Last year, in regard to this annual event, I quoted Will Rogers about things not being what they used to be. This year, they were even less than that.

Last year, I visited the Society of Smallness table and exchanged small talk with them. But, after many years of underwhelming us with their underachievements, they didn’t make an appearance this year. Perhaps they had little left to say.

A few times, in past years, I’ve been entertained by the ragtag Environmental Encroachment Brass Band, and, last year, the Sheryl Youngblood Blues Band. This year, no offense, musically there only was a DJ whose job it was, I think, to help keep people awake between speakers in Ruggles Hall, which, as far as I know, despite being in a library, is not an eponym for the protagonist of the novel Ruggles of Red Gap, or the movie of the same name, wherein, interestingly, the actor Charles Ruggles plays, not the title character, but rather Egbert Floud.

Last year a couple of the scheduled speakers struck my fancy, including the one who talked about pigeons, a relevant topic when we were in the park as usual, but the threat of bad weather (even that’s not what it used to be – way more often now as Armageddon approaches), kept us inside, and the only orator I listened to was, coincidentally, Chad the Bird, who, in case you don’t know, is Chicago’s leading avian op ed columnist, who gave us the history of Malort, the iconic Chicago undrinkable drink.