alexandra.  It was one of the first ones with a musical chip inside.

Robin said she took it everywhere, even to the local grocery store.  She conducted music as it played.

Last night I went to sleep thinking about Alexandra and, not surprisingly, I woke up thinking about her…sadly for the lost of contact for so many years.

Not that I am not thankful for the two and three-quarter years I enjoyed.  I am.

Often I stayed in her bedroom rocking her as we watched a little ballerina revolve on top of music box.  (I wish I could remember the tune.)

As she got drowsier and drowsier, we would watch the dancer twirl away from us.

“Good-by, ballerina, good-by,” I’d say.

As she again turned toward us, I would say, “Welcome back, ballerina, welcome back.”

For some reason Alexandra didn’t like to go to sleep in her crib without company.  I’d end up sitting on the floor with her hand holding mine.  If I tried to withdraw it before she was fully asleep, she’d make a fuss.

During the first thirty days after the divorce papers were filed back in 1983, there was not automatic visitation. (I wonder if that’s still the case.)  Things went OK for the first week, but for the last twenty-one days I wasn’t allowed to see Alexandra.  That was rough.

After the court set temporary visitation, Alexandra and I were sitting on the floor in the hallway next to the mirrored hall rack at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Shasha,” she shyly answered.

That surprised me because both Robin and her mother Millicent were adamant that she would have no nickname.

Of course, I told her that her name was Alexandra.

Alexandra loved to be read to.  We sat on the floor under the front room under the magnificent stained glass window with a representation of grapes in a fruit bowl above us.

She would go into the study along the north side of the house, get a book, plop down in my lap and read it to me.

Again.

And again.

And again until visitation time was up.

Eventually, the house into so much remodeling time and effort had been spent by Robin, her parents and me was sold and Robin moved to her parents’ Lake Forest home.

Alexandra was apparently told there wasn’t a extra bedroom for me there.

One late spring day, Alexandra was using condiment containers filled with finger paint to squirt designs on black paper.  She gave me one that was quite good, but I wasn’t smart enough to put it in a frame immediately.  It curled up as the paint dried.

No surprise at Alexandra’s early artistic talent.  Her grandmother Millicent was an artist and her mother Robin has drawn the best representations of the State Capitol dome that I have ever seen.  Her work was also featured on Governor Jim Thompson’s Christmas cards.  I met her manning the phones at Thompson’s campaign headquarters.  She became his youth coordinator and photographer.

The divorce trial continued.  I’m mentioned elsewhere that I began thinking of the McHenry County Courthouse and the McHenry County Courthouse and Spa because I spent every vacation day and every personal day there.

The motions were unending.  Discussing the court fees being run up by private attorneys at the McHenry County level elsewhere, I mentioned that I stopped keeping track of my divorce lawyers’ fees at $100,000.

I remember one day because Herb brought in a video of Alexandra.  It showed her playing “Daddy’s game.”  Judge Ward Arnold didn’t allow the video to be entered into evidence.

One time before the divorce papers were filed, Alexandra was in the Desmond c0usins’ family room.  She was watching Lissa and Heather play on the swing set as one of the two hung by her legs from the trapeze.

“Just like in the Olympics!” she exclaimed.

She was also impressed that her younger cousin Kelly climbed up the outside of the stairs to the second floor.

When it came to visitation, it turned out I got four hours a weekend.  Working in Springfield, I couldn’t see Alexandra during the week.

Instead of four hours on either Saturday or Sunday, I asked for and was granted two hours each day.

I remember one warm spring day in Lake Forest.  We were out on the lawn overlooking Lake Michigan and Alexandra decided she wanted to climb the stairs that went up to a sun room.

She had a bit of a limp on her right leg (which I wonder if she still has), but she was determined to reach the top.  At the urging of Robin, I stood behind her to make sure she didn’t fall.  Alexandra had no problems.  In my present family I see the same caution on the part of my son’s mother and I play the same role of assuming that he can assume more risk successfully.

Sometime after Alexandra’s second birthday, Robin moved to a high rise apartment overlooking Lake Shore Drive.  It was on Chestnut I think, next to a private school.

The first time I visited there, Alexandra asked, “Where Daddy sleep?”

After Robin explained that there were only two bedrooms, Alexandra took both of our hands and led us into her bedroom.  She pointed to the floor next to her bed and said, “Daddy sleep here.”

Sunday I would bring the funny papers.  We were reading Little Orphal Annie one day and the cartoon character was using a doll to make letters.

Alexandra took her rag doll Annie and imitated the cartoon.

Somewhere I have a half a dozen journals about this time in my life.

One time I remember we walked under Lake Shore Drive to the path parallel to Lake Michigan.  There was a totem pole that attracted her attention.

“Can I feed it?” Alexandra asked.

After getting permission, she picked grass and put it inside the wrought iron fence.

Another time we drove to the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Alexandra was asleep by the time the little red Honda hit Lake Shore Drive.

We walked past the tigers and, knowing that Robin was reading her the book about Madeleine, I tried to interest Alexandra in them.

She wasn’t interested in saying, “Pooh, pooh,” to the tigers in the zoo.

Instead she was chasing pigeons around the fountain close by.

So, if my daughter reads this, I wish her a Happy Birthday, a successful adulthood and wonder if she might not like to come to her cousin Kelly’s wedding and meet the other side of her family.

