Nice job, William Burg, et al! William, I could tell you were a stand-up guy, and then some. Cheers, Heidi

I'll keep your intelligent criticisms in mind in the future. And bravo for having the guts to identify yourself by name and face.

Points well taken. I have learned my lessons.Thank you, William Burg. Cheers, Kriz

Hi readers, First please all forgive me each and every one of you, if I sounded snarky in any of my responses to your postings, adn thank you all, whether you liked the peice or not , for reading it. It's actually my first time, in 24 years of being a journalist, on and offline, that I have been the subject of so much varied and substantial, public critiques on ANYTHING I have ever written, which was a little surprising to me, since, in my opinion, I have written and published far more flawed and controversial pieces, without drawing this level of criticism. So I am new at this posting "discourse," and may come off a little rough at it. However, I found that the complimentary postings kind and even over-flattering, and the critical ones; often useful; it's true, I should have written more about Oak Park and less about Africa. But as I said, then I sat down to write the piece, the associations between my experiences in the two places, and my so-called awakenings, to these two locales and their residents were very similar; so Africa snuck in more than was perhaps appropriate as a related subject. Nevertheless, I was never bragging about my world travels. In fact, I ended up in South Africa as a freelancer, because, after i graduated from journalism school, I had no interesting, job offers made to me at a liveable wage. So on the casual suggestion of a South African classmate of mine, I headed to SA, without contacts of job assurances of any kind. it was by sheer luck and the largesse of strangers that I survived there at all. Also, I made many many mistakes, especially in the beginning. Luckily, people forgave me as a novice who had no real credentials and i was able to eventually earn most people's respect. Again, being depressed, and unproductive, for years on end, after coming home from Africa prematurely as a result of my own, reckless behavior, is nothing to brag about. I am ashamed as to how long it took me to shake off those bad times and ill health. Now, I am simply grateful to be relatively healthy again, and productive adn useful to my friends and family and hopefully, my community. And with that, I think this will be my last posting regarding this story. Thank you all, critics adn fans alike, for bothering to read it. I wish you luck in your own endeavors.

I have a suggestion, sir. Since I am obviously not familiar with all the "awful" things you are about Oak Park, why don't YOU write about them?