One more thing.  Last Saturday my son was excited to get a call from a young woman asking for Alexandra G. Skinner.  Asked if she were here, my 13-year old replied that she wasn’t.  Then she asked for Cal Skinner, Jr., and received the same answer.  “When will he return?”  The answer was “in about two hours.”

It was Monday night, I think, when I answered the phone with a young woman looking for Alexandra.  After I told her that she wasn’t and that I did not know where to find her, I asked why she was calling.

She was looking for Alexandra to solicit a proxy for the Columbia Funds.  I don’t know why a mutual fund wouldn’t know where one of their shareholders lived and the only reason I can think that her birth certificate name and mine would be attached to an account would be that Alexandra’s grandparents opened an account for her before the divorce.

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government.

I can hear the sounds of gravel to this day hitting the water below my feet as my Dad held my hands after I managed to slip into the open storm sewer.

Dad went to city hall and asked for a grate on the sewer. (You might say my and my father’s political careers started that day…in the gutter. That what I said about my own when I announced for the U.S. Senate in 1981 at my then in-laws’ Herb and Millicent Geist’s David Adler mansion at at 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest.)

Dad didn’t get what he requested.

So, when the post of president of the town council became vacant, he had a real reason for running.

Needless to say, storm sewers soon through Easton soon had grates.

First daughter Janet was born in 1944.

I remember the family joined the Miles River Yacht Club. We had a small outboard in what seemed to be a very big berth to someone about six. I remember the day we came to the yacht club and it had sunk.

More scary were the fireworks that blew onto our blanket when the wind blew in from the east during the 4th of July celebration.

Dad then bought a leaky, old fishing boat. We had just seen the “African Queen,” so it probably was in 1951 or 52. The boat ran aground in Kent Narrows and the men got off to push it off the sandbar. I was put in charge of the pump at age ten, while my eight-year old sister Janet sat with me inside the small cabin.

The yacht club is where I got introduced to slot machines. They were nickel slots and I have to admit I did not understand the sign above them:

I knew there were no mines nearby.

My father and his assistant Jack Rue, who became a congressional assistant to either Rogers C.B. Morton or his successor, took off the boat’s copper sheathing and spend hours putting wooden match sticks into the holes where the nails had been.

One day a snow goose showed up in the back room where the washing machine was kept. Dad had shot it. I remember Mother’s pouring boiling water over to loosen the feathers, which she plucked. I don’t think she was too happy about having that task.

Sometime in the late 1940′s Dad bought a used offset press and started a printing business in the side room where we played. I guess he thought the family needed more money than Tri-State Packers paid him.

Dad was in the caravan of Eastern Shore public officials who were the first to drive across the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952.

So much for the ferry rides across the Bay. They were a real treat to us kids.

That was the same year that second daughter Ellen entered the world. Jan and I were asked if we wanted a little brother or sister. My guess is that Mom asked the question after she was pregnant.

More tomorrow

= = = = =
Links to all the stories are below:

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

I don’t know if this is a blatant admission that subscriptions are tanking or not, but the Northwest Herald had an offer at the Crystal Lake Expo that I couldn’t pass up.

I looked at the display, heard the young pitch woman say, “Subscribe to the Northwest Herald for $1 for six months” and asked,

That I could have passed up.

I haven’t subscribed in a decade.

Now, I’m back for six months.

Maybe more, if the price doesn’t increase.

I don’t know how the Herald will get away with selling its subscriptions so cheaply. I thought that the Audit Bureau of Circulations only allowed its members to cut is subscription rates by 50%.

A half a penny an issue somehow seems to be a bit more of a discount than that, although it may approximate the marginal cost of printing an extra copy of the paper. But the paper will obviously lose money on delivering them. Maybe the Herald plans to make money on inserts.

Anyway, rush on over to the Expo and subscribe to the Herald.

I don’t know of any other local business desperate enough to discount its product by that much.

If they make the offer at other Expos, by all means sign up.

It’s my daughter Alexandra’s 26th birthday.

I wonder what’s she up to.

At that age, I was McHenry County Treasurer.

Is she still in college, working on a graduate degree?

Is she in her first job?

Her second job?

Her mother, Robin Meridith Geist, and I got married in 1977 when she was 28.

I was 34.

I met her on Jim Thompson’s first campaign.

When I first saw her she was manning the phones right as one entered the headquarters’ door.

I made excuses to go back.

She invited me to a reception for Jim at her parents’ Lake Forest home. The General Assembly was in session, so I couldn’t go. I think she said that Jim spoke from the baloney (maybe, it was the top of the stairs to the sun room) facing Lake Michigan.

That same week Mike Royko wrote a flattering column, calling me “an honest young politician.” (When I used the quote in my 1992 comeback attempt, an opponent called Royko and we got a call asking about it. We faxed a copy of the column. His response? “Well, I guess I did.” Click to enlarge, if you want to read the entire column.)

One night we were at her Chicago apartment and Tom Wolfe dropped over. She had been corresponding with him since his first book. (Afterwards I learned that Alexandra Gabiella is named after his daughter. Originally, we had agreed on Abigail.)

Our daughter Alexandra Gabrielle Skinner was born on February 16, 1982 at Prentiss Woman’s Hospital.

Is Alexandra married?

Does she have a child?

I was down in the basement (the archives would be a better description) looking for a political button to use as a “Message of the Day” when Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.

I found three appropriate buttons from 1940, but, then, she didn’t win the election so the search was in vain…except for the pictures I stumbled onto.

My mother had taken them, except for the ones she is in.

They appear at the top of this article, along with some sharper focused ones taken by Robin, definitely, the photographer in the family, and some I took.

I guess I should have known that my days with Alexandra were numbered when, after the first weekend after Robin filed for divorce, I was prohibited from seeing my daughter.

The 21 days until the first court date seemed like an eternity.

At the court date, my father-in-law Herb Geist of 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest came over and told me I could “have my career or my daughter.”

Without batting an eye, I said, “I’ll take my daughter.”

That clearly was not the answer he expected to hear.

Then began the attempts to destroy my political career, culminating in Herb’s and Millicent’s interview by the Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack in 1998, I assume. She told one of the inquisitive supporters of my Libertarian Party candidacy for governor against Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan that they “looked like deer in the headlights.”

In any event, the first weekend after the first court date, I went to see my daughter at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. The house at “Madison and Vine,” as Robin had put it in a poem accompanying, was it a Valentine’s watercolor of our newly-painted red house with white trim.

I sat on the hall runner in front of the mirrored coat rack and called her name: “Alexandra.”

To my surprise, she said her name was the Russian equivalent, “Sasha.” Maybe that’s not how it’s spelled. There are variations.

“Your name is Alexandra,” I replied.

I guess I should have picked up more on that clue.

(By the time the divorce was over, I had. Regina Narusis, one of my attorneys, asked for Robin to turn in her passport because we thought she would leave the country. A newly appointed Judge Ward Arnold disagreed. After Robin and Alexandra disappeared and a letter came asking me to send child support to Herb’s Swiss Bank, one day in the judge’s complex, Arnold told Regina that he probably had made a mistake.)

Millicent had been adamant that Alexandra should have no nickname.

In Jewish tradition, Alexandra had been named after her grandfather Littman, whose name began with an “A.” “Ariel?” If so, it means “Lion of God.” A strange name, come to think of it, for a family of atheists. (I remember Herb reveling in having baiting the “I Found It” Christian who had called in that campaign in the late 1970’s. After Alexandra was born I said to Robin: “Come on. Look at her and tell me there’s not a God.” She said she’d be an agnostic.)

In any event, here they were trying to change her name less than a month after the divorce papers were filed.

Robin’s mother Millicent Littman’s family had come from Russia. They settled in New York City like many Russian Jews. Her mother was a seamstress. In Lake Forest, she lived in the same building as Sam Skinner’s mother and near both of her children, the other being Dr. David Littman of Highland Park. And, did she make good hard pastry! I kept telling her to put in more raisins.

About all I remember about the Russian stories was that the family was in contact Czar’s daughter and been rewarded with gold for a service performed. It was buried in the back yard of their home.

Did they flee in a pogrom?

I can’t remember, but they were discussed. While passing a Randall Road church in Elgin, Robin said was named after a saint that she said had something to do with a pogrom.

So, what does Alexandra look like now?

Here’s an age-enhanced photo that the Illinois State Police produced:

Last year’s birthday post is here.

I think it unlikely that Alexandra will remember me. I was excised from her life like Robin’s gall bladder was from hers.

Thinking about my earliest memories, one stands out. We were visiting a great uncle and aunt in northern New Jersey. I went to the bathroom and used a stool to climb up to wash my hands. I think this was the one who had been secretary to Thomas Edison…or maybe it was a father of one of the two.

I chipped a tooth. It was so painful!

Perhaps because of the pain, I remember more about that day than any other in my early life. I remember that my great uncle blew smoke out of his ear. He also pulled a coin out of my ear.

Alexandra did not have a similar painful experience that I observed, but twice she seemed quite concerned when I started crying in front of her. Once was in Lake Forest.

“Why Daddy cry?” she asked.

It must have disturbed her. I think Robin even asked me not to do it again.

But, I did when she spent a weekend in Crystal Lake. By then Robin had transferred the case to Crook County. A friend of her lawyer Charles Fleck, who had been a Chicago GOP state rep. while I was in the 1970′s, had gone on to head divorce court where our judge Alan Rosen worked. I could see the writing on the wall. The fix was in. (Rosen, by the way blew his brains out in a tanning parlor, supposedly the day before he was to be indicted for corruption.)

In any event, my emotions exposed themselves again and I started shedding tears on the couch by the front window.

“Why Daddy cry?” she asked again.

I probably came up with some answer about missing her when we weren’t together.

I still do.

= = = = =
All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The top photo is of Robin and Cal Skinner and baby Alexandra sitting with backs to the front porch or 360 S. Madison Street, Woodstock, Illinois.

Second is a family shot of Cal and Eleanor Skinner, the grandparents of Elizabeth and Sarah on top, Kelly and Alexandra in their Mom-mom’s lap, and Heather and Lissa in the foreground, all left to right.

Mom-mom holding Alexandra at her Woodstock home is next.

A pregnant Robin and Cal in front of the 275 Meridian Street, Crystal Lake, fireplace at Christmas. Mike Gerry’s painting of Cal Skinner, Sr., can be seen above the mantle.

Robin holding Alexandra wearing one of her Lora Ashley (if memory serves me correctly) dresses. Note Robin’s pottery collection in the background. One was given to her by Alexandra’s Great-Gandmother Addie Watling-Skinner when Robin admired it in her Crumpton, Maryland, home. The picture you see is her.

And, yes, even though she was born in the late 1800′s, she was quite proud of being a Watling, ordering return addresses for her envelopes with the hyphen. I made sure it appeared on her tomb stone. That ought to confuse some future folks who come to the Crumpton cemetery, don’t you think? The Watlings won the London lottery around 1830 and immediately came to America. That was when 5,000 pounds was real money.

The next two photos were taken by Robin when she accompanied me to a DeKalb County Republican event in the fall of 1976, probably September. I took my Legislative Listening Post. We had pizza in Crystal Lake before she drove back to Chicago.
The button was one I printed up to promote Jim Thompson’s candidacy. I believe it was the first Thompson for Governor button. Later than fall, I went to northern Europe on an American Council of Young Political Leaders-sponsored trip to Belgium, Germany, Denmark and a night in Sweden. I’ve gained a lot of weight since then.

One of Robin’s favorite photos of Alexandra is next. Siting in her stroller, Alexandra kicks up her legs at the corner of Madison and Vine in the spring of 1983.

Mom-mom and Kelly visit Alexandra at 955 Lake Road in Lake Forest during the summer of 1983. They are having a tea party. This is where the reception part of the “Four Friends” movie was shot in which Robin and I have very bit role roles sitting at a table. Good movie, though.

When Alexandra was one year old, the photo of her drooling a bit was sent out with a birth announcement. The operable line, which Robin came up with, was, “Forsooth, a Tooth.”

Below, Desmond cousins Lissa and Heather observe Alexandra.

Next appear two rocking horses. The red and yellow one was a play thing in Woodstock. I gave her the bentwood one for her second birthday during a visit to Lake Forest. It had disappeared by the next time I went.

The almost Shirley Temple pose of Alexandra in a Mickey Mouse dress was taken in Woodstock.

Right below is one of the last two photos I have of my daughter. It was taken by my sister Ellen on April 18, 1985, at the Boca Raton Hotel (now Resort) and Club, where Crook County Judge Alan Rosen had allowed Robin to take her for a $35,000 at-home year “job” her father had arranged with an acquaintance. Ellen’s husband Denny Desmond had a convention there and they delivered a Care Bear for a 3rd birthday present.

The red house is our home at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. In the 1978 water color above it is the second from the left and not painted red. The inscription reads, “Waiting for Cal to come home.”

Alexandra is handing me her Annie, a Raggedy Ann doll that Robin had made several of so that they could be washed without Alexandra’s missing it. When Alexandra was insecure she would rub its hand against her left check. Robin made three sizes. One was especially clever. It was the smallest and called “Punk Rock Annie.” Its hair was a bit wild.

Next comes one of Alexandra drinking what little was left of Daddy’s Tab. I have written on the photo’s back,

“9-30-84 Drinking what’s left of Daddy’s Tab with the straw meant for her breakfast cup of milk. A didn’t eat a bite of the breakfast R fixed her. A awoke when I told her, ‘Daddy’s here.’ When she saw me, she beamed and didn’t cry as R said she usually did when awoken.”

I can’t remember when the two moved to the Chestnut Street apartment next to the Latin Day School, but the first time I went there, Alexandra asked, “Where Daddy sleep?” When Robin explained that I would not bed staying at the apartment, Alexandra walked into her bedroom, pointed to the floor and said, “On floor by my bed.”

The portrait was taken on the first of only four weekend visitations Alexandra had at my parents’ home in Crystal Lake (where I was living and where we now live). It was October 15, 1985. My mother must have had a real premonition of things to come. We went to Sears in Spring Hill Mall and had this photo taken. Note what a pretty embroidered dress Alexandra was wearing.

I remember walking to Beach 7. On the way, I got a leg hug.

When we reached the beach, Alexandra asked, “Can I touch it?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Two weeks later she came dressed in pants.

Alexandra came up the walk from the driveway to the back sun porch, saying,

“Read the God book.”

The divorce proceedings had decided she would be raised Jewish (it’s apparently a Jewish custom that children are raised in the religion of their mothers), so I found some picture books about God that didn’t mention Jesus and read them to her two weeks before. Apparently, they made quite an impression.

They are probably in this trunk of toys and books.

That second weekend, I had to remind Alexandra to say, “Good bye,” to Robin, which she paused to do before hurrying into the house.

The next picture is of Alexandra playing with a shoe lace learning toy that her Great Aunt Louise Stevens gave her.

The photo of me and Alexandra was taken the last weekend I saw her, Thanksgiving, 1985.

The photo below is the companion that was taken in Boca Rotan by my sister Ellen.

And, the aged photo is last.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

It’s my daughter Alexandra’s 26th birthday.

Her mother, Robin Meridith Geist, and I got married in 1977 when she was 28.

I met her on Jim Thompson’s first campaign.

When I first saw her she was manning the phones right as one entered the headquarters’ door.

I made excuses to go back.

She invited me to a reception for Jim at her parents’ Lake Forest home. I think she said that Jim spoke from the baloney (maybe, it was the top of the stairs to the sitting room) facing Lake Michigan. That same week Mike Royko wrote a flattering column, calling me “an honest young politician.” (When I used the quote in my 1992 comeback attempt, an opponent called Royko and we got a call asking about it. We faxed a copy of the column. His response? “Well, I guess I did.”)

Does she have a child?

I was down in the basement, the archives, would be a better description looking for a political button to use as a “Message of the Day,” when Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.

I found three appropriate buttons from 1940, but, then, she didn’t win the election so the search was in vain…except for the pictures I stumbled onto.

My mother had taken them.

They appear in this article, along with some sharper focused ones taken by Robin, definitely, the photographer in the family.

I guess I should have known that my days with Alexandra were numbered when, after the first weekend after Robin filed for divorce, I was prohibited from seeing my daughter.

The 21 days until the first court date seemed like an eternity.

At the court date, my father-in-law Herb Geist of 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest came over and told me I could “have my career or my daughter.”

Then began the attempts to destroy my political career, culminating in Herb’s and Millicent’s interview by the Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack interview in 1998, I assume. She told one of the inquisitive supporters of my Libertarian Party candidacy for governor against Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan that they “looked like deer in the headlights.”

In any event, the first weekend after the first court date, I went to see my daughter at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. The house at “Madison and Vine,” as Robin had put it in a poem accompanying, was it a Valentine’s watercolor of our newly-painted red house with white trim.

I sat on the hall runner in front of the mirrored coat rack and called her name: “Alexandra.”

To my surprise, she said her name was the Russian equivalent, “Shasha.” Maybe that’s not how it’s spelled. There are variations.

I guess I should have picked up more on that clue.

(By the time the divorce was over, I had. Regina Narusis, one of my attorneys, asked for Robin to turn in her passport because we thought she would leave the country. A newly appointed Judge Ward Arnold disagreed. After Robin and Alexandra disappeared and a letter came asking me to send child support to Herb’s Swiss Bank, one day in the judge’s complex, he told Regina that he probably had made a mistake.)

Millicent had been adamant that Alexandra should have no nickname.

In Jewish tradition, Alexandra had been named after her grandfather Littman, whose name began with an “A.” “Ariel?” If so, it means “Lion of God.” A strange name, come to think of it, for a family of atheists. (I remember Herb reveling in having baiting the “I Found It” Christian who had called in that campaign in the late 1970’s.)

In any event, here they were trying to change her name less than a month after the divorce papers were filed.

Robin’s mother Millicent Littman’s family had come from Russia. They settled in New York City like many Russian Jews. Her mother was a seamstress. In Lake Forest, she lived in the same building as Sam Skinner’s mother and near both of her children, the other being Dr. David Littman of Highland Park. And, did she make good hard pastry! I kept telling her to put in more raisins.

About all I remember about the Russian stories was that the family had procured an abortion for Czar’s daughter and been rewarded with gold, which was buried in the back yard of their home.

Did they flee in a pogrom?

I can’t remember, but they were discussed, once while passing a Randall Road church in Elgin, which Robin said was named after a saint that had something to do with a pogrom.

With the Skinner nose being pretty much as big as the Geist-Littman nose, I figure my daughter has had a nose job. I wonder if it was by the same Evanston plastic surgeon who did Robin’s and Millicent’s. He’d have to be pretty old.

It’s my daughter Alexandra’s 26th birthday.

I wonder what’s she up to.

At that age, I was McHenry County Treasurer.

Is she still in college, working on a graduate degree?

Is she in her first job?

Her second job?

Her mother, Robin Meridith Geist, and I got married in 1977 when she was 28.

I was 34.

I met her on Jim Thompson’s first campaign.

When I first saw her she was manning the phones right as one entered the headquarters’ door.

I made excuses to go back.

She invited me to a reception for Jim at her parents’ Lake Forest home. The General Assembly was in session, so I couldn’t go. I think she said that Jim spoke from the baloney (maybe, it was the top of the stairs to the sun room) facing Lake Michigan.

That same week Mike Royko wrote a flattering column, calling me “an honest young politician.” (When I used the quote in my 1992 comeback attempt, an opponent called Royko and we got a call asking about it. We faxed a copy of the column. His response? “Well, I guess I did.” Click to enlarge, if you want to read the entire column.)

One night we were at her Chicago apartment and Tom Wolfe dropped over. She had been corresponding with him since his first book. (Afterwards I learned that Alexandra Gabiella is named after his daughter. Originally, we had agreed on Abigail.)

Our daughter Alexandra Gabrielle Skinner was born on February 16, 1982 at Prentiss Woman’s Hospital.

Is Alexandra married?

Does she have a child?

I was down in the basement (the archives would be a better description) looking for a political button to use as a “Message of the Day” when Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.

I found three appropriate buttons from 1940, but, then, she didn’t win the election so the search was in vain…except for the pictures I stumbled onto.

My mother had taken them, except for the ones she is in.

They appear at the top of this article, along with some sharper focused ones taken by Robin, definitely, the photographer in the family, and some I took.

I guess I should have known that my days with Alexandra were numbered when, after the first weekend after Robin filed for divorce, I was prohibited from seeing my daughter.

The 21 days until the first court date seemed like an eternity.

At the court date, my father-in-law Herb Geist of 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest came over and told me I could “have my career or my daughter.”

Without batting an eye, I said, “I’ll take my daughter.”

That clearly was not the answer he expected to hear.

Then began the attempts to destroy my political career, culminating in Herb’s and Millicent’s interview by the Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack in 1998, I assume. She told one of the inquisitive supporters of my Libertarian Party candidacy for governor against Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan that they “looked like deer in the headlights.”

In any event, the first weekend after the first court date, I went to see my daughter at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. The house at “Madison and Vine,” as Robin had put it in a poem accompanying, was it a Valentine’s watercolor of our newly-painted red house with white trim.

I sat on the hall runner in front of the mirrored coat rack and called her name: “Alexandra.”

To my surprise, she said her name was the Russian equivalent, “Sasha.” Maybe that’s not how it’s spelled. There are variations.

“Your name is Alexandra,” I replied.

I guess I should have picked up more on that clue.

(By the time the divorce was over, I had. Regina Narusis, one of my attorneys, asked for Robin to turn in her passport because we thought she would leave the country. A newly appointed Judge Ward Arnold disagreed. After Robin and Alexandra disappeared and a letter came asking me to send child support to Herb’s Swiss Bank, one day in the judge’s complex, Arnold told Regina that he probably had made a mistake.)

Millicent had been adamant that Alexandra should have no nickname.

In Jewish tradition, Alexandra had been named after her grandfather Littman, whose name began with an “A.” “Ariel?” If so, it means “Lion of God.” A strange name, come to think of it, for a family of atheists. (I remember Herb reveling in having baiting the “I Found It” Christian who had called in that campaign in the late 1970’s. After Alexandra was born I said to Robin: “Come on. Look at her and tell me there’s not a God.” She said she’d be an agnostic.)

In any event, here they were trying to change her name less than a month after the divorce papers were filed.

Robin’s mother Millicent Littman’s family had come from Russia. They settled in New York City like many Russian Jews. Her mother was a seamstress. In Lake Forest, she lived in the same building as Sam Skinner’s mother and near both of her children, the other being Dr. David Littman of Highland Park. And, did she make good hard pastry! I kept telling her to put in more raisins.

About all I remember about the Russian stories was that the family was in contact Czar’s daughter and been rewarded with gold for a service performed. It was buried in the back yard of their home.

Did they flee in a pogrom?

I can’t remember, but they were discussed. While passing a Randall Road church in Elgin, Robin said was named after a saint that she said had something to do with a pogrom.

So, what does Alexandra look like now?

Here’s an age-enhanced photo that the Illinois State Police produced:

Last year’s birthday post is here.

I think it unlikely that Alexandra will remember me. I was excised from her life like Robin’s gall bladder was from hers.

Thinking about my earliest memories, one stands out. We were visiting a great uncle and aunt in northern New Jersey. I went to the bathroom and used a stool to climb up to wash my hands. I think this was the one who had been secretary to Thomas Edison…or maybe it was a father of one of the two.

I chipped a tooth. It was so painful!

Perhaps because of the pain, I remember more about that day than any other in my early life. I remember that my great uncle blew smoke out of his ear. He also pulled a coin out of my ear.

Alexandra did not have a similar painful experience that I observed, but twice she seemed quite concerned when I started crying in front of her. Once was in Lake Forest.

“Why Daddy cry?” she asked.

It must have disturbed her. I think Robin even asked me not to do it again.

But, I did when she spent a weekend in Crystal Lake. By then Robin had transferred the case to Crook County. A friend of her lawyer Charles Fleck, who had been a Chicago GOP state rep. while I was in the 1970′s, had gone on to head divorce court where our judge Alan Rosen worked. I could see the writing on the wall. The fix was in. (Rosen, by the way blew his brains out in a tanning parlor, supposedly the day before he was to be indicted for corruption.)

In any event, my emotions exposed themselves again and I started shedding tears on the couch by the front window.

“Why Daddy cry?” she asked again.

I probably came up with some answer about missing her when we weren’t together.

I still do.

= = = = =
All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The top photo is of Robin and Cal Skinner and baby Alexandra sitting with backs to the front porch or 360 S. Madison Street, Woodstock, Illinois.

Second is a family shot of Cal and Eleanor Skinner, the grandparents of Elizabeth and Sarah on top, Kelly and Alexandra in their Mom-mom’s lap, and Heather and Lissa in the foreground, all left to right.

Mom-mom holding Alexandra at her Woodstock home is next.

A pregnant Robin and Cal in front of the 275 Meridian Street, Crystal Lake, fireplace at Christmas. Mike Gerry’s painting of Cal Skinner, Sr., can be seen above the mantle.

Robin holding Alexandra wearing one of her Lora Ashley (if memory serves me correctly) dresses. Note Robin’s pottery collection in the background. One was given to her by Alexandra’s Great-Gandmother Addie Watling-Skinner when Robin admired it in her Crumpton, Maryland, home. The picture you see is her.

And, yes, even though she was born in the late 1800′s, she was quite proud of being a Watling, ordering return addresses for her envelopes with the hyphen. I made sure it appeared on her tomb stone. That ought to confuse some future folks who come to the Crumpton cemetery, don’t you think? The Watlings won the London lottery around 1830 and immediately came to America. That was when 5,000 pounds was real money.

The next two photos were taken by Robin when she accompanied me to a DeKalb County Republican event in the fall of 1976, probably September. I took my Legislative Listening Post. We had pizza in Crystal Lake before she drove back to Chicago.
The button was one I printed up to promote Jim Thompson’s candidacy. I believe it was the first Thompson for Governor button. Later than fall, I went to northern Europe on an American Council of Young Political Leaders-sponsored trip to Belgium, Germany, Denmark and a night in Sweden. I’ve gained a lot of weight since then.

One of Robin’s favorite photos of Alexandra is next. Siting in her stroller, Alexandra kicks up her legs at the corner of Madison and Vine in the spring of 1983.

Mom-mom and Kelly visit Alexandra at 955 Lake Road in Lake Forest during the summer of 1983. They are having a tea party. This is where the reception part of the “Four Friends” movie was shot in which Robin and I have very bit role roles sitting at a table. Good movie, though.

When Alexandra was one year old, the photo of her drooling a bit was sent out with a birth announcement. The operable line, which Robin came up with, was, “Forsooth, a Tooth.”

Below, Desmond cousins Lissa and Heather observe Alexandra.

Next appear two rocking horses. The red and yellow one was a play thing in Woodstock. I gave her the bentwood one for her second birthday during a visit to Lake Forest. It had disappeared by the next time I went.

The almost Shirley Temple pose of Alexandra in a Mickey Mouse dress was taken in Woodstock.

Right below is one of the last two photos I have of my daughter. It was taken by my sister Ellen on April 18, 1985, at the Boca Raton Hotel (now Resort) and Club, where Crook County Judge Alan Rosen had allowed Robin to take her for a $35,000 at-home year “job” her father had arranged with an acquaintance. Ellen’s husband Denny Desmond had a convention there and they delivered a Care Bear for a 3rd birthday present.

The red house is our home at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. In the 1978 water color above it is the second from the left and not painted red. The inscription reads, “Waiting for Cal to come home.”

Alexandra is handing me her Annie, a Raggedy Ann doll that Robin had made several of so that they could be washed without Alexandra’s missing it. When Alexandra was insecure she would rub its hand against her left check. Robin made three sizes. One was especially clever. It was the smallest and called “Punk Rock Annie.” Its hair was a bit wild.

Next comes one of Alexandra drinking what little was left of Daddy’s Tab. I have written on the photo’s back,

“9-30-84 Drinking what’s left of Daddy’s Tab with the straw meant for her breakfast cup of milk. A didn’t eat a bite of the breakfast R fixed her. A awoke when I told her, ‘Daddy’s here.’ When she saw me, she beamed and didn’t cry as R said she usually did when awoken.”

I can’t remember when the two moved to the Chestnut Street apartment next to the Latin Day School, but the first time I went there, Alexandra asked, “Where Daddy sleep?” When Robin explained that I would not bed staying at the apartment, Alexandra walked into her bedroom, pointed to the floor and said, “On floor by my bed.”

The portrait was taken on the first of only four weekend visitations Alexandra had at my parents’ home in Crystal Lake (where I was living and where we now live). It was October 15, 1985. My mother must have had a real premonition of things to come. We went to Sears in Spring Hill Mall and had this photo taken. Note what a pretty embroidered dress Alexandra was wearing.

I remember walking to Beach 7. On the way, I got a leg hug.

When we reached the beach, Alexandra asked, “Can I touch it?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Two weeks later she came dressed in pants.

Alexandra came up the walk from the driveway to the back sun porch, saying,

“Read the God book.”

The divorce proceedings had decided she would be raised Jewish (it’s apparently a Jewish custom that children are raised in the religion of their mothers), so I found some picture books about God that didn’t mention Jesus and read them to her two weeks before. Apparently, they made quite an impression.

They are probably in this trunk of toys and books.

That second weekend, I had to remind Alexandra to say, “Good bye,” to Robin, which she paused to do before hurrying into the house.

The next picture is of Alexandra playing with a shoe lace learning toy that her Great Aunt Louise Stevens gave her.

The photo of me and Alexandra was taken the last weekend I saw her, Thanksgiving, 1985.

The photo below is the companion that was taken in Boca Rotan by my sister Ellen.

And, the aged photo is last.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

It’s my daughter Alexandra’s 26th birthday.

Her mother, Robin Meridith Geist, and I got married in 1977 when she was 28.

I met her on Jim Thompson’s first campaign.

When I first saw her she was manning the phones right as one entered the headquarters’ door.

I made excuses to go back.

She invited me to a reception for Jim at her parents’ Lake Forest home. I think she said that Jim spoke from the baloney (maybe, it was the top of the stairs to the sitting room) facing Lake Michigan. That same week Mike Royko wrote a flattering column, calling me “an honest young politician.” (When I used the quote in my 1992 comeback attempt, an opponent called Royko and we got a call asking about it. We faxed a copy of the column. His response? “Well, I guess I did.”)

Does she have a child?

I was down in the basement, the archives, would be a better description looking for a political button to use as a “Message of the Day,” when Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.

I found three appropriate buttons from 1940, but, then, she didn’t win the election so the search was in vain…except for the pictures I stumbled onto.

My mother had taken them.

They appear in this article, along with some sharper focused ones taken by Robin, definitely, the photographer in the family.

I guess I should have known that my days with Alexandra were numbered when, after the first weekend after Robin filed for divorce, I was prohibited from seeing my daughter.

The 21 days until the first court date seemed like an eternity.

At the court date, my father-in-law Herb Geist of 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest came over and told me I could “have my career or my daughter.”

Then began the attempts to destroy my political career, culminating in Herb’s and Millicent’s interview by the Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack interview in 1998, I assume. She told one of the inquisitive supporters of my Libertarian Party candidacy for governor against Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan that they “looked like deer in the headlights.”

In any event, the first weekend after the first court date, I went to see my daughter at 360 S. Madison Street in Woodstock. The house at “Madison and Vine,” as Robin had put it in a poem accompanying, was it a Valentine’s watercolor of our newly-painted red house with white trim.

I sat on the hall runner in front of the mirrored coat rack and called her name: “Alexandra.”

To my surprise, she said her name was the Russian equivalent, “Shasha.” Maybe that’s not how it’s spelled. There are variations.

I guess I should have picked up more on that clue.

(By the time the divorce was over, I had. Regina Narusis, one of my attorneys, asked for Robin to turn in her passport because we thought she would leave the country. A newly appointed Judge Ward Arnold disagreed. After Robin and Alexandra disappeared and a letter came asking me to send child support to Herb’s Swiss Bank, one day in the judge’s complex, he told Regina that he probably had made a mistake.)

Millicent had been adamant that Alexandra should have no nickname.

In Jewish tradition, Alexandra had been named after her grandfather Littman, whose name began with an “A.” “Ariel?” If so, it means “Lion of God.” A strange name, come to think of it, for a family of atheists. (I remember Herb reveling in having baiting the “I Found It” Christian who had called in that campaign in the late 1970’s.)

In any event, here they were trying to change her name less than a month after the divorce papers were filed.

Robin’s mother Millicent Littman’s family had come from Russia. They settled in New York City like many Russian Jews. Her mother was a seamstress. In Lake Forest, she lived in the same building as Sam Skinner’s mother and near both of her children, the other being Dr. David Littman of Highland Park. And, did she make good hard pastry! I kept telling her to put in more raisins.

About all I remember about the Russian stories was that the family had procured an abortion for Czar’s daughter and been rewarded with gold, which was buried in the back yard of their home.

Did they flee in a pogrom?

I can’t remember, but they were discussed, once while passing a Randall Road church in Elgin, which Robin said was named after a saint that had something to do with a pogrom.

With the Skinner nose being pretty much as big as the Geist-Littman nose, I figure my daughter has had a nose job. I wonder if it was by the same Evanston plastic surgeon who did Robin’s and Millicent’s. He’d have to be pretty old.

Amy Mack, the former Northwest Herald’s hit piece reporter and intimidator of unwelcome candidates, now works for the Daily Herald.

She did several hit pieces on me during 1998 and 2000 elections, using my ex-wife’s divorce filings, among other sources, including my ex-in-laws, Herb and Millicent Geist, whom she told one of my supporters looked at her like “deer in the headlights.”

Then, last fall, she did a hit piece for her new employer, the Daily Herald. And they put it on the front page of the paper.

On a Sunday.

It was on McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. She cited expenditures which IRS would not question, if made by a private business, but which taxpayers might find a bit strange for a public official.

One topic was for $714 for a luncheon for Bianchi’s swearing in.

In that article Mack did not mention the bills for the judicial reception that was held two years later.

Not that it was a big secret.

Anyone in the courthouse could have gotten a free meal out in the hall that day when new judges were sworn in and the 22nd Judicial Circuit was inaugurated.

The bills included $300 for flowers.

Plus $19.50 for sales tax.

Of course, county government is exempt from sales tax.

Guess someone missed that.

Then there’s a bill for $2,240 from the Public House in Woodstock. It even says what was served:

• Assorted sandwiches

Turkey Hero

Roast Beef

Gourmet Chicken Salad

Tuna Salad

• Pickle Spears
• Potato Salad
• Pasta Salad
• Assorted Desserts
• Assorted Beverages

Public House charged $151.20 in tax. The line says, “Tax if applicable.”

Another $888.81 went for rentals from Ralph’s General Rent-All Inc., and Party World.

The Woodstock firm supplied

• 14 30 inch by 8 foot banquet tables – $126
• 172 new charcoal gray chairs -$163.40
• 19 white 72 by 120 inch banquet tables -$209
• 1 linen – $5
• a $9 per mile, $5 mile delivery fee – $45 – and
• $35 per hour for labor – $280

There was also a $60.41 “damage waiver.”

So where did the money come from?

That’s tomorrow’s story.

Amy Mack, the former Northwest Herald’s hit piece reporter and intimidator of unwelcome candidates, now works for the Daily Herald.

She did several hit pieces on me during 1998 and 2000 elections, using my ex-wife’s divorce filings, among other sources, including my ex-in-laws, Herb and Millicent Geist, whom she told one of my supporters looked at her like “deer in the headlights.”

Then, last fall, she did a hit piece for her new employer, the Daily Herald. And they put it on the front page of the paper.

On a Sunday.

It was on McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. She cited expenditures which IRS would not question, if made by a private business, but which taxpayers might find a bit strange for a public official.

One topic was for $714 for a luncheon for Bianchi’s swearing in.

In that article Mack did not mention the bills for the judicial reception that was held two years later.

Not that it was a big secret.

Anyone in the courthouse could have gotten a free meal out in the hall that day when new judges were sworn in and the 22nd Judicial Circuit was inaugurated.

The bills included $300 for flowers.

Plus $19.50 for sales tax.

Of course, county government is exempt from sales tax.

Guess someone missed that.

Then there’s a bill for $2,240 from the Public House in Woodstock. It even says what was served:

• Assorted sandwiches

Turkey Hero

Roast Beef

Gourmet Chicken Salad

Tuna Salad

• Pickle Spears
• Potato Salad
• Pasta Salad
• Assorted Desserts
• Assorted Beverages

Public House charged $151.20 in tax. The line says, “Tax if applicable.”

Another $888.81 went for rentals from Ralph’s General Rent-All Inc., and Party World.

The Woodstock firm supplied

• 14 30 inch by 8 foot banquet tables – $126
• 172 new charcoal gray chairs -$163.40
• 19 white 72 by 120 inch banquet tables -$209
• 1 linen – $5
• a $9 per mile, $5 mile delivery fee – $45 – and
• $35 per hour for labor – $280

There was also a $60.41 “damage waiver.”

So where did the money come from?

That’s tomorrow’s story.